Quad Biking in Stockton, Australia
If you have been following my blog you may have read my ‘Thrill Seekers Listen Up’ post, where I recommend adrenaline inducing activities such as snowboarding, skydiving and rally car driving. In keeping with the theme of that post, I decided to publish a post from a UK expat that took a recent trip down under for his own thrill seeking…
Quad Biking in Australia, by Dan Chatterton.
“I am not sure what brought on the need to experience travelling Australia via motorcycle. It may have something to do with Quentin Tarantino bringing out a third Kill Bill movie, and me wanting to embrace my inner Beatrix Kiddo. Not sure. What I can tell you is that when travelling abroad, especially somewhere as far as Australia, you really should plan ahead!
I thought that as I have my full license here, I would have no trouble hiring a motorcycle once I landed down under. I was wrong. It turns out you need to have a specific motorcycle learners permit, for each Australian state. The road that I was hoping to travel along, The Great Ocean Drive, is in the state of Victoria, one of Australia’s southern states. I wanted to ride along this road as I had heard that it is one of the most beautiful roads in the world to drive along, passing many beaches and mountains along the way to the 12 Apostles which is a pretty popular tourist spot.
As it turns out, to qualify for a motorcycle license in Victoria, I had to be a Victorian resident. In New South Wales, however, I could get a learner’s permit as a temporary overseas visitor as long as I had a New South Wales residential address, and thanks to an Aussie mate of mine, I did. My mate is also a dedicated rider himself and had all manner of motorcycle accessories, so I was definitely staying with the right person!
So plans changed. And I had to find a sweet spot in NSW to ride along, which is where plans changed again! As I was researching for great spots to visit by motorcycle, I came across the Stockton sand dunes, which is a great place for Quad biking! And, bonus, you can ride Quad bikes with a full UK license!
I am actually quite happy with how things turned out, as I never would have thought to visit Stockton, which is about 2.5 hours north of Sydney by car. It was really beautiful there. The beach was made up of beautiful yellow sand sided by gorgeous deep blue water that stretched out as far as the eye can see. I learned that this was the beach that was featured in the original Mad Max movie. There is a place called Tin City where there are powerless shacks still standing from World War II, this is the part you can see in the movie. There were also a few shipwrecks along the beach, that you can get up close to. And as you will see from my photo the sunsets at Stockton are breathtaking!
In contrast to all of the tranquility that is shown in my photos, the quad biking was exhilarating! I went with a small group as I rented a quad bike from a local tourist spot and they provided a tour guide to take out small groups of riders. The quad bike I was riding was full of power and I could really get some speed up when I was on flat sand. When it came to the sand dunes however, I thought I was going to tip over a couple of times, so had to take it a little more slowly there. I am glad I went with a guide, as the sand dunes of Stockton seem to go on forever and I could have easily gotten lost. It was not long until I couldn’t see the ocean anymore. After a full day of quad biking I was no longer disappointed that I didn’t get to ride along the Great Ocean Road. That will be an adventure for another day… when I am a little more organised!
