Old Bike Australasia – July 21, 2019

64 :OLD BIKE AUSTRALASIA

This is the story of an attempted adventurous motor scooter

journey by three young men to ride from Braunscheig in Germany

to Darwin, Australia during the northern winter of 1964-65. There

were two Germans, Ralf Wolpers and Wolfram Boehm as well as

myself, an Australian. The three of us commenced diaries during

the trip, however I was the only one that managed to complete

a day-to-day account of our adventures.

A HEINKEL OBSESSION

After readingthe article regarding Heinkel

Motor Scooters in issue 78 of Old Bike Australasia

magazine, I was inspired to offer comments about

my own obsession to ride Heinkel motor scooters.

I was born in Darwin in 1940, 18 months before

the first of 64 Japanese bombing raids on the city.

I learned to ride on a Czechoslovakian Jawa CZ175 cc

two stroke motorcycle I owned for a short time in

1960. In 1961 I upgraded to a four stroke Triumph
      200cc Tiger Cub and rode this around Darwin for
      a few years.

Early 1964 I chased my girlfriend Emma to

England but ended up working in Germany for

Siemens with friends Ralf and Wolfram. I bought

a 1959 Heinkel Tourist 103 A-1 four stroke 174 cc

scooter, to ride to work and excursions. As foolhardy

as it would be today, it was just as reckless during

the winter of 1964, when Ralf, Wolfram and I

decided to ride our Heinkel Scooters from

Germany to Australia.

Both men and machines were thoroughly tested

to extremes. As each calamity unfolded, the

A Heinkel StoryBob Dennis

obsession

ABOVE Ditched! Bob’s crash in Turkey in 1964.

ABOVE LEFT Somewhere in Syria 1964. Bob catches up on James Bond.

RIGHT Snowbound on the Iraq-Iran border in 1964.

MAIN Bob and Wolfram at the Queensland-NT border, 2015.