Lavers Hill Sunday 29th
November, 2009
The weather forecast for Sunday was not looking good with rain, rain and more rain being predicted. However, as it had been raining hard all night I thought that there couldn't be much water left up in the skies. So at 9am when the rain finally eased I convinced myself I had outwitted the weather and that I was in for a dry day.
The skies were still very dark when I arrived at the Shell servo and I was greeted by Ron and Tony. While I was fuelling up Misho arrived with Pina as pillion followed by Ivan and Ha.
As we departed the Shell Westgate the skies opened up and what a downpour it was; a drought breaker, the rain so heavy it was like riding into a fog. I thought I was well prepared wearing all my best waterproofs but they all proved useless against the sheer volume of water and wind we were up against. I was not having fun and considered pulling out of the ride, but I was the rear rider, I had to persevere.
By the time we arrived at Moriac for morning tea I was feeling damp all over but not as damp as some. Poor Ha. She wasn't wearing waterproofs and her leather jacket was waterlogged. As experienced bike riders know, once leather is waterlogged, the wind turns it into an evaporative cooler and you get chilled very quickly. Her solution was to buy the Sunday Age and stuff wads of newspaper down her pants, arms and abdomen.
After we all drank a latte
to warm up, Ron led on with Clifford who had joined us, in tow. The rain also
rejoined us and it never stopped till we reached Lavers Hill. Along the way, at
the top of the Otways, Ron turned off the
I was cold, soaked and miserable by
this stage and quickly stripped off all my wet layers. I was lucky I
had a dry shirt to put on. Ha was not so fortunate. She was colder and more
miserable than me and she announced that she could travel no further. When
she stripped off you could read the imprint of the Sunday Age on her arms
just as if she had full sleeve tattoos. She asked the roadhouse
proprietor to phone the RACV and report that her bike was
malfunctioning thinking that they would come and pick it up and transport her
and her bike back to
While all this was happening the skies started to clear up, the sun poked its head out of the clouds and the chill in the air disappeared. Our riding gear was mainly dry thanks to the proprietor putting it in his drying rack. We were warm again thanks to sitting in front of the heater for the duration of the lunch break. Cliff offered Ha his wet weather suit which she accepted and, after a bit of convincing, she agreed to join us for the ride home.
The afternoon was the total opposite to the
morning with the roads mainly dry, the sun out and the temperature much warmer.
We scooted through to
Everyone rode well and Ha was in fine form in the afternoon riding the G.O.R with a vengeance.
Thanks Ron for the interesting ride and I look forward to riding Turton’s Track in the dry.
Rob Langer