Getting to the International Festival of Speed, 1st 4 days away

Home to Coonalpyn

I left Adelaide on a pretty warm day with a easy 180km ride to my mates place just out of my old home town , Coonalpyn





The town has been dying since the 80's (look what happens when I move out in 1981  ) but has recently had a lot of pride returned to the town with these awesome murals painted on the silos, businesses have reported massive increases in turnover since they went up, for the 1st time in over 20 years a new business, a cafe has opened and is doing really well



Tea at the pub that night with a couple of old school mates and my Uncle and Auntie (she the local councillor that kick started the art projects but refuses to take too much credit)

Coonalpyn to Benalla



Just over 630 km which started out in nice mild conditions heading along the Dukes Highway, not long after entering Victoria and the road changing name to the Western Highway, down came the rain, I wasn't ready and just had cargos on, wet through in about 30 seconds and the temperature plummeted.
Just before Dimboola I'd managed to dry out, I pulled over to put my storm jacket on and the inner waterproof ling was peeling (I hadn't looked at it since last winter) so in a roadside bin with that. I didn't bother with wet weather pants but soon found I should have when down it came again.
Once again the sun came out and I dried out, just before Minyip the weather was threatening again so I pulled over in town and swapped the cargos for my dryrider nordics (no liner in), the skies cleared and the sun came out and yep, I was getting baked, by Rushworth I had to get out of the pants so it was back on with the cargos.
Just out of Murchison and from seemingly no where, down came the rain again and once again, I was soaked through, I hit the Hume Hwy at Violet Town feeling pretty stuffed, normally I don't like freeways but this time I was  happy to have a break for the last stretch up to Benalla to meet up with madmax for the night.
Nice room at the Glider City Motel and a nice walk around town before we settled on a pub for tea.

Day 3 and onwards to come .......................

Day 3, Benalla to Cowra



The day started out planned as a easy ride to Wagga (originally madmax was considering leaving home that morning from Melbourne)
We left rugged up with all our wet weather gear on, checked a bike shop on the way out of Benalla then rode into Wangaratta to see if I could get a new storm jacket, no luck at either.
Bryan was having issues with his GPS which is a lot newer than mine and gives you a lot more options to plot the days ride (mine has destination and 1 other via point)
We'd planned on taking back roads to Rutherglen but my old gps took us out onto the Hume, the weather was less than average so we just followed it's directions.
A few km out of Rutherglen we were following a couple of cars looking for somewhere to pass when the skies opened up, in a matter of seconds the cars in front were nearly impossible to see, the water was running over the road, lightening all around us and no where to even consider pulling over, within minutes I had water through my jacket zip, running down the back of my neck and my winter gloves were soaked through. Once we got into town we refuelled, and tried to shelter a bit at the servo but it was blowing in.
I set my GPS for Culcairn with Howlong as a via point. We got to Howlong without incident, it was still raining and the last thing we wanted to do was stop. The GPS sent us right, it's sent me on a few wild gooses chases in the past, I thought this was another one of those times so we headed left and ended up in Corowa (which sounded right), turned out we'd done over 1/2 hour of going in the complete wrong direction. In Corowa we pulled over and re sorted my GPS, followed that through a heap of minor roads, copped road works (I forgot to mention the roadworks the day before, must have stopped a dozen times and ridden on at least 5km of wet slippery dirt), water across the road (minor) and eventually ended up back on track in Culcairn.
From there we crossed the Olympic Hwy and Bryan took us through a route that Jimmy The Boy had recommended to him some time back. By lunch time we were in our intended destination, we decided with the shit weather we were copping we'd just push on and make the following day easier so off we went to Cowra, staying at the venue for the Cowra national meet a few years back. Coming into town we were in the rain, riding the same roads as all the stock trucks leaving the sale yards, that green water on the road doesn't have a pleasant odour and it was another week before I stopped smelling it on my jacket
Tea was at the local Serviceman's Club and the hair dryer in the room copped a hiding drying out gloves, boots etc (My old Rossi's went 6 hours in the rain before I felt any dampness, pretty happy with that)

No photos of this day, that was the last thing on our minds

Day 4 to come ........................................

With the threat of afternoon thunderstorms we got away nice and early, headed to a cafe recommended to us for breakfast to find it wasn't open yet, so it off to Maccas for breakfast and a coffee.



I'd forgotten to mention earlier, along with Bryan's GPS issues, he was also having head set issues and the dreaded tea bag filter playing up since before he rolled into Benalla on Monday. Apart from his bike's lack of grunt, the ride from Cowra to Bathurst was a uneventful ride, soon enough we rolled into the Mt Panorama race circuit and did the obligatory lapo or 2 of the circuit.







After that was done we headed into the National Motor Racing Museum for a look around



















Then it was back on the bikes for the ride into Sydney, a couple of quick stops in the Blue Mountains, one for the views,



one for lunch then on to our House at Oxley Park via Western Motorcycles for a much needed tea bag filter for Bryan's bike

Soon after Bryan had his tank back on, I was trying to give my bike a quick wash and in blew the mother of all storms, thunder, lightening, bucket loads of rain and hail that fell sideways, it was a good thing we got away early, I would have hated to have been stuck in that

Chook wrote:
I'd forgotten to mention earlier, along with Bryan's GPS issues, he was also having head set issues and the dreaded tea bag filter playing up since before he rolled into Benalla on Monday.

I should have left Mr Murphy at home instead of bringing him along for a ride.

GPS sorted
Bike Sorted
Headset, not sure what's going on there.

Great write up Chook

madmax wrote:

GPS sorted
Bike Sorted
Headset, not sure what's going on there.

BTW, feel fee to add anything I've missed

As much as I could have stayed in the museum longer, I'm glad we didn't. I could have had the tank off and pump out when that storm hit. That wouldn't have been pretty!

madmax wrote:As much as I could have stayed in the museum longer, I'm glad we didn't. I could have had the tank off and pump out when that storm hit. That wouldn't have been pretty!

Ditto, even worse, we could have stayed at Wagga like planned and been riding into Sydney while it was happening.

I dodged a 2nd bullet going into Brisbane, got wet but missed the big one by less than 12 hours

Chook wrote:

madmax wrote:As much as I could have stayed in the museum longer, I'm glad we didn't. I could have had the tank off and pump out when that storm hit. That wouldn't have been pretty!

Ditto, even worse, we could have stayed at Wagga like planned and been riding into Sydney while it was happening.

I dodged a 2nd bullet going into Brisbane, got wet but missed the big one by less than 12 hours

Not sure which is worse, riding in it or getting it into an open tank

We would have gotten the tank protected quick enough

Chook wrote:We would have gotten the tank protected quick enough

madmax wrote:

I should have left Mr Murphy at home

His law is one that needs changing more than most, yet you were such a law abiding citizen this trip

Chook wrote:

madmax wrote:

I should have left Mr Murphy at home

 

His law is one that needs changing more than most, yet you were such a law abiding citizen this trip

I was forced too