Inverloch, Gippsland - Sunday 31^st March 2002 (Easter Sunday)

Honda CBR929 Ben Warden (lead) BMW R1150Gs Rob Langer

Honda CBR929 Pete Weyermayr Suzuki TL1000S Dave Skitt (from Drouin)

Honda CBR919 Ian Payne (rear 2/3 ) Suzuki GSXR1000 Ray Walker

Honda CBR919 Liz Oliver Suzuki GSXR1000 Alex Lau 1^st ride

Honda CBR600 Di Welsford (rear 1/3) Kawasaki ZX9 Rhys Williams

Yamaha R1 Dave Ward Ducati Monster Bronwyn Manifold

Triumph TT600 Norman 1^st ride Honda VFR800 Jean-Yves Avenard 1^st ride

Suzuki TL1000R Darryn Webster Yamaha R1 Sebastian Tissier 1^st ride

Suzuki GSXR750 Clint Vertigan 17 bikes, 17 people

Yarra Glen – Healesville – Powelltown – Neerim South – Jindivick – Drouin (approx. 120 km)

The opportunity to sleep-in on the Monday combined with a pearler of a day saw a great turnout at Yarra Glen, including the return of our newlyweds, Liz and Pete! One of the first timers (Alex) said he’d been there since 9 am because he forgot to turn his clock back. It seems every year there’s at least one person who gets caught out. We had another first-timer, Norman, who seemed a little nervous and inexperienced so I offered to start as rear rider. We headed towards Healesville with another ride starting to get mixed up in ours. Thank goodness we ended up getting ahead of them as it was getting a little interesting with 2 corner-marking systems running.

We crossed Healesville and headed across to the Warbie Highway as per usual, with a little difference this time – I noticed our leader and Club Captain talking to a cop next to an unmarked Subaru 4WD. Having no leader, we all stopped at the Highway and decided to proceed to Yarra Junction and wait for them there. No point hanging around too close to the action! On their arrival we found out Ben had just received a notice to replace his tyres within 7 days, and Ray had also received the notice for his rear tyre, along with an infringement notice for having the view of his number plate obstructed….pretty lucky considering they also overtook the cop car over the speed limit, but unlucky at the same time as the cop was actually on his way to his niece’s to deliver easter eggs and normally wouldn’t patrol this road….bugger!

We then headed up the Powelltown road. I gather everyone else had a blast up this road, but I wouldn’t really know as it was a rather slow ride up it for me as I followed our first-timer Norman. I was a bit concerned at one stage when a faster bike overtook him and overcooked it in a corner and ran into the gravel. Norman seemed to start heading over to the left too and I was little worried target-fixation was kicking in, but to his credit, he straightened up and continued cruising through incident free. Nice to see.

More good roads through Neerim and Jindivick to Drouin for a morning tea and fuel stop just after midday. I came across a rather interesting phenomena here….a kiwi without his kiwi accent! I discovered Dave Skitt was another Kiwi in our Club, and, noticing his lack of accent, I gave him my quick Kiwi-test: pronounce “excellent”. He did so with perfect pronunciation rather than the giveaway “ixcillent”. It appears a leopard can change its spots, or rather a Kiwi can change its speech! Hang in there Liz and Pete (and Ron, and Trevor etc etc!) – we’ll make ockas of ya yet!

Drouin – Poowong – Loch – Wonthaggi – Inverloch (lunch) (approx 120km)

With Ian as a new rear rider due his sore shoulder/neck flaring up, we hit the Gippy Twisties. With such a variety of riders there was always at least one person around to ride with and I had a ball….but I did learn that there was a particular freight train out today which consisted of Ray Walker, Dave Ward, Clint Vertigan and Darren Webster. The first time Ray overtook me it scared the living daylights out of me. I realised the others were close behind so moved over and put my leg out to signal them to overtake – just as Dave Ward came flying by. I think I came a bit close to actually kicking him off the bike….sorry Bron! After that incident, if one of them overtook I’d just move over until the freight-train had passed.

