Santa’s Sleigh

Hmm, five days book-ended by two weekends - the happy calendar of Xmas-New Year of ‘04-‘05.

Forecast’s a bit dismal though, so I put off the start. But time's running out, so by Wed it's on with full water proof gear and by the time Kinglake West rolls around, it's all needed. Ah well, has to rain sometime.

A cappuccino in Yea restores the spirits and by Yarck the clouds are breaking up. From then on it's bore up the road to Mansfield where the cappuccino demands a quick exit. And anticipation mounts - the road to Whitfield, a delightful mix of the tight turn and the high speed twisty, where a smidgen's change in lean makes a critical poofteenth's change in radius. Sweet!

Then it's a hard choice: shorten the trip and take in some dirt to Myrtleford, or the reverse. Well, it's a new chain, still with the dull lustre of its first lube, so I head the long way round and enjoy the reward of an early lunch at the King River cafe. Great food and a fine selection of local wines. Then it's swing East and South into the valleys of the Great Divide. The destination is Mt Beauty but there's plenty of time for my first two-wheeled sortie up to Mt Buffalo.

I forgot to screw up the spring preload to compensate for the luggage but the beast handles the turns just fine. The even sweepers at the top were just made for turn addicts and the hero pegs get their first taste of the black stuff.

This far north, the sun is out with a vengeance and by the time I roll into Mt Beauty it's off with the wet weather gear and on with the wet gear. One jump into the Kiewa and one jump straight out again, wooh, is that water cold! With the bumper winter just gone, the hydro storages are full so the water you get is the water that yesterday was a k. or so up the mountain.

With my tent pitched, I get to look around a bit. And learn that Nietzsche was wrong - schadenfreude isn't taking pleasure in the misfortune of others, it's taking pleasure in watching the efforts of a couple pitch their new tent for the first time. You can learn a lot about their relationship in how they go about this. Especially if there are children, and it's the end of a long day. Poles that look the same but aren’t; instructions in Chinglish; pegs that penetrate the grass but not much else. Some are laughing; others are issuing provocations through gritted teeth.

Day two is day trip day. A slow cappuccino in the Bakery while waiting for the sun to burn off the dew and it's start with the Tawonga Gap TT and then off to Harrietville. Stop to purge the cap and yarn briefly with a couple of young guys on bigger bikes than mine. We're all off up the mountain so I tail them for the first few bends before deciding that grey hair really does equal experience and burn them off on the straights.

But it's a b*tch of a road … impossible to get a rhythm going. All storm, fling and brake. Closer to the top the turns open out but the grit from the bumper season's snow clearing is still on the road and it’s a greasy feeling that it imparts to the alpine experience. Then it's down past the empty chalets, the vacuous architecture of Dinner Plain, and another set of high speed bends that make you know in your bones that God created mountains for motorcyclists.

Before Omeo a turn to the south will take you out on a road via Cassilis to Swifts Creek that merits a D in the Victorian rating system - D for desperate that is. But it's a worthwhile variant on the normal. At the Swifts Creek caravan park (book your spot at the supermarket) a tough little kid on a pushy rides up and down the river bank. He comes up and says that it's a nice bike I've got and he wants one too. What kind? “A peewee”, he says, “cos he's only small.”

I head north to Omeo and continue without stopping. Out to Angler's Rest. And for the third time, this sublime piece of road ties me up in knots. First time it was cow pats - the long paddock up here is bitumen folks. Pick your line through the round markers. The second time it was road works - courtesy of the '02 fires and the subsequent erosion. And this time it's the same erosion. The gutters all fill with sand and have to be cleared. All the inside turns have sand across them. The trees last year looked like black sticks covered with green fungus. Now they look like consumptives wearing green velvet smoking jackets. There's no grass under them; just the pink and beige of rock and sand. It's awesome; how long will it take you wonder to return to normal, or is there no normal any more?

The Blue Duck at Angler’s Rest passes too early for a stop for their excellent grub so it's on to the dirt and up the spurs to the Bogong High Plains. High beam on cos somehow the four-wheel drivers seem to think they own these roads, and anyway, their dust hangs heavy in the air and the extra lights are needed to remind God why he created mountains.

Up top it's walker territory, so I slow down in the interests of PR. And then from Falls Creek it's full on. The sweetest stretch of mountain road. Sightlines through the bends, rhythm, ballet ... hang off the side, up, then off the other side, over and over. I'm a believer. There's a convoy of cages - no problem. Look across the gully they're creeping around (remember, consumptive trees) and overtake the lot through the inside of the bend.

Back in Mt Beauty. Stoked. A couple of beers. The adrenaline evaporates and I crash. At 0 km/h, lying in the sun.

Day three and it's out of this valley. Figure on Corryong and the Alpine Way, and by 12 I've made Jindabyne. The one and only chicken fillet burger and chips at Serges. On the way, I see the power stations whose pipelines my father helped build, and traversed some of the road he made as one of his first jobs as an immigrant. If he were still alive, I'd tell him the rhythm of the curves are unAustralian and perplexing for a bikie. And so they are: built for the low loaders carrying machinery and materials to the new power stations, vehicles that couldn't make tight curves so the road cuts through the spurs creating canyons that strike fear in the heart of a rider - meet a wide-running cage in one of these and there's nowhere to go.

