My mate Heffy (formerly known ad JP and soon to be known as Rideby, explanation later) and I were heading south today on the first part of our journey to the Victorian State HOG Rally in Mornington Victoria. This time rather than bolting straight down the boring old Hume Highway we decided to go via the south coast where we were meeting up with a group from another HOG Chapter and stopping overnight in Eden. Another member of our Chapter, let's call him SG, decided to join us as well.
We met up about 6.30am at a local service station who had sadly run out of Premium Unleaded, so with half a topup and enough fuel on board to get to Sydney we were quickly off and out on to the Freeway. We stopped at Thornleigh and juiced up on some BP Ultimate, had a quick chat about the next part of the route, M2, M7, Freeway and left at the Picton turnoff to head towards Wollongong. The weather predictions were average, but at that time we hadn't encountered anything of concern.
Once we got onto the Princes Hwy the Heffster took the lead with an instruction to keep an eye out for the members of the other Chapter who were stopping for morning tea in Berry. The ride improved as we left the dual lane carrigeways and the Hwy began to shrink in size and quality and the k's to Berry were eaten up and my hunger hunger was building after about 300k's on the road that morning.
I was very glad to spot the Harley's of the other Chapter parked on the side of the road and to see their obvious vest in a group in a cafe across the road. Sadly though Heffy, seeing the bikes and mysteriously coming to the conclusion it wasn't what he expected, kept going... straight past them. Heffy has a growing history of missing turns and stops, I'm suggesting Rideby might be a more suitable handle for him.
About a K down the road I pulled over, Heffy saw me and stopped two. After a short discussion we decided that turning back was too much trouble so we kept going to Nowra and stopped at Macas for some quality home cooked burgers (sic).
A couple of quick texts set the next potential meeting point with the other group was Ulladulla with full bellies and empty bladders we headed in that direction. Fortunately this time one of the other group, not prepared to have us ride by again, walked out onto the road and pointed us in. SG and I had already seen them, not sure about Heffy.
We fuelled up at Ulladulla with no clear idea about a lunch destination, the main thing of note at that point was the dark sky ahead. A little damp we decided to stop at Mogo for lunch and to provide an opportunity for some to put on wet weather gear if they wished. I wasn't giving up on dry weather quite yet!
The rest of the ride to Eden was really quite nice and despite some additional rain patches that didn't justify wearing plastic was enjoyed by all. We arrived in Eden a little wet, with more rain about but were soon booked into the Twofold Bay Motor Inn (mentioned because it's really quite nice, good value and the managers let you park motorcycles in a secure garage!). Our accommodation was also in the central part of town, just down from a pub and directly opposite the Fisherman's Club. With some dust whetted in the former and a fantastic meal at the latter, and further dust whetting a good night's sleep was in order with an 8.30am departure on the cards tomorrow morning.
All in all it was a great day's ride, a decent 650k's covered, incident free and with good people!