Today's the day Zanderhar(d) and I were heading south to begin our trip to the 20th Anniversary National HOG® Rally being held in Mt Buller, Victoria. Today's ride, 700k's or so to Albury down the Hume Highway. It's a traditional first night stop when heading south, an easy, slightly boring ride pretty much on the freeway the whole way, but it's a great way to rack up some k's and put NSW behind us so we can launch into the next adventure.
Another member of the local HOG Chapter, G, had called me a couple of nights before and we decided to travel together today, part company tomorrow and meet back up at the Rally, I needed to get there tomorrow, he wanted to take a detour through some of the Victorian Alps and arrive at the Rally on Friday.
So Zanderhar and I packed up the bike the night before and left home about 7.30am to meet up with G at the local fuel stop to top up and grab some munchies for the trip. Without too much chatting we were soon on our way out the link Road with a plan for G to top the fuel up at Thornleigh then ride through to Marulan for food and coffee. My Road King® easily has the range to make it to Marulan on 1 tank.
The weather in that part of the state was perfect for riding, sunny, not hot, not windy but the forecast to the south was threatening flood, road closures and thunderstorms. We didn't hit too much traffic riding the short distance through Sydney (Pennant Hills Rd) to the M2-M7, with me in front and G happily cruising along behind, but welcome to take the lead whenever he wanted! The bluetooth was busy during that part of the trip though, my wife and I were in the final stages of negotiation for the sale of our house, riding and realestate - pleasure and pain.
The food at Marulan set the pace for the week away, pies and strong coffee. Looking south, the dark building clouds were very apparent, but it wasn't time to get sweaty in plastic yet so we struck out with Gundagai planned for the next stop for fuel and more food. During that part of the trip we passed and were passed by other HOG's heading to the Rally, some I knew (g'ay Badger and Coala) and some I didn't, everyone nodded and waived though each time we crossed paths resulting from different scheduled stops!
As we continued to head south the clouds built and there were obvious showers around and freshly wet roads. We remained dry but around Jugiong a few spots of rain and threatening skies ahead prompted us to pull over and apply some wet weather protection. For Zander and I just jackets for now, it wasn't far to Gundagai where we could gear up properly. As Murphy would have it, we stayed dry and just got hot on the way to the BP near the Dog on the Tuckerbox but there still decided that it was a much safer bet to put on the wet weather pants, we were headed into the flood territory. So we fuelled up, ate and covered up and rode into the now shining sun, heading towards black.
Murhpy reigned supreme again, we rode over the bridge crossing the Murrumbidgee at Gundagai and saw more water there than I'd ever seen before, we saw lots of water aroung Tarcutta, rode through Holbrook and rode on lots of wet road, but the showers remained visible yet illusive. I was thinking we were being toyed with, and would be dished out a great lump of water sufficient to drench us to deny us our traditional beer at the Ettamogah Pub just before Albury. I was wrong.. we made it to the pub, took some photos (it was G's first time there) and walked inside just as the heavens opened up. Thunder, lightning, and wind gusts strong enough to blow rain horizontally through the pub from front door to back door.
The barmaid had to shut the main doors and we were clearly not going anywhere until it was over, but we were still dry. The main part of the storm subsided and reduced to a light drizzle, so we put our helmets on, walked outside to the Harley-Davidson motorcycles parked in the dirt (now mud) carpark and rode the last 12 k's or so to our accommodation in Albury, arriving essentially dry. It's great when it works out!
Buy the time we'd unloaded the bikes and settled in to our digs the sun was out and it was time to visit the Bended Elbow for a feed of steak and a few drinks. Sadly the rain came back and while waiting for a hiatus that would enable us to get back to our room without getting drenched we ended up spending quite a bit more time than we'd planned enjoying the available refreshments and sharing riding stories.
So all up we were very lucky with the weather and our timing. The next day the Hume was cut at Tarcutta and other Rally attendees were diverted in directions that added 4 or more hours to the trip!