At Jindy I have to make the choice I'd been putting off - which way back to Vic? There are three or four options. Luckily there's a Fireblade parked outside the shops and its owner marked by a colour matched helmet sitting outside of Serges. Is he a local? Is he what! Two conversations and twenty minutes later I'm convinced to head for Bombala, Wyndham and Pambula - a fine forest road down to the seaside town is the persuader, so out I head across the Monaro.

Now this part is bleak, high altitude plain. High speed too. Boring in a way. Did I say bleak? So I'm getting complacent, and then the road turns to dirt. 28k of it according to the roadside warning. This stretch is marked in deep black on my map. A 'main road'. Oh well, so much for complacency. And my new chain turns to beige. Finally Bombala heaves into view - yet another timber town, yet another fill. I force myself to stop and suck on a cigar. A break is supposed to be good for you. The dust proves worth it though as the road now drops winding to the coastal plain through sweet-smelling forest. A typical NSW road mind - broken chain link fencing (no armco please!), swapping from baby-bottom smooth twin lane to one-way plank bridges in the space of one blind corner, exiting in a lacework of barely joined potholes.

The thin air of the plains has given way to a warm and salty alternative as the coastal bends link one to the other. Eden sounds like a good spot for a god-fearing rider to stop, but it's too early in the day, and anyway it's New Year's eve and camping in a place devoted to having a good time is an invitation to a sleepless night.

Then it's back into the forest as our number one road swings westerly back to my home state. Up to this point, speedo error could perhaps have been offered to an officer of the law as an innocent excuse, but in the money-hungry state of Mexico the rider starts to think about how many good cigars $200 could buy.

The turnoff to Mallacoota is offered, and a finer public camp ground could not be found, not to mention a ride in to restart a flagging heart. But the camp ground would be full, in both senses, so it's on to Orbost where I think, cleverly I believe, that a town off the main road would have a quiet spot to pitch a tent. Cleverly, the town has sited this spot at the intersection of the highway and another main road, so it's left to nine hours and 700k of riding to ensure narcosis. And half a bottle of Rutherglen Tokay. Which it does. Ah, that is to say they do. Or did. Whatever.

In the morning, I learn that I have camped just beside a billabong (= Koorie for dead water), which is one of the three places in Oz with the smallest flowering plant - a duckweed with a flower less than a mm across.

Orbost is another timber town seeking, with only half a heart, to reinvent itself. But this has resulted in some fine woodwork. Stop and take a look, help the poor buggers cope with the inevitable. Actually, if I'd had a boot I would have brought some home.

And there's another choice to make. I have a day in hand. It's seven am and I've had my two cuppas. I could head for Bruthen and north again up the GAR (aka Great Arseholes' Rd, so named after all the caravaners) or do something else. Two minutes out on Number 1 and my aching throttle wrist settles it for me. Aim straight for Lakes Entrance and a cooked breakfast. It's early and my reflexes are just good enough to miss the grey wallaby that's stopped on the shoulder of the road, just to hop in front of me as I bear down on him. Wake up call. For me. Not sure what lesson he took from the experience.

At the Entrance, the foreshore is littered with bodies in sleeping bags, motionless, not yet ready to experience that remorse that convinces you that you'll never ever do this again, till tomorrow anyway. There are two police cars patrolling the main drag. My breakfast contains exactly double the eggs, toast, tomato and bacon that I'd ordered. I didn't look that bad did I? The papers were still full of the news of the tsunami. I looked across at the inlet. How would I go gripping onto a hinge-torn door swept out, then in, then out, ‘til what? I left my breakfast to the flies.

I walked across the road to the bike, fiddled in the ear plugs and looked around for my helmet. Left it back on the table.

Then the endless straight kilometres heading west. And learn yet again that it isn’t wide, safe, straight roads that are safe; it’s the narrow, twisting, rough, yes even NSW style, roads that are safe. Because they demand your attention, exercise your skill, involve you. Highways send people to sleep – even the Government knows this. They put up signs along them. Every ten or fifteen minutes one will tell you that you’re risking falling asleep and you should pull over. At that rate it would have taken me 10 months to get back to the big smoke.

So I turn off at Moe and negotiate more turns than a merry-go-round to get to the Walhalla road. Then left for Noojee, on to Yarra Junction and Yarra Glen. By the first turn, fine rain is slowly dissolving the bug juice on my visor and smearing the road as well, so progress is slow, but, by heaven, I’m awake. Bug-eyed, you might say. And my throttle wrist no longer hurts and I’m kicking myself for having wimped on the GAR. I could be back in Mt Beauty enjoying another evening’s schadenfreude.

Ern Reeders (TDM 850, aka Te Deum (‘thou God’)