2016 BMW GS Safari: surf and turf

BMW's Safari adventure rides have attained near legendary status over the years, the trips bringing thousands of like-minded BMW owners together to enjoy their motorcycles just as the bikes' designers had intended.

The first BMW Safari kicked off way back in 1994, and since then the event has grown in size and scope to the point that now three different Safaris dot the calendar: the TS Safari, the GS Safari, and the GS Enduro Safari.

The TS (Touren Sport) Safari is a road-based ride suited to road-going BMW motorcycles, while the GS (Gelände Strasse) Safari offers a mix of both sealed and unsealed roads. That leaves the GS Enduro Safari, which serves up more technical dirt sections for more accomplished off-road riders.

BEAUTIFUL ONE DAY…
This year's GS Safari was held in November over five days, and saw some 180 riders set out from Queensland's Gold Coast and chart a circuitous course to Noosa, with overnight stops including Tenterfield, Toowoomba and Kingaroy.

Participants must provide their own bike and it has to be a BMW. Still, there was a broad spread of hardware involved in this Safari, from a performance-edged HP2 to a 1986 GS Dakar, with all manner of other GS models in between.

The GS Safari is capped at 200 participants to keep things manageable and everything is organised by the husband-and-wife team of Grant and Sophia Evans. They do a great job of looking after everyone both in the lead-up to and during the Safari, with Sophia handling a lot of the admin and logistics and Grant co-ordinating the route selection and briefing riders each night on the next day's ride.

Indeed, it's the organisation and backup behind each Safari that holds a large part of the event's appeal. The routes are selected using local knowledge and they give riders the opportunity to test their and their bike's abilities without getting into too much strife. And, if things do go pear-shaped, technical and medical support is never far away. Think of it as going for a trail ride with 180 of your closest mates – and with full factory support!

SAFARI VIRGIN
Now I was a Safari virgin and I was also here to sample the updated 2017 F 800 GS Adventure – click here for my report on this capable and enjoyable machine. As such, I was only sampling the first two days of the Safari before passing the bike to the next journalist, but those two days still gave me a good feel for Safari life.

Everything got underway with welcome drinks and an opening dinner at Jupiter's Casino on the Gold Coast. The dinner is included in the price of the Safari, as is the closing dinner at the journey's end. Participants must cover their other costs (lunch, snacks, fuel etc) while varying levels of accommodation can be selected when registering for the event.

Of course, riders have to actually get their bike to the starting line in the first place – an adventure in itself for many participants, who had come from as far afield as Western Australia.

The pre-ride briefing is succinct and highlights anything pertinent regarding the road and track conditions. In most instances, any particularly challenging sections are flagged and an alternative route mentioned, for those who would rather avoid it or who are running a little behind schedule. Grant and BMW Motorrad Marketing Manager Miles Davis deliver the info in a down-to-earth, no-nonsense manner, underlining the fact that the Safari is about fun and enjoyment – it's definitely not the Dakar Rally.

Each day runs to around 300km and the navigation is well sorted. While the route maps handed out at each nightly briefing are excellent, the fluoro orange arrows stuck around each intersection are the first thing to look out for. Once you've trained yourself to spot them, it's pretty difficult to wander off the route.

OFF AND RUNNING
Day one delivered a really varied mix of terrain. After a hearty breakfast we headed west from the Gold Coast and onto a serpentine sealed route up and over the mountains in the Gold Coast Hinterland. The road eventually dropped down over the New South Wales border to the west of Murwillumbah, before turning to dirt after a coffee stop at the quaint hamlet of Tyalgum.

The narrow and loose dirt track then carved its way through the forest. It was probably the last place we expected to find a roller at work around one of the bends, flattening the route for a road construction gang. After squeezing past the behemoth with centimetres to spare, we pushed on to Kyogle for lunch.

This first day was all about settling into the groove of the Safari – finding a nice rhythm and dialling in your radar for the signed intersections. It was also a chance to see the technical backup at work, with BMW Motorrad technician 'Benno' hard at it fixing a fairly steady flow of flat tyres.

The weather in the lead-up to the Safari had been dry and the dust became the enemy on the off-road sections, though it was still far preferable to conditions that would have resulted from any downpour. Still, despite the presence of 180 bikes on the route, it never felt cramped – in fact there were many times when I didn't see another bike for 15 minutes or more.

I missed out on the afternoon's technical section, opting instead to take the Bruxner Highway to our day's destination of Tenterfield. Turns out we'd lingered over breakfast that day a little too long – as a result, if we'd taken the technical section we wouldn't have made it to the hotel until well after the 6:00pm rider's briefing.

Rolling into the Best Western at Tenterfield that afternoon revealed a hive of activity – bikes being fitted with fresh tyres, luggage laid out by the support truck (participants need only take the bare minimum on their bikes – the rest goes in the truck), and dusty, tired but happy faces as riders rolled in and headed for a well-earned shower.

HELLO DARLING
Day two dawned bright and clear, as we set out north for the day's run back into Queensland and up through the Darling Downs. The boulder-strewn landscape of Girraween National Park made way for our morning tea stop at Stanthorpe, before following the rabbit and wild dog fence through the massive cattle stations that blanket the region.

There were plenty of spoon drains to perfect jumping techniques but the big challenge for the day lay after our lunch stop at the lonely outpost of Karara – little more than a pub with a fuel bowser off to the side.

The section of sand may not have lasted for more than a couple of kilometres, but it was deep and – by the time I reached it – churned up by all those who'd gone before. It had been years since I'd ridden sand, and repeating the mantra of 'power on, weight back' wasn't enough – halfway through the section the sky became scrambled with the sand and I found myself using my backside as a brake. Fortunately a get-off here resulted in a fairly soft landing!

After that we popped out of the bush and onto some dirt roads for the run to Toowoomba, the route taking us through some very picturesque wheat country. With a massive sky overhead and combine harvesters plying their trade on the distant horizon, it was world away from the hustle and bustle of the city – the charm of the GS Safari was readily apparent.

And then, after rolling into the Burke & Wills Hotel in Toowoomba, it was all over – for me, at least. I would be flying home the next day after handing my F 800 GS Adventure to another journo, who would sample both the bike and the GS Safari over the following two days.

I now understood why so many participants come back year after year for the Safari. The event takes in a superb selection of routes that you can tailor to match your enthusiasm and ability. The whole thing is really well organised and the knowledge that help is at hand, albeit technical or medical, means you can simply relax and enjoy the experience.

But beyond the logistics, one of the best things about the Safari is the sense of camaraderie that stems from hundreds of blokes – and women – sharing in their enjoyment of the experience, and on bikes that are tailor made for that experience. To that end the GS Safari is the best advertisement BMW could ever run on its GS range – both for their ability and the lifestyle they can open up.

I left Toowoomba happy, but wanting more – heading home after two days was like walking out of a movie halfway through. Still, of one thing I was sure: the BMW GS Safari is a heap of fun, and an experience to truly savour.