On the Bright side (pt 1)

Today's map.

[This entry should be read in a shouty voice, to reflect my frustration at Blogger having eaten the draft I'd nearly finished yesterday. Not happy, Blogger.]

I woke after a cracking night's sleep in my double bottom bunk, which I tastefully dressed the night before with two doonas and a t-shirt for a pillowslip. From the sound of things, Trav had been up a while. The poor bloke had endured another rubbish night's sleep, which is the last thing you want when you're about to jostle a 200kg murdercycle down a near-vertical mountainside.

Morning, Trav.

The road to Bright, to the north of Hotham, was definitely an intense piece of bitumen. I rode lead for this section and tried to work up to a quickish pace, but my reflexes weren't cooperating and neither was the road. When I entered a corner aggressively and hit some runoff water, it was sufficient warning for us to stop, rest and ride the rest of the day in cruise mode. Gooning around during our break, Trav pulled off a very respectable running man in the middle of the road, to the surprise and delight of a passing cyclist who'd crept up on us silently.

 Taking a break.

Trav smells a pie.

How ants see me.

Bright, when it arrived, was flipping gorgeous. Deciduous trees line the long main street and the full cacaphony of Autumn colour was all around. People seemed friendly and laid back, with only the occasional tragically hip Melburnian disrupting the grey nomads and exploring families.

This is a street.

This is part of a tree.

This is a church. Old ladies go here.

Second only to urination, Trav's favourite pastime is looting and pillaging bakeries for their meat pies. We had barely parked the bikes before he was off down the street on a direct trajectory to the most likely baked goods outlet. Surprisingly, his plunder this time was a healthy-looking roll called an Awesome Foursome. Despite his breakfast of eight WeetBix, he declared - prior to midday and my third sip of coffee - that he felt like making things twice as awesome by ordering another one. Fearing that he would deplete the entire bakery's sandwich stock and start the pensioners to rioting, I suggested we walk around, find a supermarket and buy ourselves the basis for a picnic lunch. (It's mostly because I was feeling too tight to buy lunch at the bakery, to be honest. I'm not scared of pensioners, I swear.)

It was during our shopping that I started to notice that people - mostly female - were having a bit of a look at us. At first I simply assumed it was because of our padded leathers and dapper neckwear. Trav wears a children's Buff covered with cartoon crocodiles and I was experimenting with a black paisley bandanna. (Why? Have someone fire a locust at your neck at 100kph and tell me it doesn't hurt. Also it seals your jacket better and prevents sunburn.)

Asking Trav if he, too, thought the ladies' wry smiles were an outward manifestation of an almost uncontrollable inner lust, he was inclined to disagree.

"They think we're gay."

"Really? Nah, they were just checking us out."

"Nah, I reckon they think we're a gay couple."

The more I thought about it, the more I understood that two leather-clad men giggling and ordering chargrilled eggplant slices from the deli probably didn't project the most heterosexual image. By this time, though, the picnic was unavoidable and with it, Trav's paranoia over being seen as a couple was reaching new heights. We chose a spot in the park by the stream and carefully positioned ourselves a non-romantic distance apart. (If he'd had a choice, I think Trav would have sat on the other side of the stream.) We gorged on grapes, fresh bread (buns, in fact) and antipasto, then rested in the shade with our heads on our jackets. It was too blissful to give a damn what people thought of us.

 The straight way to eat grapes.

 Trav cutting the cheese, again.

 Hopeful gay duck.