Aussie trip and rally 2026

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So back in 2019 I went to Australia for a rally. Last year I promised Mat that if he did one in 2026 I’d come. Evidently the statute of limitation on being a dumb ass in another country is 5 years, so the Australian government gave me a visa. Mat had the rally scheduled for the 27^th of February through the 2^nd of March. Coincidentally World Superbike was at Phillip Island the weekend prior, 20-22 February, so I figured if you’re flying that far you just as well hit them both. Elizabeth was to make the trip this time and she was on board with all of that. We’ve both enjoyed our trips to WSBK. So our schedule was to fly from Richmond to Dallas, Dallas to Brisbane, Brisbane to Melbourne where we rented a car to drive to Phillip Island, 2.5 hours away. That was the first leg of the journey. With Elizabeth as my Google Maps navigator, I managed to drive on the left side of the road to Cowes, where we were staying, without killing anyone. Phillip Island was great, to me the best track I’d visited. No grandstands there, but you have freedom to walk anywhere outside the track, plus the paddock area. Also just a beautiful setting, on the Bass Straight, between Phillip Island and Tasmania.

Us at PI








Gerloff leaving the pits



I'll post a video in the next segment.

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you tube short from Friday practice

https://youtube.com/shorts/ECI_26I8woM?feature=share

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Met John Broz and his wife Tanya there, and on Saturday they showed us around the track. Met Randall and Jen there as well Friday, I think, all folks I had ridden with in 2019. Also met Wardy and a friend of his there. I was to go out and see Wardy and his farm the next Wednesday. When I was there before I promised him if I ever came back I was coming out to his place. More on that later.
So Monday we caught a flight to Sydney, rented a car and drove to Mat’s house. It was great seeing Mat and his family again, and like with old friends, it seems we just picked up where we left off 6 years ago. Another plus about going to Mat’s is that Mat is an excellent cook. So we stayed with Mat on Monday night and Tuesday we headed part of the way to Wardy’s farm, which is about 4 hours from Mat. My friend Heapy had also recently built a new house 3 hours outside Sydney so we were going to hit both places on Wednesday. So we spent Tuesday night in Bathurst, a really cool town that has a racetrack, Mount Panorama. The cool thing about Mount Panorama is that when they’re not racing, it’s a public road. So you can make laps of the track, as long as you don’t exceed 60 kilometers per hour. Our hotel for the night was the hotel at the track, sitting on the back straight with track views.

views from our hotel balcony


Aussie COVID sign



Another thing that was interesting was the wild cockatoos around everywhere. I think the only cockatoo I'd ever seen was on Robert Blake's tv show Baretta. They were everywhere we went. One morning in Boorawa we woke up to a hundred or so flying around screeching. Heapy with his Aussie humor said that now Elizabeth could say she's seen a cockatoo. That's funnier if you say it out loud.





Next day, chasing roos!

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The next morning we headed for Parkes, New South Wales, where Wardy lives. Wardy has a family farm that has been in his family for 4 generations I believe. I think he said the original tract of 900+ acres was obtained in 1897. His son Lachie works with him and will be the next generation. Now over the years they have expanded and with some leased land they farm over 6000 acres. When I was on the rally in 2019 Wardy and I were roommates and he said if I ever came back and I came to his farm we could chase some Kangaroos, or roos as they call them. No way I was missing that. Wardy and his son mostly farm the 6000 acres by themselves, so they need big equipment.


Here's one of roos in front of the truck. I'll post a video later.


After a great lunch with Wardy we headed to Heapy's, about a 2.5 hour drive away near Mudgee, NSW. Heapy is just a great dude and I was excited to see him and his new place, which he's still working on. He has 250 acres and is off the grid. Has solar panels and batteries which seemed to work flawlessly while we were there. He drove us around and climbed a pretty big hill to get us to the high point of his property. Some pictures from there



We stayed the night with he and his wife Mel. They have a lot of roos there too, and when we woke up in the morning we heard a loud thump, sounded like a tree limb falling. It was a big roo that had jumped and landed right in front of the sliding door by our room. We left Heapy's the next morning, which was Thursday, and had a busy day driving back to Sydney, making arrangements for our rental bike, taking the rental car back, and figuring out how to get back to Mat's. Lucky for us the Sydney train system is fantastic and we managed to do all that and get back to the train station closest to Mat at the same time he was getting off work so he saved us the 2.5km walk by picking us up. Then we went over and picked up my rental bike, an R1300GS and packed it up, since we were kickstands up at 6AM the next day.

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Short video of us chasing roos. The roos would hang out in some small wooded patches during the day, so he ran around the patches so they'd come out, then we chased them through the field. They do a lot of crop damage.

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Friday morning we head out for 4 days of the rally. From Mat's house near Blacktown we head up through Bilpin towards Bathurst. We picked up Paul Smogs on the way, and picked up Heapy in Bathurst. We had rain for about the first hour and a half across the Blue Mountains but once we came down the western side it cleared up. I didn't always know where I was, in fact rarely so but here's the general progression. We spent the first night in Tumut, the second night in Harrietville, and the third night in Boorawa before heading back to Mat's. Maybe Mat can chime in on the routes and roads, but it was great riding. A nice mix of sweeper roads and twisty mountain crossings. We had some rain everyday, but manageable. I didn't take a ton of photos but here are some random ones from Mat, Elizabeth and I from the rally.

Bikes ready to roll in Mat's garage


Bathurst, where we picked up Paul (L) and Heapy (R)



Tallengatta I think, a nice little town we stopped in twice.

Pub in Jujiong. For some reason Pubs attract motorcyles


I think this was Mount Beauty. Jen was kind enough to lead us up and down and also filled us in on a lot of the history in the areas we were riding in.

Pubs attracting motorcyclist again. This is in Boorawa, our last night. That's Dobbo, Mat, me and Heapy.


The next morning (Monday) we headed back to Mat's, cleaned up the bike and turned it in. As we had been going nonstop, on Tuesday we just took a rest day at Mat's, walked to a couple of stores and took advantage of Mat's pool.

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Wednesday was our last day in Australia and Elizabeth had yet to see Sydney harbor. Mat's lovely wife Angela dropped us at the train station in Paramatta and using our newfound train skills we made it to Circular Quay, where all the ferries leave from. We took the ferry from there to Taronga Zoo, and actually went to the zoo since we were there.

You know I was going to get a ferry picture in here, as Martin would have for me. Harbor bridge on the left, if you look at the top you can see folks doing the bridge walk


Looking back at Circular Quay, with the Opera House on the left and the Queen Mary II on the right.


Made it back to Mat's for a great farewell dinner, Mat made us a nice pasta dish making his own sauce using herbs from his herb garden. That's Mat, Angela, Me and Elizabeth


The next day Angela dropped us at the train again and it was back to the airport and the US. Global Entry was shut down and due to a baggage carousel problem we barely made our connecting flight back to Richmond. Elizabeth and I can't thank Mat and Angela enough for their hospitality, hopefully we can repay that here in the future. It was nice seeing everyone again, thanks to everyone for really looking out for us. Was great to get to ride with Paul, whom I met before but didn't get to ride with. A good rider and a good dude. Also Dabbo, we had a lot in common and he's a pretty good pool shooter. Irish Ray, who tells a great story, and thanks to John (Doctor 350) for riding up to Harrietville to have a few beers with us. He drank responsibly. Thanks to Wardy and Heapy for having us for a visit. Great to ride with Jen and Randall again as well as my good friend Fisso. So that's it, another Aussie Rally done and dusted. Was great to see old friends again, hope to see them again in the future. As always, any of them are welcome here if they want to make the journey, Cheers Mate!