Globe Gallivanting- motorbiking across the world

On a rainy, rainy day I watched a leather-skinned old Aussie fellow hitch his denim shorts back up over his buttocks. He was stumbling about in an enormous cowboy hat outside his trailer. We were at the Darwin BP garage. It was starting to rain. It didn’t matter. Spirits were undrenchable.  We had manoeuvred our lazy bums back onto the bike and were on our way again. We sped through the storm, got as soaked as an Australian on ANZAC day, and left the rain clouds behind. The rocks turned red again, the sky turned blue, and the gearbox seal started leaking oil. At Adelaide River the oil left a worrying slick. We rode on. At Pine Creek we found some folks. They told us the gearbox seal was leaking oil. We smiled serenely, and rode on. At Larrimah an Italian in a pink shirt suggested it was a problem with the chain. We muttered. And rode on. Then we found the Pink Panther. The Pink Panther is a strange old ramshackle trailer park motel, complete with a miniature croc...

We woke up to a loud knocking.  An enormous neon-clad postman was struggling with a very heavy box.  It had arrived!!  We leapt around the room for a few minutes, singing.  Then we realised there was a Frenchman asleep in the next room who possibly mightn't be quite as excited about the arrival of a second-hand gearbox, so we sat down quietly and opened it. Adrian The Workshop-Saint rang about twenty minutes later to say the workshop was available, and within the hour Theo was driving us and a gearbox across town in his funky cow-painted van.  At the workshop the gearbox went on beautifully smoothly, excepting the sneaky ignition switch.  It had decided it wasn't going to move from the old gearbox to the new one, so we persuaded it, with force.  All seemed well and good, and we started on the shaft. bit of a difference... Its a bloody good job Adrain reappeared at this point, to help get the driveshaft sorted, because we weren't gett...

In Darwin, we crossed our fingers and toes as the very serious quarantine lady inspected the bike's guts with a torch.  I toyed with screaming at her about the five days of bike-washing we had suffered.  Thankfully I then untoyed with it. She passed us, but not without another mini-jet wash.  We were free to go.... after we had put in the new starter motor.  Our Fellow Overlanding Brits and the Also Overlanding Icelandics got through inspection OK too, but poor Sven and his old Landrover then had to be towed home.  Their luck seemed even worse than our starter motor problems, with an entirely wrecked gearbox and engine. We pitied them. Had we known what lay in store, we would have been far more empathetic... being towed out of the port. There we were, in Darwin, with the bike, having driven from England.  It felt like it should be a momentous occasion.  As it was, it was a little worrying.  The bi...