- Welcome to Far Road™ - honouring one man's vision.
It's your road now...
Recent posts
#91
General Discussion / From Beyond the Library
Last post by Taffey - Dec 10, 2025, 12:42 AMCHAPTER ONE
The Arrival at Hacienda Buenaventura
Constance Lydney-Farrar had always suspected that boredom was not a condition but a slow-moving poison. It gathered in the corners of English manor houses like dust and lingered behind polite conversation. When her husband, Sir Archibald Lydney-Farrar — noted explorer, amateur cartographer, and wholly indifferent spouse — announced that he would be returning to South America to continue his "ethnographic investigations," she surprised even herself.
"I'm coming with you," she'd said, over a breakfast of tepid eggs and marital silence.
Sir Archibald blinked at her as if she had declared her intention to embrace Bolshevism. "My dear girl," he spluttered, "the Andes are hardly Kensington. One needs stamina. One needs a constitution like a... like a yak."
"Then it's fortunate," she replied, "that I'm quite sturdy."
And sturdy she was, though the journey had tested even her resolve: a steamship across the Atlantic, a rail journey that appeared to have been built entirely from leftover intentions, and finally a narrow track up into the foothills of the Andes aboard a mule of questionable optimism.
By the time the hacienda appeared — a long adobe building sprawled beneath the shadow of a great ridge — Constance felt as though she had been shaken apart and reassembled twice.
A figure emerged from the courtyard as she dismounted, her hat askew and her dignity clinging by its fingertips. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in the practical clothing of a man who knew what danger looked like and had once shaken hands with it for a wager.
He removed his hat.
"Señora Lydney-Farrar? Welcome to Hacienda Buenaventura."
His English was softened by a rural Midlands burr — familiar yet incongruous in the Andes. She found herself staring longer than politeness permitted.
"And you are...?"
"Thomas Briggs, at your service. I run the estate for Sir Archibald while he's gallivant— er, conducting research."
Her husband, who had just dismounted with the grace of a wardrobe falling down stairs, grunted. "Briggs is a practical sort. Knows how to mend a saddle, start a balky motorcar, and—"
"—catch frogs," Briggs added cheerfully.
"Frogs?" Constance echoed.
"Essential creatures up here. Some very rare. Sir Archibald promised the Royal Zoological Society he'd bring back one they insist does not exist."
Sir Archibald puffed proudly.
"The Andean Accordion Frog. Makes a sound like a harmonium being sat upon. Marvelous specimen."
Constance turned to Briggs. "And you assist in this... endeavour?"
"Assist?" Briggs smiled. "Señora, I'm the one daft enough to actually go looking for them."
They shared — unintentionally, impossibly — a moment of mutual amusement. A glimmer of warmth flickered through her, unfamiliar after years of matrimonial frost.
Sir Archibald, oblivious, had already wandered toward the hacienda muttering about sketch maps.
Briggs gestured toward a shaded archway.
"If you'd care to freshen up after your journey? The rooms are simple, but the walls keep out most of the heat and almost all of the wildlife."
"'Almost'?" she repeated.
"A man can only do so much."
She smiled again — too readily, too naturally.
It unsettled her.
The Arrival at Hacienda Buenaventura
Constance Lydney-Farrar had always suspected that boredom was not a condition but a slow-moving poison. It gathered in the corners of English manor houses like dust and lingered behind polite conversation. When her husband, Sir Archibald Lydney-Farrar — noted explorer, amateur cartographer, and wholly indifferent spouse — announced that he would be returning to South America to continue his "ethnographic investigations," she surprised even herself.
"I'm coming with you," she'd said, over a breakfast of tepid eggs and marital silence.
Sir Archibald blinked at her as if she had declared her intention to embrace Bolshevism. "My dear girl," he spluttered, "the Andes are hardly Kensington. One needs stamina. One needs a constitution like a... like a yak."
"Then it's fortunate," she replied, "that I'm quite sturdy."
And sturdy she was, though the journey had tested even her resolve: a steamship across the Atlantic, a rail journey that appeared to have been built entirely from leftover intentions, and finally a narrow track up into the foothills of the Andes aboard a mule of questionable optimism.
By the time the hacienda appeared — a long adobe building sprawled beneath the shadow of a great ridge — Constance felt as though she had been shaken apart and reassembled twice.
A figure emerged from the courtyard as she dismounted, her hat askew and her dignity clinging by its fingertips. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed in the practical clothing of a man who knew what danger looked like and had once shaken hands with it for a wager.
