Not A Mid Life Crisis, Just An Extended Tour (Part XIV) - The Sydney Contingent Arrive

 

DAY 19

It was bit of a rowdy night in the pub below me. Plenty of hoo haa until the early hours. A bike left the pub before sun up and I could hear it for miles and miles in the still night air. I thought "he's brave" , what with all the wildlife active at night around here.

I got up at sun-up myself, as the lads would be getting off the boat pretty early and I had said I would meet them in Railton as they made their way to Deloraine. I didn't want to miss them so the plan was to get there early and wait.

The valley to the west of Mole Creek was full of fog - which didn't really show up in my photos....

It looked pretty spectacular as I approached the hills on Union Bridge road.

I had plugged Railton into the GPS and decided to just let it take me wherever it wanted. I was pleasantly surprised when it turned of the road onto a logging road! Cool. It took me via various back roads that I hadn't seen, nor would have found on my own. 

Before I knew it I was rolling into Railton. I thought I would roll through town, then turn around and wait at the servo but just as I crossed the railway line near the pub a black Africa Twin came past, going the other way. I immediately recognised Steve's Shoei helmet, then Doug, Stu, Dave, Scotty, Craig and Geoffrey as they rolled by. I chucked a quick U-Turn and I tacked onto the back of the line.

We motored across to Deloraine where we headed straight to the pub. Greetings were exchanged and it was great to see some familiar faces. I was looking forward to riding with the guys as they are all excellent pilots and good blokes too.

A quick plan was hatched to head up the A5 to Miena. I led to the turnoff, then waved the Tuonos and Multistradas etc past to let them stretch their legs. I must say, there was a heap of road kill on the climb which was interesting as there had been NONE yesterday afternoon. It was all fresh, overnight!

I had told the lads to stop at the lookout which was around a bend, just after Pine Lake. they all managed to stop in time and we enjoyed soaking up some sun and sharing how awesome that climb had been.

We rode along the edge of the lake into Miena, where we were supposed to stop for some fuel. The fast guys at the front kept blasting along and once we got to the Poatina turn off we stopped and waited. They would be back.....

Yeah, so we waited...and waited.... until it was obvious they wouldn't be back. Oh well, they knew the way back to the pub....

So we tootled along until the drop off the Tier into Poatina. I had been up here twice in the last few weeks but both times I had been in cloud. I was blown away by the view today, as was Steve. We stopped to look at the view and he asked if there was a good place to get some photos from. I said I didn't know as I hadn't seen it like this! Just as we were about to ride off I did my shoulder check and spotted a sign on the other side of the road pointing up a dirt track, saying "LOOKOUT"!

And what a lookout! This was the view from the car park at the Poatina Power Station Headrace Tunnel. We could see Ben Lomond and Mt Barrow in the distance to the east. I mentioned to Steve that it was only about 70 kilometres over there....and it was a nice day....

Dropping off the Tier was the usual twisty fun. We did a quick lap around Poatina to give the lads a look at it, then continued down the hill. We stopped to check out the water channel that exited the power station. There was a wall of water flowing down it at a pretty decent clip, flowing over low weirs which I guess help to slow it down.

Geoffrey.

Weir on the channel.

Chillertek or Steve or Little Bro'.

We continued into Longford via another back road through Cressy. The worms were biting by now so we stopped in at the Longford Bakery for the first of many...many pies. They were pretty good but the bakery could do with some more seating out the front. Grown men lounging in the street while they push meat pies into their faces is probably a crime somewhere. (no photos to protect the weak of stomach)

Here, Steve announced that he would like to go ride Jacobs Ladder as it was such a nice day. Geoff and Scotty said they would just mosey back to Deloraine, so we split off. Leading Steve through Evandale I missed the White Hills turn and so we had a bit of an unnecessary tour of the southern bit of Launceston before I found Blessington road and we made it to the base of the climb up Ben Lomond. 😕

The road up is excellent dirt but Steve took it pretty easy as it was his first time on dirt on his new Africa Twin. We stopped at the bottom of Jacobs Ladder for some photos. It was still an absolutely still, clear day. A total contrast to the last time I was up here.

We made the climb and I have to say it was MUCH slipperier than last time I did it in the wet. The moisture helped keep the gravel together then, so it was like riding a sealed road but today it was loose gravel and wheelspin city. 😁

But we made it. 

It was 3pm now and we had about 90km to do to get back to Deloraine so we headed off. I followed Steve down the Ladder and he was taking it gingerley, just in case.

Once onto the more open dirt he began to experiment with standing up and could see how much more control he had over the bike in the standing versus sitting position.

Once on the sealed road we made a bee line for "home". The great thing with the Twins is that they have big fuel tanks and they only sip that fuel so we didn't need to fuel up all day.

Back at the pub we were pleased to see that Geoff and Scotty had made it and were not lost somewhere. Joffrey has a tendency to become unsure of his position from time to time...😂

A great night of beers, good food, bench racing and piss taking ensued. For another take (and better photos) Steve's blog post of this day is here.

We covered 430 kilometres today with 10% of that being dirt. (I love the Ride With GPS mapping system as it differentiates between sealed and dirt/gravel roads) Ben Lomond is the pin striped section on the elevation profile.

To be continued.......