THE ANZAC DAY 2008 RUN

by Al

The plan to pack as much motorcycling as possible into my ANZAC Day public holiday was simple.

Get a half a dozen blokes together. Ride our motorcycles from Sydney to Singleton on the Putty Road along the backbone of the Great Dividing Range -- about 200km. Ride through the mountains to Gloucester and murder a steak at the Avon Valley Inn -- about 200km. Ride the Bucketts Way through the mountains down to the coast -- about 100km. Ride the coast road back home -- about 300km of mainly expressway, but that would be OK because we would be tired by then.

And damn the double demerits.

The route

It rained Monday to Thursday, but the forecast for Friday was for a clear day. For Sydney, at least. The forecast for the Hunter region, where we were going, was for rain. This affected different people in different ways.

It caused me to chuck my RJays Explorer rain pants and jacket into the rack bag before leaving the next day at 0700 on the old Yamaha XJ900.

It caused Bly, whose Ducati was parked outside my place when I exited the underground carpark, to come dressed in his DryRider rain suit.

It caused Cameron, whom we met forty minutes later next to his VFR 750 in the car park of the Ettamogah Pub at Rouse Hill, to wear his Draggin Oils jeans and to buy some crap called Sno-Seal from Paddy Palin's and rub it into his leather jacket to waterproof it.

And it caused three people to not be at the Ettamogah Pub car park. It appeared that their native hue of resolution was, like Hamlet's, sicklied o'er with the pale cast of care. Cameron read out an SMS from one of them. He was going 4-wheel-driving instead. He apologised for being gay.

We had a brief discussion.

"HOW many wheels?"

"Pillow biters."

"Handbag carriers."

"Let's roll."

We rolled. Gently. The NSW Government celebrates every long weekend by doubling the number of demerit points applied to one's driving licence for traffic offences. I'd passed two stopped Highway Patrol cars on the way to the Ettamogah.

Twenty minutes later we were just north of Wilberforce, where the Putty Road starts to get interesting. A Highway Patrol car passed us heading south, fast.

Five minutes later, a police paddy wagon passed us heading south.

The collective consciousness appeared to reason that there couldn't have been more than two police cars on the Putty Road at one time, and given that they were now behind us and headed the other way, maybe we should take heed of what Lady MacBeth said. The collective consciousness seemed to think that she had said "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly."

So we did it a little more quickly.

It hadn't rained yet, but the road surface was still quite wet from last time it did. It was clean, with no oil, because it had been steadily rained on for about four days. You can go quite fast on a surface like that if you're smooth and work on your line more than you work on how far you can tip it in.

And it's relaxing to ride like that on the first part of the Putty Road, because it's mainly long sweepers and you can stay in top gear and just roll on and off the throttle without having to do lots of gear changing and braking. There was a little bit of mud washed onto the road before Colo, and a metre or so of what looked like dead diamond python shortly after, but apart from that the surface was excellent, but wet.

I was in the lead about 60km out of Windsor. I closed in behind a white Toyota sedan, waiting for a time to pass. Cameron and Bly came up close behind me ready to follow. I checked out the road ahead of the Toyota. There was a body on the road, with crows on it. I decided not to pass right now -- the Toyota driver was probably going to move onto the right hand side of the road to miss the 'roo and I didn't want to be passing while he did it.

The crows rose, but the Toyota didn't change line. I realised what was going to happen, backed off and waved the guys back with my left hand. The Toyota passed over the 'roo but didn't clear it, and it exploded from under the rear bumper rolling, with tail and legs everywhere and what smelled like a burst gut.

I passed it on the right. Cameron passed it on the left. I don't know how Bly passed it, but it wasn't with much room to spare.

We stopped at the Halfway House for gas and coffee, admired their aviary and wondered at the psychopath in the Toyota. We agreed that, wet or not, we'd just had a fantastic ride. A motorist came over and told us that he'd just come from Singleton and the weather was fine there.

The road was still wet as Bly led us through the Ten Mile of legend where the road follows the twisting Darkey Creek before Singleton. A big feral cat lay dead on one of the corners, and Darkey Creek was full of brown water and running hard.

We couldn't find Quoll. The main street of Singleton was closed for an Anzac Day parade. We telephoned him and he found us once we'd told him which pub we were nearest to. And just as he pulled up on his 1000cc R80 Q-ship, it started to rain.

I swapped my leather jacked for my Explorer jacket. I didn't swap my leather pants for my Explorer rain pants, because we were in the main street of Singleton and I didn't want to scare the horses, women, children or law enforcement officers.

This, in retrospect, was a mistake.

It's your socks that get wet first as the water creeps in, then legs, and finally groin. But it was okay. Honest. The reason it was okay is that it was warm, and we had plenty to do navigating the potholed winding roads between Singleton and Dungog. No-one fell off, not even in the truck ruts on the couple of hundred metres of muddy clay where roadworks were ostensibly in progress.