He removed his hat.
"Señora Lydney-Farrar? Welcome to Hacienda Buenaventura."
His English was softened by a rural Midlands burr — familiar yet incongruous in the Andes. She found herself staring longer than politeness permitted.
"And you are...?"
"Thomas Briggs, at your service. I run the estate for Sir Archibald while he's gallivant— er, conducting research."
Her husband, who had just dismounted with the grace of a wardrobe falling down stairs, grunted. "Briggs is a practical sort. Knows how to mend a saddle, start a balky motorcar, and—"
"—catch frogs," Briggs added cheerfully.
"Frogs?" Constance echoed.
"Essential creatures up here. Some very rare. Sir Archibald promised the Royal Zoological Society he'd bring back one they insist does not exist."
Sir Archibald puffed proudly.
"The Andean Accordion Frog. Makes a sound like a harmonium being sat upon. Marvelous specimen."
Constance turned to Briggs. "And you assist in this... endeavour?"
"Assist?" Briggs smiled. "Señora, I'm the one daft enough to actually go looking for them."
They shared — unintentionally, impossibly — a moment of mutual amusement. A glimmer of warmth flickered through her, unfamiliar after years of matrimonial frost.
Sir Archibald, oblivious, had already wandered toward the hacienda muttering about sketch maps.
Briggs gestured toward a shaded archway.
"If you'd care to freshen up after your journey? The rooms are simple, but the walls keep out most of the heat and almost all of the wildlife."
"'Almost'?" she repeated.
"A man can only do so much."
She smiled again — too readily, too naturally.
It unsettled her.
#92
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Dec 09, 2025, 03:02 AMI don't want to sell my bike, which is another friendly suggestion I receive. I love riding- and although I can't say I love trying to look this damnable fear in the face, I realize the possibilities for self improvement. The bike has merely become the concretisation of the free-floating terror that lives inside me, and if I didn't have a bike, it would attach itself to something else. I would be unable to go to the grocery store, or make phone calls, or show up for work. I don't want my world to shut down any farther; I need it to open up, and a motorcycle does nothing better than propel one outward. A few years ago I started going through the travel and adventure section of the library, looking for books by people who did dangerous things, preferably again and again. I always found what I was looking for. The autobiographies invariably carried a variation of the type of statement made by Sir Edmund Hillary, the first to climb Everest: "Fear is an important component of any challenge. If you feel fear, and then overcome it, you feel a special thrill." I was getting special thrills every time I went out for a spin.
The Perfect Vehicle Melissa Pierson p54
The Perfect Vehicle Melissa Pierson p54
#93
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Dec 08, 2025, 02:02 AMI am a motorcyclist, and though I recognize I am not the "usual" motorcyclist, I also don't anticipate ever meeting one of those in person. All I know is that over the years I have occasionally sat back and thought how strange it is that motorcycles can completely overtake your being and act as if they own it. Certainly nothing in my life before them- and certainly not my parents, whose own interests run to chamber music, books, gardening, art, and cocktail parties- had prepared me to fall in love with bikes. I had gone through prep school, college, graduate school without knowing they existed. Those years were filled with sequential or concurrent passions: horses, the Civil War, dogs, bicycling, photography, poetry, the dream of true socialism, literary theory, and a couple of dozen boys. I am still interested in all those things to some extent, except for the boyfriends, whose names I have largely forgotten, but the desire I came to feel for bikes eclipsed all of them, even though I still dream of having a horse.
The Perfect Vehicle Melissa Pierson p22-3
The Perfect Vehicle Melissa Pierson p22-3
#94
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Dec 07, 2025, 01:14 PMThe hardcore lover of motorcycles, the one whose head turns at every growing sound that promises a bike will soon flash into view, can't help it. There is a peculiar kind of motolust that inspires some people to fill their garages with bikes and the "pre-restored" carcasses thereof and still be unable to resist the next one they see that has a for-sale sign around its neck. They go away for a weekend of riding and come back with new friends whom they stay up with half the night talking of bikes and other destinations at which they will meet new people who will phone them the following week to tell of farther destinations. The calendar fills; the season is not long enough. The pocketbook is rarely large enough, for bikes, like boats, are black holes in the universe of money.
The Perfect Vehicle Melissa Pierson p18
The Perfect Vehicle Melissa Pierson p18
#95
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Dec 05, 2025, 07:58 AMWe were dead tired when we lay down at the roadside on a piece of flat ground and fell asleep immediately.
