Tasmania on a Dominator (AKA a noobs cheapo adventure)

[Madmechanic]

Your brave Man traveling alone in such lonely place,s and letting the rest of us arm chair riders see places most of us will only ever dream about .

you chose a great reliable bike , hondas are always a good choise and being air cooled there is little to go wrong , it may be old but i bet youll take it places and show us things most of us will never see in a whole life time , that is unless you show them to us .

its been a great read and the pictures and vidios are a credit to you . you have proven that you dont have to be rich to see more of the beautiful country we live in and take forgranted as we rush around in our cars doing what ever it is we feel we have to do .more of us should get out into the wilderness and have a look at the stars for once rather than a watching a big screen tv .

your ideas of traveling on the cheap will no doubt help many of us get up off the chair and think about actually going somewhere other than to the pub or a mates place for another drink .

too bad there isnt more people like you willing to give it a go and willing to share the experience with the rest of us.

Take care in your Travels and we hope to hear more about your future adventures . the fact you actually do your own work and design things like custom carry racks and cases proves if your willing to have a go that nothing is impossable.

its easy to say " its too hard and sit in the chair " but you have made the effort to open many peoples eyes and show them there is more to life than sitting around waiting to die .

Good on ya

[humphrey]

Hey, I was out on my Dominator on the weekend (went camping with some friends at waterhouse point - I rode, they drove) and I noticed that there is a Dominator for sale at the Bridport petrol station. He's asking $3000 which I think is a bit much, since I paid a bit less for mine and I think mine is in slightly better condition.

But what interested me was that the bike had soft panniers -- well bags strapped to custom built racks. And the sign said it came with a screen, but it wasn't attached.

[FLICKIT]

After lifting the side cases a couple of inches, and getting a Spot Connect satellite tracker, I decided to nick off for a couple more days to test things...

I wasn't happy about skipping through the west coast and not seeing much on the last trip, so I headed back up there...



I ended up doing 1500 km in 4 days, some very challenging stuff... Mt McCall down to the Franklin River, Mt Cleveland, and some nasty tracks up in the forests west of Hellyer Gorge...







I'll write about it and post some photos and videos over the next few days...
:)

[humphrey]

Oooh, now that looks hardcore! Cool bridge :-)

[FLICKIT]

Spot Tracker tracks for the recent trip:
http://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?...a4f15540e026d9


To see the whole trip change the "History" drop down box to "ALL", then hit "Go"..

There's chunks of the trip missing because (understandably) the Spot tracker doesn't do well in dense forests or in steep valleys and such....

It also missed the trip up Mt Cleveland because I sent an "OK" message then disabled bluetooth on the phone, I thought it might help prolong the Spot batteries... Because the "OK' message was still sending it seemed to lock the Spot in OK mode and it didn't track.

Great technology

[FLICKIT]

A couple of videos of the climb out from the Franklin River end of the Mt McCall track:

The track map (10m contours)... (Traveling right to left)
The bad part (in pink) rises 40m in a distance of 120m... Rough and steep, the video does it no justice:


First bit wasn't too bad, but I was struggling to keep the front wheel on the ground at times...
This is the ride up to the pink bit:


Next bit I took the cases off and carried them up, then took the bike up... (this video is the pink bit on the map above)...


It was a relief to get out ..
(I wonder if I'm a bit of a girl... or that is one bad ass bit of track on a loaded bike!!!)

:)

[theMISSIONARY]

i really hate how Cameras flatten everything out still another place to add to the list

[FLICKIT]

Originally Posted by theMISSIONARY

i really hate how Cameras flatten everything out still another place to add to the list

Once I get the hang of aiming the camera (so I don't end up with all sky or all ground) I'll switch to 1080p on the Gopro camera so it's a narrower field of view, that should cut down the fish-eye distortion a bit...
(720p is 170 degrees view, 1080 is 127 degrees... I "think")

It's all a learning process

[theMISSIONARY]

I did this with a 1080P Eagle eye HD

[FLICKIT]

Here's a couple of PM's from Bull600 about the Mt McCall track... Quoted and posted with his permission...

Originally Posted by bull600

Hi Matthew

Returned on the weekend from our 2 week trip around Tassie. It was a blast!
Had the opposite problem to you it poured with rain for the first part of the trip while we were on the west coast. Gave us some memorable campsites/rides/mudholes etc.

Just caught up with your latest addition to your RR. We went out to Mt McCall on one of the rainy days and although it was good fun we were in low cloud most of the time up near the top. When we got to the "pink" section from your map we found the steep slope had two little streams running down it and after a bit of contemplation we decided that risking a fall getting back up on the slippery rocks wasn't worth looking into the clouds at the end! Turning around was a bit tricky in itself. Here's a shot of our log for that bit



Thanks for the help and advice with our trip. Will put together a ride report soon.