The bridge was flooded at Dungog, but Quoll knew a way around. The service station on the main street was closed, but Quoll knew another one. We topped up our tanks.

spottedquoll about to mount up at the Dungog United servo

Bly (centre) showed off his DryRider wet patches while we set to work on reducing the Inn's beer stocks

The road is winding and eye-achingly scenic between Dungog and Stroud. The rain eased. The tight turns become sweepers heading north to Gloucester, and the countryside is still stunning. There were occasional patches of blue sky to the east, and we planned to turn east after Gloucester. Maybe we would get some dry tar on the spectacular Bucketts Way between Gloucester and Taree.

We stopped at the Avon Valley Inn. The air nimbly and sweetly recommended itself to our gentle senses, much like that around MacBeth's castle did to Duncan; but more so because we could smell beer. The pub was full. Imagine that: an Australian pub, full on Anzac Day.

"Serving wench!", I said to the lady near the bistro cash register. "I am hungry, and would fain eat. A sirloin, with pepper sauce, if you please. Medium rare if there's a choice."

"That'll be twenty five dollars, luv", she answered. "D'you want salad and chips with that?"

It was only after ordering our steaks that we were told that there was a thirty five minute delay on meals, so we scattered our gear all over the dining room and set to work on reducing the establishment's beer stocks, with some modest success.

Cameron said don't buy that crap from Paddy Palin's and rub it into your leather jacket, because it doesn't work.

Bly said that, unaccountably, his DryRider rain suit left the front of him wet.

Quoll described his planned trip home to Scone. It had started raining again and his rear tyre was just about due for replacement, so he was taking a dirt road over the mountains that involved a one-in-ten gradient, sheer drops at the side of the road and a water crossing.

We left him to it, and headed out of town on the Bucketts Way towards Taree. Fortune is merry, we thought, and in this mood will bring us anything, just like it did for Mark Antony. It's a good road, the Bucketts Way, twisting and scenic. The low fields near the Avon River were flooded as we came out of town, and some of the cows were looking a bit concerned about the decreasing size of the hillocks they were standing on.

It stopped raining. About 50 km out of Gloucester, I noticed that there was only one headlight behind me. I slowed, considerably. After two or three kilometres, there was still only one headlight behind me. I stopped. Cameron stopped.

"Where is he?" I shouted to Cameron.

"Dunno," he shouted back. "He dropped off a while back."

I did a U-turn and headed back, looking for skid marks, Ducati pieces and blood on the road. Seven kilometres back I found Bly on his knees beside his Ducati.

Bly's Ducati failed to proceed at a particularly scenic spot...

...and Bly had to be bussed home on the venerable XJ

spottedquoll crossed this on his way home. After first stripping to his underwear, walking it and carrying his panniers across separately, apparently.

There was a 3mm hole in its rear tyre. He had already poured some Slime into it, and was using a hand pump to inflate it. I told him to stop it, and gave him a CO₂ cartridge. There was a "WHOOSH" as the CO₂ released. There was a rude word as the metal cartridge assumed the temperature of dry ice and Bly dropped it, and a long hiss as the CO₂ escaped from the 3mm hole. It started to drizzle rain.

Bly rolled the Ducati around to spread the Slime more while we checked our mobile phones. No-one had signal. Bly tried with another CO₂ cartridge, using a gloved hand this time, with similar results. I started bitching at him about his carbon footprint, because I know he hates that shit.

Bly started walking to a farmhouse about 300m away. Cameron pulled out the Bat-phone and turned on the GPS. We weren't far away from the Pacific Highway, so we decided to cut short the rest of the ride, and Cameron went off to scout the way out -- some of the GPS directions included names like "Patersons Lane" and we weren't sure anything with "Lane" in it would still be passable if it crossed a creek. As he rode off I noticed his right rear indicator hanging off its wires, but it was too late to stop him.

I blew my nose into my wet handkerchief, put it back into my wet pocket, stood in my wet boots and waited.

Bly came back from the farmhouse and advised that Ducati would be picking up his bike and trucking it to Artarmon on Monday.

Cameron came back and said there was a clear route to the Pacific Highway with only about 2 km of easy dirt. I lent him some duct tape to tape up his indicator, and he noticed that the bracket welded to his pack rack had snapped.

Bly left his bike at the farmhouse, suited up, got on the back of the XJ900, and we followed Cameron's route. Sixteen km later we were on the Princes Highway at Nabiac.

We stopped for juice and a bit more air in the XJ's tyres. It stopped raining. It got dark. We stopped again for juice a bit north of Hexham and just north of Alison, but apart from that just motored to Sydney at two kilometres per minute or so for the best part of two and a half hours, arriving at my place at 20:20.

It was a fabulous ride.

Riding a motorcycle is almost always better than not riding a motorcycle, even if it's wet. We didn't hurt because we never got badly cold. We had mechanical failures, but we worked around them. We conquered shitty roads, we beat the elements, we fixed a broken motorcycle with duct tape and the one we couldn't fix we got shipped back. We ducked mobile roadkill. We ate and drank with friends, tilted the world with speed and felt the rush of high performance motorcycles accelerating in their middle gears. We went out on motorcycles, came back on motorcycles, saw a beautiful part of NSW and made a list of places to come back to.

A man needs an adventure now and then. Gentlemen now-a-bed shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, as Henry said. And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that rode with us.

Henry would have understood. And those ANZACs would have understood.