I must have been sleeping so deeply that I did not turn over very much, otherwise I would not be telling this story. I was awakened by Herbert grabbing my arm and hauling me vigorously towards him. His behaviour was enough to scare me, although I was still drunk with sleep. Could he have gone crazy? Anxiety was written all over his face and he kept holding me tight up against him, staring rigidly past me. Oh, I thought, a scorpion, he's seen a scorpion! Then I turned round too and looked where Herbert was looking. I saw immediately why I had thought for a moment that Herbert had gone crazy. He had that strange distant expression often seen on mad people of the quiet and dreamy sort. However, he was not mad: he really was looking into the distance. Two or three feet from where I had been sleeping, the mountain fell away vertically for several hundred metres, and below us lay the Indian plain spread out like a map. With great caution we packed up our sleeping gear and tiptoed softly back to the safety of the roadway.
India The Shimmering Dream Max Reisch p164
I must have been sleeping so deeply that I did not turn over very much, otherwise I would not be telling this story. I was awakened by Herbert grabbing my arm and hauling me vigorously towards him. His behaviour was enough to scare me, although I was still drunk with sleep. Could he have gone crazy? Anxiety was written all over his face and he kept holding me tight up against him, staring rigidly past me. Oh, I thought, a scorpion, he's seen a scorpion! Then I turned round too and looked where Herbert was looking. I saw immediately why I had thought for a moment that Herbert had gone crazy. He had that strange distant expression often seen on mad people of the quiet and dreamy sort. However, he was not mad: he really was looking into the distance. Two or three feet from where I had been sleeping, the mountain fell away vertically for several hundred metres, and below us lay the Indian plain spread out like a map. With great caution we packed up our sleeping gear and tiptoed softly back to the safety of the roadway.
India The Shimmering Dream Max Reisch p164
#96
All Events Calendar / Re: Proposed Farroad Calendar ...
Last post by Taffey - Dec 04, 2025, 09:23 AMSo just to aid the reading. The rides proposed are:
NSW - 20 June
SA - 25 July
Come and Try a SaddleSore - 22 August (I have secured a IB Rally finisher to provide some wisdoms to buddy Saddlesorers)
SA - 12 September
Vic - 31 October
Vic/SA (Race the Overland - PS we beat it - ride report coming) - November 2
The others listed are there to show how I have tried not to interfere or otherwise cross over other rides, that is I took others into consideration.
Cheers
Taff
NSW - 20 June
SA - 25 July
Come and Try a SaddleSore - 22 August (I have secured a IB Rally finisher to provide some wisdoms to buddy Saddlesorers)
SA - 12 September
Vic - 31 October
Vic/SA (Race the Overland - PS we beat it - ride report coming) - November 2
The others listed are there to show how I have tried not to interfere or otherwise cross over other rides, that is I took others into consideration.
Cheers
Taff
#97
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Dec 04, 2025, 01:17 AMGoing by our maps and the distance we had covered so far, we estimated about another four hundred kilometres. That was going to be another hard slog and the motorcycle was giving me plenty of cause for anxiety. Because of our wild ride along the railway track and the constant bumping over stony ground, spokes in the back wheel had been snapping, one after the other remorseless regularity. Every morning I had a tricky time fixing the remaining spokes so that they were spread evenly around the rim, until my fingers were scratched and bloody, but it was no good. The back wheel was no longer round but was becoming more and more of an oval.
Eventually I took nine spokes out of the front wheel and fixed them in the back. That was all right for another half a day but what would we have given for a few dozen spokes! We would have exchanged everything we had on board, valued at several thousand Schilling, for a handful of spokes costing one or two Schilling, if only we had been able to buy them. But any shop selling spares was too Far And Away to be accessed.
We did not talk much during this time. Death was breathing down our necks, for, if the back wheel collapsed, we would be done for – finally done for. Herbert dragged himself for long distances on foot in order to take the weight off the machine. I drove as carefully as if I had had enormous eggshells on the axles instead of wheels, but it was all no good. The wheels went on getting squarer, and we waited from one hour to the next for the final collapse.
India The Shimmering Dream Max Reisch p149-50
Eventually I took nine spokes out of the front wheel and fixed them in the back. That was all right for another half a day but what would we have given for a few dozen spokes! We would have exchanged everything we had on board, valued at several thousand Schilling, for a handful of spokes costing one or two Schilling, if only we had been able to buy them. But any shop selling spares was too Far And Away to be accessed.
