SPRING ADVENTURES WITH THE THROTTLE DOLLS
What to do in an Australian Spring: Pacifico's guide to camping.
Here at Pacifico Optical we aren’t shy about our love of the great outdoors. Whether tropical or sub-arctic, we make our peace with anywhere we feel the wind on our face and sun on our skin. When the weather is still slightly cool, and the sun begins to show itself, everyone seems determined to rework that winter pastiness into an early Spring time tan, consequently cramming Sydney’s coast line and subjecting themselves to severe sunburn. Pacifico decided to set out and discover an alternate travel option close to home during the mayhem. See below for our 3 tips for camping in Australia during Spring.
Nina & Erica filling up the Ducati Scramblers. Nina wears our Buckler frame & Erica wears The Yacht Master frame.
- Companionship
Roaming Australia’s wilds can get a little lonely, so we teamed up with Nina and Erica from the Throttle Dolls (@thethrottledolls), a couple of motorbike enthusiast’s who are old friends of the team here at Pacifico. These women are a multitude of things, but due to word count restrictions I will sum them up in three: hot, fun and adventurous. They are two of the founding members of a ladies-only bikie gang based in Sydney who have utilised the power of the internet to promote and empower female motorbike riders. The immense appeal of the Throttle Dolls is spelt out by all 119,000 Instagram followers, not bad for a movement that started with three women teaming up for a Sunday ride.
Erica looking super comfortable on the open country roads. 
Nina getting under those 800cc's and showing us some smoke.
It was Stephen King who said “And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever”. Now we admit that Mr King was probably half a decade deep into a cocaine binge for the ages when he wrote those words but the message rings true – find what you love doing and incorporate it into your working life. So we called in a bunch of favours and got in touch with our talented photographer mates Zelimir Harasty (@zelimirharasty) and Benny O’Shea (@insta_benny) and convinced them to join us and our two beautiful female bikies (not a hard sell) in the Southern Highlands of NSW.
Nina wearing our Buckler frame in Blonde Havana with Green lens.
Something was in the air. Erica and Ollie hug.
- Get kitted out
In order to maximise the fun we called the crew at Ducati Australia about providing some hardware that would allow us to get off-road and perform outdoors without compromising on appearance (obviously being a sunglass company we are all about looking good whilst getting down). Ducati wrangled up two Ducati Scramblers for the ladies, the perfect compromise between performance and style. The Scrambler is a remake of earlier model Ducati Adventure Bikes, and as good as they look they sound even better. For two days straight we drowned out kookaburra's with the throaty growl of the 400cc and 800cc models. As a support car we loaded up a Land Rover Defender with beer, wine and fishing gear and of course, enough sunglasses for everyone.
The Defender moved through the water with effortless grace.
- Location, Location, Location
A good campsite is, unsurprisingly, the most vital piece of the puzzle when it comes to going bush. We traded the streets of Sydney for the rolling hills of the Southern Highlands outside Mittagong, a lush green vista filled with back trails, rivers and streams for us to indulge in only a 2 hour drive from Sydney.
Nina taking on the Wollondilly River.
The girls cowboying it back at the campsite.
What followed next was a night and two full days of dirt track riding, river crossings and off-road mayhem. The girls let the throttle out on the Scramblers, taking on waist deep rivers, thick mud tracks and just generally revelling in the kind of riding that they don't get to experience as often as they'd like. The area near Wombeyan Caves became the perfect playground during the day, and at night, tired and dusty, we settled in for a campfire cookout with a fantastic crew of people, completed by low-quality guitar playing and some fantastic home-made vodka.
Because, why not?
Nina wearing the Buckler frame in Blonde Havana with Green lens. Featuring Silver Mirror Clip lens.
For everyone dying to get out of the house after the winter months we recommend packing some slightly warm clothing for the ride, swimwear for a dip in the fresh water of the Wollondilly river, a tent and a sense of adventure and venturing off the beaten path for a night or two (gorgeous female bikies optional).
