I awoke at 3:15 am and couldn't get back to sleep. I was concerned about the forecast for Melbourne including Rain/Thunder storms and my planned arrival time in Peak Hour.
So I packed up and ate the breakfast which Lionel had arranged for me last night. Thanks
Just before 4 am I backed out of the garage and started the bike and rode out of Lionel's street. Just up the the hill from Lionel's I stopped my first Marsupials, three small Wallabies beside the kerb.
The air temp was showing 10 °C and by the time I got to the bottom of the hill it was down to 5 °C.
Once I got out of town and had no street lights I could really appreciate the new Luminaries. I could see up to 500 metres down the road. (Checked with the trip meter)
As I rode towards Cooma it slowly dropped to just 1 °C. Between Canberra and Cooma there was light fog and clear skies and very few other vehicles and the occasional breathing Eastern Grey. Plenty of inert ones and the odd deceased Southern Hairy-nosed Bulldozer.
My helmet is fitted with a pin lock anti fog screen, which in the past has worked really well, today it wasn't sealing correctly and was tapping my exhaust gasses between it and the visor. This necessitated riding with the visor up in very low single digit Temps. By Cooma I had enough and pulled over, removed the Pin lock and dried everything out hoping for a resolution to the problem. When I rode or of the driveway of the servo everything wad clear, when. I got to the boron of the hill and back into the fog it immediately fogged up again but not as bad. However it was to much to see clearly and the where still Marsupial activity to contend with. So more riding with the visor up was required.
Between Cooma and Bomballa there was heavy fog and the temp dropped to -1 °C. The new gloves worked really well with only my finger tips being mildly uncomfortable. In this fog, I only felt safe at 60 to 70 km/h so it wad a slower than expected section.
Coming out of Nimmitabel 60 zone I overtook a B-Double which was on the wind up. As I past I noticed in the mirror he had a blown headlight so I got on the CB to let him know. During that distraction and checking the mirrors too much I nearly hit a dead Grey which was right across the Centre of the lane. Quick counter steering and I managed to only hit the tip of the tail on the right hand side of the road.
At Bombala I pulled up on the side of the road and speed or the visor again. If was starting to get light by now and I rode up into another heavy fog during the 60 zone which cleared just after the 100 zone so I gave Pan a kick to get motivating only to rack the target sled to have the GPS tell me to turn left in 500 metres. (I just made it without requiring a U-turn.) The brakes work
After Bombala the temp quickly rose to 12 degrees and I was feeling very comfortable. This was short lived as the Temps again dropped to 1 °C. Fortunately the fog was now quite sparse so the speeds elevated. The pin lock was still cussing problems so the was a lot of full windscreen and visor up riding until the temps got above 15 °C.
I stopped at Lakes Entrance for breakfast @ 12°C and left 1/2 later at 24 °C.
I stopped for half an hour to recharge the helmet and to grab some water and a break before the last leg. Our so I thought. The tablet I hag been using to display the maps decided it was no longer going to play so I stopped at one who to reset it and then head to stop at the next to replace it with the phone to get me the ready of the way.
Apart from strong gusty winds as I left Sale, was a really easy ride from there and the temp slowly climbed to 28 °C before dropping to 27 °C in Melbourne.
