Well, let's see how well I can spin this yarn that could turn into a little ditty.
I'd gotten over the mountains and stopped at a servo at Lithgow for a pit stop that included a cuppa when as I casually notice good old Dave and Packo on the other side of the road pointing at me so I thought that I'd better be polite and point right back.
It turns out that they'd left after I did and had made very good time.
You see, I'm not a very confident wet rider and it had poured for the previous 140K's and it was showing no signs of slowing down.
So I waved the fellers off so that I would not slow them down.
I'll have you know that it took me around 4 hours to get to Carcoar and I was still listening to Phil Collins without repeating a single track. This was definitely at the edge of my riding fitness.
To my surprise I was the first to arrive and although I did not see the boys on my way (turns out that they had stopped at a servo and seen me go past) The need for another call of nature was to great which was followed by an order of lunch and coffee. I was the second customer they'd seen that day.
The boys did arrive shortly afterwards and proceeded to chew the fat whilst our meals and coffee arrived (with a smile I might add).
After some discussion we all decided to ride back together through some "off the Beaten Track roads" that Packo promised to be fun, interesting and to only add another 30 minutes or so to the trip. They promised to take it easy for me so the plan was formed, Packo in the lead, Dave as the meat in the sandwich and me as tail end charlie.
This was to be the most interesting trip I have ever undertaken and it rolled off as thus;
Have I mentioned that it was still raining?
I did notice that Packo on his Bewt "Triumph Tiger" was packing a waterpoof GPS but I did momentarily question it's use when he had ST's in tow and began heading for a dirt/mud road. Fortunately a U turn was made back into town to reconnect with the main road. The roads had almost no traffic and traversed some amazing countryside. At this point that Packo's roads were not "off the beaten track", some of them were "well and truly beaten up" and I quickly came to the realisation that my suspension is well and truly stuffed and in need of severe attention for anything that does not include super smooth highways.
It was on one of these roads that Packo passed an angry roo, perhaps because under Darwinist theory nature was trying to change it into a frog that made hims so touchy at these invaders of his territory.....sorry I digress.......so Packo passes the Roo, the Roo bucks up and hops along to hit the next invader....but what is this?...its a cop on a bike?
......Roo does a 180 and heads back straight into a fence and jams itself....too late. I couldn't tell him that it was only Dave on his white ST1300. At my age I was impressed at Dave's' composure as he did not flinch at the 400Kilo Roo heading for him but I do believe that I experienced some leakage..........wait...nope, that was the rain.
Still raining.
We made it back to Lithgow so that I could refuel, reflect on the 500 Kilo Roo and what we'd be doing on the trip back, 140Ks to go.
The rest of the journey back was reasonably uneventful. I found that Packo's Tiger is equally at home in the water and wouldn't be surprised if it could part the Red Sea.
I was also equally surprised at Dave's ability to not only create a bow wave through the rain but I also witnessed an interesting phenomenon. The traffic seemed to slow all around him allowing him to get through faster and even those in front of him tended to pull over the side. It made it more interesting when this traffic saw me following very closely by and so they decided to return to hogging the right lane immediately after me.
Just before Lawson, Packo disappeared into the mist, I guess familiarity of home turf allowed him faster travel, well led mate, thanks.
Dave and I managed some good steady speeds once we got off the mountain and hit the motorways. Dave and I parted ways at Padstow with me having a mere 5 K's left to go.
This was an almost 9 hour day in the saddle for me and spent almost 30 minutes under a hot shower to relax very sore muscles. The journey was awesome and The jacket I got from Pockey?........absolutely awesome, that was the only dry part on my body. There is one tragedy for me from this trip.....My waterproof Scala Rider Bluetooth, is not waterproof and is now totally dead, I guess that Scala's idea of waterproof does not include spending so many hours in the saddle at high speeds. The wife now understands why I couldn't call her. The second part of the tragedy is that I did not get to finish listening to the Phil Collins discography.....bugger.
Still Raining.
Thanks guys for an awesome trip.
Till next time
Ruben
