"Fuck, it's cold," the Punisher noted. I looked up at the increasingly leaden sky and wondered where the happy blueness went. "My jacket so fucken rocks," I observed. It was certainly cold and getting colder. But I wasn't suffering any stress. Given my current chemical make-up, this was hardly surprising.
We inhaled a quick and yummy schnitzel in the Dungog pub after initially upsetting the she-cook (I think we rang the bell for service too robustly) and the table of cardigans beside us. "Just looking at you guys makes me feel cold," one cardigan honked at us as we took off our jackets and sat down. "Don't fucken look at us then," I smiled.
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Dungog. Note The Punisher's coldness |
We set off after a feed, burping a little meaty gravy up, and made very good time to Gloucester. I hadn't ridden this way in ages, and memories of attending the mythical rock festival of Tanelorn (which predated Narrara by a few years), and spending many days lost on the roads around Barrington Tops amused me as we rode into Gloucester and beheld the massive geological formations that overlook the town.
And thus we came unto Thunderbolts Way proper, and began the ascent. The run through the temperate rainforest as you begin to climb the massif and make your way north is really pretty. The road surface is vile. And mostly wet. And it is heartening to see they are still building the same fucken bridges over the same fucken bits of fucking water the fuckers were fucken building when Brother Silverback and I came though this fucken way a fucken decade ago. We found a little track off to the side, and stopped to shoot some images on a wooden bridge that spanned a pretty creek.
It's the kind of place you could stop with your girl-pillion and entreat her to neck your junk as a tribute to the natural splendour arrayed before you both. But since the Punisher and I had no such pillions, we just took pictures and fucked off back up the road. The Monster tracked true, but I ride with a much larger safety margin these days and I wasn't asking all that much of it. Our speed didn't creep above 200. We were riding hard into the westering sun and my subsequent blindness was giving me pause. I was concerned that the Punisher would deem me gay, since he made several attempts to pass, usually when I had my hand up to shade my sightless eyes from the sun. Even at 160-plus with only one hand on the bars, the Monster never put a hoop wrong. And there are few issues on this bike that cannot be solved with the application of more throttle, so I did that a few times and eventually we arrived at the Carson Memorial Lookout.
This is another place that could do with a little commonsense. It's not bad enough that one of this country's most scenically splendid roads is patchwork of busted bitumen, but the wretched lookout is edged with a disgusting fence which defeats every attempt to take a beaut shot that includes your bike against the dramatic backdrop of the valley. What a waste. "How fucken cold is it?" the Punisher remarked rhetorically.
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Boris and The Punisher at the Carson Memorial Lookout. Note the Chinese eyes. |
"We haven't got far to go," I noted, packing us a pipe to be getting on with. We made the obligatory snaps and then set to the final few kilometres with a will. The run from the lookout to Walcha is a thread-the-needle sprint on doubtful surfaces, changing elevation, and fast sweepers. It rewards precision and punishes doubt, fear and hesitation. And as the temperature continued to sink as the daylight faded, we hit Walcha. Naturally, we attended to the motorcycles first, spoofing some needed petrol into their bellies, and discovered the Speed Triple is a mere two-tenths of a litre thirster than the Monster, which was returning fair mileage, offering 168km for 8.79litres of juice… um, or thereabouts.
The fuel light had not come on thus far in our relationship, so I predict that 250-plus is possible from a tank. We easily found our accommodation, the Walcha Motel, and were briskly enveloped in the welcoming arms of Klavdy, Ramjet, Woodsie, Quoll, and JAF. As is fitting in any kulturnaya kompaniya, Klavdy greeted me with bread and salt. He is a man possessed of true grace and élan.
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Klavdy. Note the jacket, stolen from a bloke called Vanson, we think. |
Ramjet, may the Road Gods bless his enormous heart, gifted me with a golden idol of Ganesh for the B-Czar.
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Ramjet and Ganesh. Ganesh is the smaller of the two. |
Then Klavdy introduced us to Death in the Afternoon. If you do not know, Death in the Afternoon is a book by Hemingway that deals with courage and bullfighting in Spain. It is also the name of the cocktail Hemingway invented, to the damnation of all mankind, to wit: "Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly." Well, we couldn't drink even one of the wretched, poisonous flutes that Klavdy had provided and filled with the noxious blue bile. I would be happier drinking the heated arse-piss of a diseased wharf-whore. But the bread was very nice.
As the sun set, we could hear the permafrost cracking with the onset of proper cold. The temperature dropped towards the zero end of the scale and we craved hot food, strong ales and the company of boisterous wenches with heaving bosoms and swollen glands. We went to the pub. We were alone on the streets. All that we could see was a steadily purpling sky, ominous clouds and a town seemingly deserted of all life. The pub, the Apsley Arms, was lit up like a Christmas tree. It had everything. Roaring fires, pool tables, juke boxes, good beer and simply great food. But no-one other than us was in it.
We had a few snappy ones then adjourned to the restaurant section where I devoured some of the finest lamb shanks I have ever eaten. I backed up with a pepperoni pizza, which was also superb. And a massive chunk of caramel mud cake. Clearly all the bones I had smoked during the day had caught up with me. Replete with fine food and good company, we repaired to the main bar for music, scintillating conversation and the warm bonhomie of the publican, and his two off-duty barmaids. But they left as soon as we walked in.
The publican looked for all the world like he'd rather we were elsewhere and grinned at our repeated beer requests through clenched teeth. Obviously, us spending our money in his inn was contrary to his business plan. Undeterred, I pumped ten bucks into the juke box and started pressing buttons. The machine whirred into life but not a sound came out of it.
"Would you be good enough to turn the juke box up a bit, please mate?" I asked in my best be-nice voice. "I can't find the remote control," the publican said, not looking for it at all. "That's cool," I grinned. "I'll turn it up manually." "Nah," said the publican. "I need the remote control and I can't find it." The old Borrie would have smiled sweetly and smashed a bar chair though the juke box, then climbed over the bar with a view to aiding the prick's search for the bastard remote.
The new Borrie just shrugged and wrote off his ten dollars. We went back to the motel, turned all the air conditioners to maximum, exchanged some brief drunken man-speak, then everybody went to bed. By 4am the temperature in the room I shared with the Punisher was approaching 40 degrees. The Punisher had flung off most of his clothing and blankets during the night. I was pleased it was soon to be morning since I really didn't need to see any more of him writhing upon the bed. We all eventually awoke and greeted each other in the car park in front of our units. Woodsie and JAF did this by hacking up their lungs, Ramjet by making coffee for Quoll and wandering about barefoot in the frigid morning and Klavdy by sleeping in.
