My Adventure Story
A combined effort - Movies Saturday afternoon and a dirt ride Sunday. From the Mexicans (Sam & Paul) !
Toddled off from home at a respectable hour and met Sam about 11:30, bid Panda (the dog) farewell and hurtled (respectfully) up to the Gold Coast and onto Les's place at Yatala, to experience his hospitality once again. Thanks Les.
As the movies progressed and we watched Stone and others, I remembered that there has never been a really good bike movie, until Wild Hogs commenced. It is still worth a good laugh and although the Yanks do not do comedy well, this is a damn fine attempt!
We dined on barbequed delectable's, drank whiskey and ate nibblys in a relaxed atmosphere amongst friends. The reason to join a group - like minded lunatics with a light hearted view on life.
Things began to slow down as the witching hour approached and we wandered off to our stretchers to listen to the rain on the tin roof nearly all night and wonder what tomorrow would bring.
Up at 5 and ready to get on the road although we didn't expect Sam's steed to be temperamental. We pushed, shoved and cursed, but there was no way she was gonna start, until we lassoed her and dragged her down the driveway, and eventually she coughed into life. We were on our way!
We were going to meet up with Vange at Nudgee Beach, but we appeared to have allowed her too much time to contemplate the reasonably cool morning and the inevitable wet dirt roads. Needless to say Vange must have found the warm bedclothes enticing, as did others of Dave's mates, who made varying apologies for not coming. I mean, found their bedclothes enticing, not Vange's!
Sam and I selected an elevated cruising speed to reach Kilcoy at just before 08:00, but our need for coffee after the two and half hour run north from Les's, meant a delay to the start - sorry Dave! Sam and I met Brad for the first time and Bruce was there and surprise, so too was Murray. Excellent to catch up with everyone.
We had ridden no more than 2 km out of Kilcoy, when Sam's left pannier decided to throw a tantrum and hurled itself onto the pavement and did cartwheels down the road for awhile! Brad and I watched the others disappear into the yonder, without a clue of what had happened. With Sam's pannier gaffer-tapped to Brad's top box, we also took off in pursuit and met them again 25 kms later. Sam had a puzzled look on his face when we showed him that his pannier had deserted him.
Dave had selected a nice easy route along the upper reaches of the Brisbane River valley and we found that the weather Bureau had been right in telling us what had happened. 40mm of rain the night before on the eastern side of the range and 2mm on the western side.
Brad did exceptionally well to keep his steed upright on the mud with Conti Attacks (so called dual-purpose tyres) fitted front and rear! We wound our way up the valley, then along the ridge and down the other side. The pace had decidedly picked up now things were dryer. We traced towards the south side of Kingaroy and past Bethany - Sir Joh's old residence.
Dave must have tired of the 'Commodore' road and as only he could, found a section that the local council had ripped up the black top and compacted the red clay below, just before last night's rain. The sheen of the wet red clay reminded me of a mirror and we all, almost made it through. There was only one who shall remain nameless and who completed a close-up ground inspection, or do you call that "an unscheduled stepping-off" Bruce?
Further west we raced, before swinging to the south in a long arc and then began to head back east towards Cooroy for a late lunch. At some other small village Justin arrived from the opposite direction and he was making the best of his leave pass; a leave pass not from Barb, but from work.
Shortly after we all arrived in Cooroy sampled the village's finest repast for lunch; a mystery bag wasn't it Dave? Sadly Sam and I had to call it a day and head back south for the six hours to home. Gotta love that M1 for a little fun among the tin-tops on 5 lanes of traffic. Down past the Goldy and up over St Helena's from Byron and into Alstonville. Sam had offered me a roof for the night, that was perhaps not graciously accepted, but greatly appreciated.
We sat on the couch with a happy Panda and ate some hastily prepared Cajun cheese toasted sandwiches, washed down by a bit of port and followed by an early night for two knackered little vegemites!
840 k's completed for the day! Home tomorrow and to work for me - yuk,what a thought - no more riding this weekend! Another great experience of friendship and thanks to all.
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