Lakes Entrance to Batemans Bay 445km

This will be the last stop – tomorrow we will be back in Sydney and the end of the journey.

It was a special day, the last open road travel on this journey. I left early in the crisp 10 degree air. There were a few light showers in the beginning, but eventually the dry roads opened up to a combination of long sweeping curves, short straights, weaving their way though a beautiful forest.  I had a great day on this road, a much needed change from the previous unpleasant days though Victoria.

I decided to push on to Eden before I was to take a break a distance of 240km with only 220km available on the trip computer, had I filled up that would not be a problem, as this bike can exceed 500 kms on a tank full.  I thought I could try to economise as much as possible by reducing overtaking speed, smoothing out acceleration and restricting my speed.

Things were looking good, at the 130k mark I passed Cann River fuel stop with 98kms available for the balance of the 100k to Eden, so I just needed to keep my fuel consumption the same, and all would be good. As I progressed the wind picked up and the road became a little more twisting and a few long hills presented themselves, which affected my economy.

I was keeping a very close eye on my trip computer and the distance to my destination. At the 30km marker from Eden the computer hit the magic number, zero kms available in the tank, I had to rely on the fact that there must be something in reserve, the computer couldn’t be that accurate, surely Mr BMW would have designed some reserve.? I was on tender hooks, I didn’t want to be found on the side of the road by the support team suffering from poor fuel management syndrome and subsequent ongoing humiliation that would occur (the support team don’t let these kinds of things to be forgotten) .

As I came over a hill, a small store came into sight (blink and you would miss it) and yes it had a petrol pump and premium fuel…double bonus. The bike took 26.75 lites out of a possible 28, it was close.

This was the kind of store you would find in a remote area, it was the Post office, general store, takeaway food and liquor store all rolled into one. It had the best range of spirits I had seen in a long time, very comprehensive, with many varieties of Bourbon (apparently very popular in this area) and they even carried absinthe.

I had a coffee and a chat to the proprietor, turns out he is passionate about bikes, had four works in progress out the back and his nephew was over in Germany working for the BMW racing team, who would have thought?

Onto the accommodation at Batemans Bay without delay or fuel concerns. now that I know the limits of the fuel tank, I will have no need to do that again.

Tonight we had the final dinner with some of the people from the 2010 ride. There was a sense of sadness, that this great adventure was coming to an end, joy at the thought of returning home and a little more money was extracted form us all by the way of an Auction.