Cheers

Greg

Originally Posted by FLICKIT

I noticed the weather was bad for you... I was thinking "poor bastards" .... One day you were on the west coast there was snow forecast down to the 800m level...

I started writing you a PM earlier to see how your trip went... but I got sidetracked...

I look forward to seeing the route you took and reading the ride report... (will be good to see it from someone elses' eyes)

Do you mind if I quote your PM into my ride report? ... I'd like to get across to people how bad the end of that track is...

Cheers :)

Matthew.

Originally Posted by bull600

I must say we were glad when we finally left the rain on the Friday after Derwent Bridge. The trip from Queenstown through to there was very wet and those shiny sections where they have fixed the bitumen on the corners was a source of some concern!

Happy to for you to quote in your RR.

It's an easy trap to fall into when looking at vids and pictures. It always looks so benign and you never get the idea of slope. It wasn't the place to have an injury, especially in that weather. Not to mention opening the fucking gate!

Hats off to you for giving all this stuff a go solo. We had a few moments over the course of our trip where I was glad there were two of us!

The ride report will probably be a little while as now I'm back at work but if you send me your email I'll post off the gps logs for you if you like.

Cheers

Greg

[FLICKIT]

Originally Posted by theMISSIONARY

I did this with a 1080P Eagle eye HD

Great stuff ! ... who's the guy putting his foot out on the tar.. lol... I think I'd break a leg if I tried that shit...
I love the "Ride of the Valkyries" music it reminds me of Apocalypse Now and Battlefield Vietnam... It's in my folder of music to use in video clips... (for when I get around to doing some decent editing... along with "In the Hall of the Mountain King")... Dramatic music !...

Funny you have Russian like? music.. It remind me of this music I was planning to use in a video one day: (I just need an extreme enough video to justify it)
"This is my manifest, I'm number one, I'm the best" lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_L0RnYxgBA
(from "Russian Off-Road Challenge 2010", (a Grom/Colbatch Rusky ride):
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=579487
http://vimeo.com/15951870

Every 3 or 4 days when I'm on the road, it comes around on my play-list, I think back to that video... Those Russians have big balls (especially the girl, I forget her name)...

[theMISSIONARY]

Originally Posted by FLICKIT

Great stuff ! ... who's the guy putting his foot out on the tar.. lol... I think I'd break a leg if I tried that shit...
I love the "Ride of the Valkyries" music it reminds me of Apocalypse Now and Battlefield Vietnam... It's in my folder of music to use in video clips... (for when I get around to doing some decent editing... along with "In the Hall of the Mountain King")... Dramatic music !...

Funny you have Russian like? music.. It remind me of this music I was planning to use in a video one day: (I just need an extreme enough video to justify it)
"This is my manifest, I'm number one, I'm the best" lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_L0RnYxgBA
(from "Russian Off-Road Challenge 2010", (a Grom/Colbatch Rusky ride):
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=579487
http://vimeo.com/15951870

Every 3 or 4 days when I'm on the road, it comes around on my play-list, I think back to that video... Those Russians have big balls (especially the girl, I forget her name)...

I like some of the Russian stuff(stuffed if i can understand it i just look up the lyrics to make sure its not promoting something .....well umm) i prefer Korpiklaani and wait for it..........Viking metal but they dont fit videos that well
Apocalyptica and Epica both do interesting takes on the mountain king

the Ruski's i would just love to go on one of these epic paddock rides ......we just never get anything like it here

[humphrey]

Originally Posted by FLICKIT

It was a relief to get out ..
(I wonder if I'm a bit of a girl... or that is one bad ass bit of track on a loaded bike!!!)

:)

Ha ha -- looks pretty hard core (of course it is hard to tell how steep it is!) but we'll assume it's steep :-P

[FLICKIT]

Originally Posted by theMISSIONARY

I like some of the Russian stuff(stuffed if i can understand it i just look up the lyrics to make sure its not promoting something .....well umm) i prefer Korpiklaani and wait for it..........Viking metal but they dont fit videos that well
Apocalyptica and Epica both do interesting takes on the mountain king

the Ruski's i would just love to go on one of these epic paddock rides ......we just never get anything like it here

Well.. my first attempt at adding music to a clip has resulted in a swift kick in the crotch from Youtube, on behalf of the copyright holders... lol...

Your video, 2012 TWC 48 Bird River out AM Music , may include content that is owned or administered by these entities:
Entity: SME and EMI Content Type: Sound Recording
Entity: UMG Content Type: Sound Recording
What does this mean?
Your video is blocked in 235 countries
Your video is still available in 11 countries


Looks like I better stick to clips with no music, they make it too hard...

[Maverick75]

Great RR Flickit. That last slope was some serious hard going on a big bike. You get a sense of how steep it is by looking at the tree trunks (they're vertical, of course). Looking at doing a Tassie ride in spring, thanks for the info, it will come in handy.