My New Suzuki DR650

Late last year in October I sold the Honda VTR250 so I could upgrade to a larger motorcycle. I enjoyed the motorcycle tour back in March 2012 and hope I will be able to do a few more of these. I also had fun on the off-road parts of the tour so my next bike had to be more capable of doing these kinds of rides. I was looking at adventure tourers and the Honda Transalp and BMW 650gs were possible upgrades. My problem is my height and adventurer tourers are not low due to there nature of be able to go off the beaten track. I looked at wide variety of bikes and the Suzuki DR650 seemed the most capable offroad bike compared to the others and was very cost effective  It had a high seat height compared to the 650GS but the seat is narrow which allowed me to just touch the ground. The suspension also sags a little when sitting on it. The DR650 is also relatively lite for 650cc bike and compares similarly to the old vtr250 in weight. This provided me some assurance as a shorter rider. So in the end after taking a few for test rides I made up my mind and bought a second hand 2008 model with 710km on the clock.

The video above is the first long distance ride on the bike with some dirt roads. I really like the upright seating position which is especially good when commuting. It feels competent off road, which currently not the case for the rider! but that will come.

Motor Cycle Tour Video Part 4 - Final

This video is the final video of the tour and includes Day 10 and Day 11 of the trip. Its starts in Port Campbell where we had stayed the night. We first head to the Arch/ London Bridge and then head up to Wodonga via Ballarat and Bendigo (no footage of these places though). From Wodonga we head over the Snowy Mountains and then up through Cooma and back to Sydney

Below are the blog posts for the corresponding days

Motorbike touring day 10

Motorbike touring day 11

Kayaking down at the Roseville Bridge, Sydney

A few weeks ago I took the Kayak out down to Roseville Bridge and paddled my way up towards the Suburb of Davidson. I have done this journey many times before but thought I would take the Go Pro with me this time. It turned out to be an excellent day for it as we have been having a very wet but hot summer here in Sydney. The water is a lot muddier than usual as a result of the heavy rains and there is a great deal of leaf litter floating close to the surface washed down from beneath the trees and from the creeks.

It was almost high tide which allowed me to paddle through mangroves and easily up some of the narrower creeks but as a result hid many of the little river beaches that reside along this stretch of water. The water was very still and reflective almost mirror like in places, which can be seen in parts of the video.

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