THE ODYSSEY TO THE ISLAND

The road from Bombala to Orbost via Delegate and Bonang is the most dangerous and the most thrilling road I've ridden on in years.

It starts with long, fast sweepers through the low hills leading up to the Snowy Mountains, and we rode them with razor precision and immaculate sanity. Then there's one of those wriggly road symbols on a road sign with "110km" written below it, and it turns to dirt for about 20km. It's not bad dirt. You can do 110km/h on it in places, and 80km/h on it mostly, but there are some tight bits.

It finally turned to tar - of a sort. It had been newly re-surfaced, and there was a sign that said "Loose Gravel on Road". It was the last sign for a hundred kilometres.

We kept testing the tar, and after about 20km our tyres stopped skipping on loose gravel, and we could start to enjoy the road.

It's tight, it's fast, and there's a good surface. The trees grow up close to the road, so there's no scenery and the road is liberally sprinkled with bits of gum tree. There are no advisory speed signs. The majority of the corners are blind, thanks to the trees, and a few of them get tighter just past the bit that you can't see.

We stopped after fifty or so kilometres for a break and some photos. Bly found that one of his Termi pipes was burning a hole in one of his saddlebags, and commenced running repairs.

Bly and rzCrew apply their skills to the saddlebag problem

We continued off with me in the front. After a while I heard the flat beat of the Termis close, tightened my line, backed off and watched Bly come around the outside and disappear around the next corner shortly after.

rzCrew leads Bly on the Bonang: a situation fraught with peril

... Bly shows how it's done

...and Al tries to stay out of their way

rzCrew passed on the next straight. I motored along at my own pace for about five minutes, and then encountered Bly and rzCrew stopped at the side of the road at the top of a small cliff. rzCrew was trying to start his bike, which seemed reluctant to start. It caught shortly after I stopped, so we moved off.

Bly was in front again - he gets some serious corner mojo happening on that big Ducati 1000S - and I over-cooked it something bad going into a left hander: pulled it up, went wide, recovered before hitting the dirt, and exited the corner in time to watch rzCrew and his Speed Triple do exactly the same thing in my rear view mirror.

He settled after that.

After about a hundred kilometres comes the second sign on the Bonang road. It's a right-angle turn symbol, and no-one will ever know why this right-angle turn, out of all the others, deserves a sign.

Bly was waiting for us going in to Orbost. We got out of town fast, gassed up at the servo on the highway, and trickled down the last 90km of highway to our pub at Bairnsdale.

A cop who was booking a car on the other side of the road got into his beige Ford Territory with flashing red and blue lights behind its grille, did a U-turn, and settled in behind Bly for 20km of it.

The Grand Terminus Hotel at Bairnsdale is a great place to stop. Rooms are $50 each - less if you share - and have an en-suite bathroom. "Inkeeper!" I cried as we walked through the front door, "my companions and I are travel-stained and weary, and we would fain eat and drink."

"There's a restaurant out the back," she averred, and kept her distance until we had dragged our bags to our rooms and showered.

A wise move.

We rendezvoused in the restaurant. rzCrew went for the first shout. While he was away, I asked what had happened on the road. "He came past me", said Bly, "ran into the first corner, over-cooked it, stood up, locked up the rear wheel, went heading for the cliff, locked up the front just before the cliff, and fell over at about 2km/h just before the cliff."

rzCrew came back bearing foaming mugs. I asked him what had happened on the road.

"It was a stick", he said. "God knows I'm used to the New South Wales sticks, but the Victorian ones have a fearsome reputation. I've read about them on the Internet. There's a fellow they call Island Stick, who apparently attracts them like infidels attract high explosive. When I saw it leap out at me, I knew I was a goner. I tried to go around it, but I ran out of room."

So we ate dinner, and discussed the Bonang Road, and drank beer and played pool and drank more beer and some bourbon whiskey and some Sambucca and retired to our rooms.

The first part of the Bonang covers your tyres in white dust. The second part rubs it off.