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Tom de Souza

The Indo Motorcycle Diaries- Chapter II: ISSUE 594

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On the job in Bali and dialling in a board with Jim Banks.

I arrive at the Indonesian bengkel, or mechanic workshop, with a long list of repairs.

Brighter front lights, new chain and front and rear sprockets. Plugging the oil leak where the tacho cable has snapped off. Tightening the idle screw so it doesn’t stall in traffic. Muffling that roaring look- at-me exhaust. A lot to prepare before this four-month solo motorbike trip across the entire eastern Indonesian archipelago.

The mechanic, Agung, wrestles it inside the small workshop up the top of the Bingin hill. He jacks it up on a stand, his friend, Putu, watching and squatting and smoking in the back of the workshop.

Putu doesn’t work here. It’s his day off, he says, and he’s just come to hang out at his friend’s workshop. For Putu and Agung, like many Indonesian people, there is no real demarcation between work and leisure.

“It’s important to be happy and enjoy every moment,” says Putu.

“Why do you have to put that aside when you’re at work”

Agung is originally from Lombok, he says, and has been in Bali for the past seven years. He moved here for work and new experience, an Indonesian concept known as merantau, or to wander. He sends much of his salary back to his wife and kids back home in Praya, Lombok, and returns usually once per year for family events or religious holidays.

“As an Indonesian it is difficult for us to visit foreign countries, and the salary and opportunities in the village is very small. So we move around within our own country.”

Agung removes a split-pin and unbolts the two axle nuts. Putu belts the axle out with a wrench, and the sprocket with all its worn teeth clatters down onto the floor. Agung holds up the new sprocket to the old …

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THE INDO MOTORCYCLE DIARIES: Issue 593

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G-Land devotees, the ghosts of Alas Purwo and an undercover cop looking for salvation.

For 10 years I’ve dreamed of this.Ten years ago, ever since I first came toIndonesia as a naïve 17-year-old high school graduate I imagined myself here, roaring down this long road to Grajagan, the bare essentials strapped onto my sputtering single-cylinder trail bike.

Two boards: a purple 6’1” Jim Bankstwin fin and a radical 6’9 10-channel PhilMyers singley. A basic first-aid kit. A fewclothes and a computer and some cameragear. And, most importantly, a pocket-sized Indonesian dictionary; language, awindow into the soul of a people.

For the next six months I will ride this bike solo about the archipelago. I’m search-ing for the perfect swells endemic to this country, but riding waves is not the only objective of my trip. Surfing is the catalyst for an adventure that gives me license to explore a culture and interact with one of the most diverse and optimistic peoples on this earth.

Motorcycle
travel in Indo offers a unique sense of
freedom but ‘Ride Carefully’ is always the
motto for roads and shallow reef

The road opens up through villages and rice paddies, late afternoon sun stream-ing through the jungle canopy. This is the Alas Purwo National Park. It is an important place in Javanese mythology. Meaning ancient forest, it is where the Javanese believe that land first emerged from theIndian Ocean and a place many believe still to be haunted.

It is also home to an important place in surfing mythology. G-Land, an Indonesian surfing Mecca. That fabled left-hand erreeling down a divine two-kilometre stretch of reef on the edge of a jungle where tigers and leopards and wild buffalo still roam. Tubes to transport you to a different dimension. Waves so perfect and beautiful you can’t help but stop and ask yourself, ‘have I died and gone to heaven?’Every surfer has heard of the …

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THE RAZOR’S EDGE: Issue 591

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Wandering Victoria’s wild coast.

For the past few days that guide has been our manual. We’ve studied it, dog-eared the pages, and tried finding noted spots on the satellite maps in our phone. But along this stretch of the Road, we don’t need the guide.

“Reef breaks, everywhere,” says Dan.

I slam on the brakes, boat trailer clunk- ing behind, and pull onto the cliff edge where Dan is pointing. Cars zoom past inches from my door. Below the guard rail the cliff drops 100 feet into the Southern Ocean and down there it’s all gunmetal grey, raging white water, rock ledges. Dan hops over the railing to get a better look. The Razors Edge.

Like all young men, me and Dan are drawn to that edge. For the past two years I’ve found myself permanently out here, living from my four-wheel-drive about the back roads of Australia. Surfing, always driving the adventure. Grinding left handers belittled beneath the scorched, dusty peak of Red Bluff. Isolated desert slabs in the Great Australian Bight. Dreamy, sub-trop- ical point breaks on the east coast; even sludgy little novelty beach breaks right up in Queensland’s croc country.

But this zone along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road is one place I haven’t been, until now. It’s an important place in Australian surfing history and we’re seeing it for the first time. I want to know: how does it stack up against other surfing locations around the country? And is surfing out here still the same as it’s been written in the history books?

Dan’s already into his wetsuit and waxing up before I’ve had time to check the surf. He’s frothing, this three-week break from his mining job as a geologist in WA’s Pilbara region, the first proper holiday he’s had in months. He cracks open a cold tin …

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