Varooom varoom indeed.
To be on the safe side (and avoid bumper to bumper metro traffic) I took the Ring Road out to the M31 and cruised for the rest of the afternoon all the way up to Albury (VIC-NSW border). As far as the Hume Fwy goes, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, but in true Georgia style there were highlights including a bee that somehow made it into my helmet (#&*@!), and running out of fuel…
thanks to the caring Chiltern strangers who found me contemplating how to most gracefully push the bike 10KM to the next town, and came to the rescue with 2L of unleaded!
I finally got to Albury by nightfall (note for next road trip - this town is now bypassed! Get off at Wodonga) where I stayed overnight, and caught up with a friend who rode down from Sydney to meet up and escort me via the Snowy Mountains back to the big smoke. The next morning, again blessed with gorgeous weather, we were off down the B400 – yay for corners!
I really started to get back into the swing of things as a near-empty Lake Hume and Khancoban town went flying by, and found my ‘zone’ on Alpine Way, giving my mate Jason (Spewzuki GSX-R1000) a run for his money through Kosciuszko up to Threadbo Village. By Jindabyne my hynie was killing me so we stopped for lunch – de-ja-vous struck again with another bee and near-empty Lake Jindabyne (anyone who thinks we don’t have a water problem in this country just needs to take this route to ‘get it’)! For the rest of the arvo we cruised up to Canberra (how nice is the scenery?!) and by nightfall we were on the Federal Hwy and back to Sydney.
Monday morning I waited until after 9am before leaving to avoid what traffic I could, and really enjoyed the sleep in - being out of practice I discovered muscles in my body I forgot I had! Jason recommended Putty Road so the first half of the morning was spent giggling under my helmet at travelling through numerous ETAG check-points with no number plate, and getting lost trying to find Windsor. The second half of the morning was spent trying to work out if I loved or hated Putty Road. Don’t get me wrong, again the scenery and corners were great, but there was heaps of trucks, potholes and consequential road works, making it a bit of a frustrating flirt – especially when compared to yesterday’s route.
Between Singleton and Muswellbrook I saw the biggest quarries and spare tyres that I’ve ever seen in my life, Tamworth I saw the biggest golden guitar, and by Armidale I needed the biggest beer – I crashed in a motel and slept like a log for 10 hours
Day 4, the final leg, and I thought I’d get off the New England Hwy in search of some more curvaceous road home. What a mistake that was! Instead of heading due North, I hung a right and headed on route 79 for Wollomomi and Ebor – a back way to Grafton. Again, absolutely stunning scenery – I think I counted four National Parks – but boy was the road CRAP! I couldn’t go faster than 50km in fear of hitting one of the plentiful foot-deep potholes or cattle that had strayed onto the road, which was such a shame as there were no traffic in sight and corners you’d only dream of.
A few hours later I made it in one piece to Grafton and gave up the idea of continuing on another secondary back road, so I hit the Pacific Highway to Woodburn, then hung a left to go to Lismore and up to Nimbin and Uki where I met my girl for a picnic and cruisy ride/drive home (was sooo glad to get rid of the backpack for the last 100km!). All in all, I couldn’t have had better weather, views or bike to do 4 states in 4 days.
Yesterday I got the bike registered, put on a new tyre (Michelin Pilot Road) on the rear, purchased a Seat Cowl, and headed down to Northern NSW for another burn. And as promised, here are a few very quick pics of her (just taken - will do some better ones later on)...
(er... is it wrong that I no longer want to go overseas for a holiday in a weeks time?)
Have to say as well, I've fallen for the black - think I love it even more than my first red one!
