We all know Australia is big. Humongous even. But veteran motorcyclist Gavin Kleinhans has a special feeling about its size: he's just circumnavigated the continent on a tiny 110cc postie bike.
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The Sydneysider completed the epic odyssey in late July after three months on the road, relying on his wits and optimism to defy the elements, mechanical problems and odd wayward vehicle.
"It was everything I hoped it would be, and more. It was a great adventure," said Gavin, 66, who took on the challenge to test himself and raise funds for MSF/Doctors Without Borders.
He's still in awe of what he found.
"Places like the Nullarbor give you a sense of how insignificant you are. It's just you and the landscape. If I was on my Ducati I'd just breeze through it. But on a little postie bike, you just immerse yourself in it."
Gavin expected for things to go wrong mechanically, and they did - about eight times.
"But I got very lucky on each of those occasions. I was able to address them, overcome them and move."
Gavin said his version of Murphy's Law is that everything you take, you never use.
"I took gaskets, spark plugs, clutch cable, speed brake cable, you name it. And all those things lasted the whole time.
"The things that went wrong were a bit more serious. And I couldn't carry the spares for them in every instance."
Before he left went over the bike time and again, "tightening all the bolts, putting Loctite on everything".
But he said hours and hours of vibration can cause the most inaccessible parts to work themselves loose.
That is what happened. Outside Coonabarabran, in NSW's Central West, one of the screws that holds the bowl on to the carburettor fell out, causing the bike to leak petrol.
And carburettor screws, especially, have very specific diameters and threads.
But ingenuity won the day. He scavenged around on the bike and found a screw on the air feeder hose he could use as a substitute.
Another time, he lost a bolt on the exhaust, which sagged and almost melted his right indicator. "So I just used a bit of fencing wire to tie it up as an interim fix until I could find a new bolt."
"I'll tell you something: Never travel without cable ties, gaffer tape and fencing wire. Those are the three essentials."
Gavin managed to stick to his plan to stay off the highways all the way through NSW and as far as Maroochydore in Queensland. And right up to Cairns he ducked off the roads quite a lot.
But he said that west of Cairns, it's not that busy, he said, so he mostly stayed on the main road - not least because carrying all that load at the rear made the bike "horrible" to handle on gravel.
He said most people on the road see a postie bike and give you a lot of space.
But occasionally even a careful road train driver doesn't always realise the effect their giant vehicle can have on a tiny bike.
"No matter how much space he gives you, the drag and the wind blast is quite significant.
"After the first trailer, you get almost a vacuum that draws you into the trailers. It's not a comfortable feeling.
"So you learn that very quickly."
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Gavin said there were only a few truly scary moments - and they were in more populated areas.
One happened in the Gippsland region of Victoria, when a B-double driver overtook him without allowing for oncoming traffic and had to cut back in at the last minute. "The back trailer nearly took me out."
Happily, he had no incidents with animals. "I don't think a postie bike goes fast enough. They can see you about a day before you get there."
Plans to camp out mostly remained just that.
"I found out I'm too old for that game. I carried a small tent. You've got to bend over it, get into it, get out of it. And I've got an old knee injury and a bad hip. Each time I thought, 'I shouldn't have done that; I should have stayed in motel'.
But overall, he says, his body held up pretty well, "all things considered".
It took a while to start with. "It's a long time sitting in the one position and my hips would go into cramp every so often. But eventually, your body gets used to it and all those things just disappear."
His longest day's riding was about 470 kilometres, his shortest probably 120. The average was 250-250.
For much of the time, the distance was largely determined by the wind and heat.
He said that travelling across the north, he would often have a bit of tailwind, which was not that helpful: it cooled neither him nor the bike's motor.
To avoid this he would get up at first light and travel in the cooler parts of the day, finishing up around midday.
When he got to the south, it was too cold to get on the bike early in the day. So he left about nine in the morning.
Gavin's luck held in many ways.
His biggest crisis came not in the middle of nowhere but in Fremantle in Western Australia, when the engine died right outside a shopping centre. The valves had failed catastrophically and there was no compression in the motor at all.
"I had to get the whole motor rebuilt completely - it needed a new piston, conrod, bearings, barrel head, clutch, you name it."
He had the parts shipped out from Brisbane and was back on the road within a week.
As well as an opportunity to test himself, Gavin's goal was to raise money for Doctors without Borders.
To see videos of his odyssey, click HERE
