Black Smoke on the Highway, A Fire in the Sky
Posted: Sun 06 Dec, 2015 3:50 pm
Beautiful evening at Maleeya's. Next morning, bright and early, great cooked breakfast at the Porongurup Tea Rooms. Heading home to Perth, a bit of noise coming from the motor, so taking it easy. We filled up at Mt Barker, resumed our journey and decided to stop for coffee at Williams. The clutch was acting up; gears were hard to change. So we chose to keep going instead. Keeping my eye on the temperature gauge, the motor stayed at the same temperature so we sat on around 100km/hr.
All of a sudden, just before the Jarrahdale turnoff, the bike made a bit of a noise and conked out. Thinking that the clutch had just given up the ghost, we pulled over and got off the bike. I noticed there was oil on my right boot, something must have popped and that was the noise - maybe. Walking around the bike and taking a look, I said to Marian, "Look there's a flame underneath the tank!" The flame very quickly engulfed the tank. Getting away from the bike as quick as we could, it took only a minute or so for the whole bike to go up. We were very lucky that the bush beside us didn't go up also and no one was hurt.
Thanks to Cookie, Chris, Peta and Rachel who stopped, contacted emergency services and alerted passing traffic. Their assistance was invaluable.
Some photos attached.
Cheers
Tom and Marian



All of a sudden, just before the Jarrahdale turnoff, the bike made a bit of a noise and conked out. Thinking that the clutch had just given up the ghost, we pulled over and got off the bike. I noticed there was oil on my right boot, something must have popped and that was the noise - maybe. Walking around the bike and taking a look, I said to Marian, "Look there's a flame underneath the tank!" The flame very quickly engulfed the tank. Getting away from the bike as quick as we could, it took only a minute or so for the whole bike to go up. We were very lucky that the bush beside us didn't go up also and no one was hurt.
Thanks to Cookie, Chris, Peta and Rachel who stopped, contacted emergency services and alerted passing traffic. Their assistance was invaluable.
Some photos attached.
Cheers
Tom and Marian