We headed down to Wonthaggi then followed a beautiful little twisty coastal road through Cape Paterson to Inverloch where we stopped for fuel (making a young attendant very flustered!) and lunch at a lovely little café. There were Easter holiday-makers everywhere and we parked all over Inverloch, then found a somewhere to eat. It was here I discovered what a multi-cultural ride we had today, not only our 3 kiwi’s – but we had a couple of French guys along too. Jean (I forget his whole name…something unusual which isn’t easy to remember!) (Jean–Yves Avenard ...Ed.) told me he and Sebastian had come along on a previous Club ride but found it a little fast. But they were really enjoying the pace today. They probably said a lot more but I don’t remember what. I was too busy focusing on the beautiful French accent…just kidding! Actually I should have asked how they pronounce “ixcillent”….sorry, I’ve changed the subject…back to the ride.

Inverloch – Kongwak – Korumburra – Arawata – Dumbalk – Mirboo North (approx 120km)

After a really enjoyable lunch out in the sunshine, we headed north through Korumburra, across to Arawata and on to that damned gravel road that catches me out every time. I was riding along behind Alex when all of a sudden gravel flew up from his rear tyre and he jumped on the brakes, but luckily released them quickly enough. This gave me a little warning of the first section of gravel and I managed to get through it shiny-side-up. After a while I found myself on sealed road again so I accelerated thinking “wahoo, tar again….shite….I’m on gravel again”. (There is 100 metres of bitumen outside a house in the middle of the three kilometer section of gravel road. ..Ed.) It seems most people had the same thing happen to them, so next time you’re down Gippsland way, remember not to accelerate when you finish the first gravel section!

Apart from that, the roads were fantastic: a little gravel here and there, a little scare here and there, but there were no mishaps and no breakdowns. Actually I lie, there was one accident. Gippsland’s cat population has been decreased by one. Poor Bron ran over a cat in one of the towns as it ran under her wheel leaving her no time to avoid it. The owner said not to worry and that the cat was as old as Methusela and always ran out on the road, but it still would have been pretty horrible hitting it.

I think we must have put a serious dent also in the population of little white butterflies. They were everywhere, including splattered all over our visors and bikes.

Mirboo North – Thorpdale – Trafalgar – Yarragon – Lardner – Drouin (approx 120km)

It was rather late in the afternoon when we reached Mirboo North for arvo tea and the sun was getting low in the sky so Ben decided to cut the ride short and head straight back to Drouin rather than returning via Powelltown. We took time out though in Mirboo North for another drink, a servo visit and cleaning those darned bugs off the visor again. By this time it was getting very difficult to see when you were facing the sun and half the time you had to enter a corner and hope it continued the way you thought it did. Every now and then I’d lose sight completely and have to brake and hope no-one was too close behind me. I noticed the freight-train was no longer passing me as everyone was having the same difficulty with the sun, so we felt our way to Drouin to break-up. By this stage most of us were exhausted but some were buzzing to go. Rob Langer was looking for someone to do more twisties with, and Ray went looking for Rob when he heard but was a little too late. Also Liz and Pete headed back to Noojee for more twisties, and Jean, who had been complaining of being fed up before Mirboo North, was now not wanting the ride to end. Most of us however headed onto the Princes Freeway and squinted at the tail lights ahead for the next 90 km. I followed Clint north from here and have never been so glad to turn north and into bushy areas where I could finally see the road again!

It was almost 7 pm when I finally got home to a dog that was ready to eat the lino off the kitchen floor. I was exhausted but must say I had a fantastic day (made all the better by the fact I knew I could sleep in on Monday, well a little anyway…I went riding again!) and from what I heard it seemed everyone else did too. Thanks Ben for leading, thanks Ian for patiently being rear rider. Liz and Pete – we’ll have to start training you for the write-up for the next Gippy ride!

Di Welsford (Honda CBR 600)