We did not talk much during this time. Death was breathing down our necks, for, if the back wheel collapsed, we would be done for – finally done for. Herbert dragged himself for long distances on foot in order to take the weight off the machine. I drove as carefully as if I had had enormous eggshells on the axles instead of wheels, but it was all no good. The wheels went on getting squarer, and we waited from one hour to the next for the final collapse.
India The Shimmering Dream Max Reisch p149-50
#98
All Events Calendar / Proposed Farroad Calendar for ...
Last post by Taffey - Dec 03, 2025, 03:24 AMProposed calendar for 2026 for comment and feedback. Be as harsh on this correspondent as you like.
Would welcome any input from warmer climates as well and would be happy to assist with logistics. Same for Tassie.
Cheers
Taff
Would welcome any input from warmer climates as well and would be happy to assist with logistics. Same for Tassie.
Cheers
Taff
#99
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Dec 03, 2025, 02:50 AMWe spent the night of 7th to 8th October in the shelter of a deeply eroded wadi. Our larder was looking distinctly bare, for we had been so well-fed at Badi Massud's that we had quite forgotten to stock up on provisions. You don't think food on a full stomach. We made supper off a tin of sardines from our iron rations and for dessert we swallowed a couple of quinine pills, just for luck. Quinine gives you buzzing in the ears, so you can't hear very well, but the stars in the southern sky made the night so magically beautiful that we were yet again perfectly happy in that lonely place. We didn't bother to pitch the tent, but just spread it on the ground and lay down on it, with the power of almighty God above us and the silence of the desert round about us. It was indeed a wonderful life, and how we thanked our stars for the privilege of such a great experience when we were so young. To be sure, there were many things on our journey which we could take in only superficially, but we did so with wholehearted enthusiasm. I do not envy Americans who slave away their entire lives in order to go round the world in their old age.
For them, such a journey is the fulfilment of a life, but for us it was an education. It is only today I realise how much we unconsciously learned which can never be learned in school or college.
India The Shimmering Dream Max Reisch p134
For them, such a journey is the fulfilment of a life, but for us it was an education. It is only today I realise how much we unconsciously learned which can never be learned in school or college.
India The Shimmering Dream Max Reisch p134
#100
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Dec 02, 2025, 05:54 AMIt may have been some small consolation to our faithful machine to be surrounded by people whenever we halted at a Persian oasis. Here, the clean-up routine was completed without difficulty, since the strange vehicle was explored all over wherever the human hand could reach. What a wondrous race are the Persians! Their joyful child-like curiosity soon made us forget all our tribulations. They were particularly taken with the lovely red-enamelled Tyrolean eagle which I had mounted on the petrol cap as a mascot. They couldn't keep their fingers off it, and it really is a miracle that the Tyrolean eagle stood up to all that pulling and tugging.
During the Second World War the Tyrolean eagle and the motorcycle with it lay in safe keeping in the Technical Museum in Vienna. It remained under the museum's protection throughout the confused years of the Occupation, when some Russian or American might well have taken a fancy to such an unusual machine. My sincere thanks are due to the head of the Mechanical Engineering Department, Hofrat Dr Seper. These days I have the India Puch at home with me. It stands in my garage alongside eighteen other veterans. As anyone will understand, this motorcycle my favourite and the one I carefully maintain and keep in running order. It has to start on the first kick, as I have often claimed (and won bets with some who wouldn't believe me!). I ride out on the India Puch several times a year and it simply changes my outlook. As I like to say on returning from these excursions, "It keeps me young!"
India The Shimmering Dream Max Reisch p115
During the Second World War the Tyrolean eagle and the motorcycle with it lay in safe keeping in the Technical Museum in Vienna. It remained under the museum's protection throughout the confused years of the Occupation, when some Russian or American might well have taken a fancy to such an unusual machine. My sincere thanks are due to the head of the Mechanical Engineering Department, Hofrat Dr Seper. These days I have the India Puch at home with me. It stands in my garage alongside eighteen other veterans. As anyone will understand, this motorcycle my favourite and the one I carefully maintain and keep in running order. It has to start on the first kick, as I have often claimed (and won bets with some who wouldn't believe me!). I ride out on the India Puch several times a year and it simply changes my outlook. As I like to say on returning from these excursions, "It keeps me young!"
India The Shimmering Dream Max Reisch p115