Having ridden the long way around on the bitumen from Dargo, I was sitting in the Orbost Club Hotel nursing a schooner – and what I believed to be a torn rib cartilage. I’ve had considerable practice at this. The fault lines on each of my ribs have long been chronologically dated and numbered for future reference, and I’ve long learnt how to balance painkillers and alcohol before dinner.
I’d agreed to provide Deano with a neophyte’s evaluation of KTM’s entry-level adventure bike, yet here I was having difficulty throwing a leg over a 750mm high bar stool. After eight long days since I’d picked up the new KTM 390 Adventure on the Gold Coast, the TFT display was showing almost 2800km after 39 hours on the move.
With little to do in Orbost other than watch the barflies shuffle joylessly between a hole in the wall and the screens displaying the gallops, the trots and the dogs, I had time to reflect on how I was in such a sorry condition so far from home. The year
