Today saw a miscommunication causing my son and I to turn up seriously late for a local HOG chapter members only ride. A quick glance around the deserted meeting venue gave us three choices
- go home
- go for a ride somewhere
- go on the HOG ride anyway and see what happens
The latter was preferred by both of us. The catch was a lack of knowledge about how to get to the destination, Patonga, and a flat GPS (not charged because there didn't seem a point worrying too much because we expected to be following someone who knew where they were going). The possibility we might not arrive and may get completely lost only made us more determined to play it by ear and "see what happens".
We took off down through Swansea and out to the Freeway and turned left towards Gosford/Woy Woy. I had a sense it was somewhere near Woy Woy so we took that road and rode into an area I'd never seen. Approaching Woy Woy we were excited by seeing a sign at a roundabout for Patonga. Other signage was scarce and after a couple of guesses (one wrong one that saw us riding round and round the carpark at Umina Beach) we were headed bush on a winding road and were actually surprised that we were heading in the right direction.
We arrived and I immediately saw some familiar bikes, parked and determined that we'd arrived 20 minutes or so after the pack. It was lunch time and there didn't seem to be a great deal of choice so my son and I filled up on fat, carbs, potato and fake-sugared caffeine. My new Road King attracted some attention, which was nice, particularly the note of the new Vance and Hines pipes.
Heading back out to the freeway with about a dozen or so of the HOG's we found ourselves back cruising at 110kph. About 10k's or so along a couple of the guys decided to break free and wind up a bit and we decided to tag along.
A stop at the Minmi Hotel for a quick soft drink while other members caught up created a nice social end to the day. We left them to it and headed home in order for my son to have his X-Box time for the day.
