THE DAY THE POPE CAME TO TOWN

Goulburn coffee stop and Tex rendezvous

I went into the service station to get some coffee. "That's an old bike", said the woman who was chatting to the cashier. "It'd be what, twenty years old?"

"Twenty five this year, ma'am", I replied.

"Yes", she said. "My ex-husband owned the next year's model. That's a nice Ducati. Is it old too?"

"No", I said. "It's their retro model. It's made to look old so Bly feels young."

Bly changes his footpeg. That pink envelope where his seat should be is a Ducati toolkit. Ha!

I went outside to drink my coffee. Bly showed us his Ducati's toolkit. We all laughed. I got some tools out of the Yamaha so he could change his footpeg.

We mounted up and headed out to Taralga, only 40km outside Goulburn, where we stopped at Bear's Repairs to top up our tanks. Tex was complaining because his VTR1000 has fork springs designed for a 55kg rider. The fellow he bought it from only weighed 49kg, and he'd had the suspension tuned to his weight, including replacing the stock springs. Tex must weigh twice what the previous owner did.

It's a bit over a hundred kilometres from Taralga to Oberon, and I'd last ridden it over twenty years ago, when most of it was dirt. About 30 km out of Taralga is a sign that says "ROAD UNSUITABLE FOR CARAVANS", and the road dives into a valley, with big bumps on the approaches to the hairpins. I lost sight of Sonny and Bly. Cameron and I made it through at a fast pace. Tex's suspension would have bottomed out under brakes on most of the corners. I figured he'd be late for lunch.

This road has a bit of everything, but it has LOTS of high speed sweepers. Cam and I climbed out of the valley and saw Sonny and Bly motoring into the distance, so we set off in hot pursuit.

My twenty five year old evil handling eighties Japanese motorcycle goes okay through the Royal National Park, because most of the corners are slow, even if the surface is a bit ordinary. It went very well up Macquarie Pass because the corners there are slow too, and the surface is excellent. It handled the descent into caravan valley well, even with the big bumps, again because the corners are slow. But it does not like hitting bumps in high speed sweepers. It generates a weave which it has always recovered from; but a couple of times it's felt like it wouldn't. Some times it scares me.

We trickled into Oberon and found Sonny and Bly taking their helmets off outside the Tourist Hotel. It was cold. We went into the pub, monopolised the open fire, chatted with the locals and ordered beer and red meat. Tex turned up about ten minutes later.

Wait a minute! Isn't that Swifty's dad?

The food was good. One of the drinkers at the bar appeared to own the pub. He was pleased that we enjoyed the food. There were only two chefs in town, he explained, and his was one of them. She'd only been at the pub two days, he said; but everyone liked the food and word was getting around. In fact, he said, she was his ex-wife. Well, not really, he qualified; because they'd never divorced, but they don't live in the same place any more. But, he said, they don't hate each other.

"That's a relief", I thought.

We left at about 1545.

Tex's parting shot before tackling the road back to Canberra.

Tex left to go back to Canberra on the same road he'd come in on. Cam, Bly, Sonny and I headed out of town through Hampden towards the Great Western Highway. Sonny said it was his favourite road of all time. It certainly is spectacular, and he certainly knows how to motor along it.

We made a final gas stop at the top of Mount Victoria, and then took the Darling Causeway across to Bell and the Bells Line of Road to Richmond: a Sydney motorcycling Road of Legend.

The Bells Line of Road: Road of Legend

From there it's just a brief hop to the M7 motorway into Sydney. Cam texted that he was home after 571km (he's young, he does that text crap). I figure that 600km approximately is a good day's run: you have time to stop for a good meal, you cover a bit of ground and you arrive home pleasantly tired. I cooked dinner for the girls, sat down and turned on the TV.

The shiny cheeked Christian Youth were still thronging. The Pope was riding around in various Pope vehicles. Singers of Kumbaya remained unstabbed.

I needed to watch people die. I turned the news off, poured myself a large Turkey, and put A Bridge Too Far into the DVD player.