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.

Stupid Victorian place names

One of the things I enjoyed about my time in Victoria was reading the map.  Seems like the early settlers named places by getting high and taking a random flip through the dictionary, or just making up new words for fun.  Try these favourites on for size:

• Pakenham Upper
• Mt Little Dick
• Chinkapook
• Tangambalanga
• Dandongadale
• Yarck
• Drung Drung
• Tittybong

Ok, I understand that some of these stem from the language of the places' traditional owners, but they're still rather entertaining to say aloud in your helmet.

To the lodge!

Today's map.

Overnight, a sea fog thick enough to confound popeye himself rolled over the caravan park. The fog met the gum tree we camped under and, through the miracle of condensation, it rained on our tents all night.

Pok!

Pok-pok-pitta pok!

Effin pok!

Neither Trav nor i got the most restful sleep. It was amazing how loud a few drops of water can seem when the fog has hushed everything else around you.

In the morning, I went for a walk down to the water and took some photos while Trav tried to catch some more rest.

Still, the Victorian high country was calling and we had a date with a mountain called Hotham. It's the place all the cool Victorians go when they want to sip decaf lattes at a higher altitude than the Little Collins St pavement.

After fuelling up we hit the B500 - The Alpine Way. Now this is a cool road. It's long, twisty and smoothly surfaced for most of the interesting bits. Trav and I had a ball, stopping frequently for rest and talk about each other's riding technique. My weak area was right hand bends because I feared running off the edge of the road. To compensate, I was riding too close to the centre line at times, which is not a good idea when a caravan is coming the opposite way. It's something I'm still working on as I experiment with different body positions in the corners.

We stopped for a pie and coffee at the Swifts Creek bakery. It was about the size of a cupboard, but the bloke behind the counter was a champ and the food was tops. We got chatting with a local lady while we ate. She was the first of many people who have given their opinion on this trip. So far I've been told variously: 3 months is not enough; 3 months is too much; motorcycles are the devil; I wish I did that when I was younger; and you might as well check into a mental institution right now because you'll go nuts travelling alone. We moved on.

Trav, through his connections in the engineering community, had scored us cheap accommodation at the ASEA (an old engineering institute) ski lodge at Hotham. After the obligatory hot lap of Hotham and quick photo stop, we moved ourselves loudly into the lodge. You can't help but go a bit stupid when you have a million beds to choose from and a grand old lounge room filled with leather chairs and an old upright piano. It was brilliant!

We waltzed down to 'The General' - the corner shop plus pub - to stock up on dinner. While we shopped, we caught the young bloke manning the place staring blankly straight down the barrel of his laser barcode scanner. It must get really boring up there in the off season...

I splashed out on some heavy (8.5%!!) local beers and a bottle of wine, while Trav organised the materials for what would become the 2010 Festival of Carbohydrates. Digging deep in the chest freezer, he fished out some ready-made canneloni and some medium sized brown things. Dusting the frost off them, I leaned in to read the label.

"Stuffed pigeon!" I exclaimed, loudly enough for the counter guy to hear.

"Nah, it's pide, dude. Bread." Trav clarified after a closer look.

I must admit I was slightly disappointed as my fantasy of wining and dining on stuffed pigeon at the lodge faded. To make up for it, Trav referred to the bread as 'pigeon' for the rest of the night.

Writing the blog, playing jelly car and drinking white wine followed, in what was quickly becoming an evening ritual. Travelling alone now, I really miss those nights.

Bottle finished, we slumped on the couches for a while, then collapsed into the beautiful beds. (It was separate rooms, Jarrod, just to be clear. No more brokeback bikies comments!)

Surging Southeast

Today's map.

Because I'm an engineer and Trav's an engineer and, sometimes, we get aroused by giant things that can kill you, we opted to start the day with a tour of Loy Yang power station. It's a big sucker, fuelled by brown coal, producing about 40% of Victoria's baseload around the clock.

After a tedious safety induction, we were walking across the main forecourt to the station when I spotted three small, white crosses by the path in one of the gardens. Uneasily, I felt that maybe I should have listened to the safety briefing more closely, until Trav explained who they were for.

"Bantams," he said unhelpfully.

"What?!"

"Bantam roosters. They were dumped here a while ago; four of them. We called them George, John, Paul and Ringo because they used to walk across the pedestrian crossing in a line, just like on Abbey Road. A fox got three of them, but Paul is still out there in the bushes somewhere."

"Right. Working on a solo album?"

"Shut up."

Not long after, we were sweltering in our safety gear and ready to head into the guts of the power station.

It was loud and hot amongst the roaring intake fans, dangling pipework and vibrating walkways. Trav was kind enough to open up one of the operating boilers so that I could look inside. It was incredible; a multi-storey incendiary maelstrom only a metre inside the viewing hatch. If you subscribe to the Christian concept of hell, you may well have gotten on your knees at the sight and sound of this thing in action.

We made several other stops over the course of an hour, looking at the steam tubes, the turbine hall and the view of the Latrobe Valley from level 19.

Lunch was sneaking up on us, so we took a quick stop in Traralgon for a bite to eat, then we were off again.

We both agreed that avoiding the highway was the go, so we looped through lots of dairy country on our way to Maffra - home of the Hermaffradites, according to Trav. It's a very pretty place.

The roads swept gracefully along as Trav got acquainted with the FZ and I worked on my riding skills. Poplar trees lined the road whereever there was plentiful water. It was fun kicking up their fallen yellow leaves with the bikes as we zoomed along.

At first sight of the lakes, we stopped for a breather in the afternoon sun.

After some discussion, we decided to check out Eagle Point for a place to stay. Just before dusk, we pulled into the Council caravan park and put the tents up under a young eucalypt. This was to prove a mistake later on.

I knocked out some indian food and rice in the camp kitchen and we spent the best part of the evening there, drinking a $5 bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and watching stupid videos on Trav's (dearly beloved) iPhone. I edited photos and blogged while Trav played his current favourite game: Jelly Car. With each glass of wine, his snorts and shrieks of delight and dismay got more exuberant as his jelly car squished itself around the challenges.

After beautiful warm showers, it was time to hit the sleeping mats and see what our first night in tents would bring.

JoJo works her mojo

Poor Jo.  Anticipating our arrival, she'd put together an unbelievably delicious Japanese dinner.  The problem was, we weren't around to eat it.  Well, we were, but first Trav had to give me a tour of the shed, which involved serious discussion on shock absorber configuration and wheel/tyre combinations for his MX-5.  Then I was forced to sample a truly delicious Tui pale ale or two, talking bollocks all the while, then we had to have showers because we smelt like boiled foot gravy.

This all took time, so JoJo was left in the kitchen with 175000 sushi ingredients going stale, plus a bowl of okonomiyaki batter slowly solidifying while Trav and I stuffed around.   We finally settled down to the first course at around 8:30.

Trav sits down to eat, at last.

 Okonomiyaki!!

Okonomiyaki is not just a Japanese word for the financial crisis (economy yucky!), it's also a delicious savoury pancake filled with just about anything you want.  Ours were stuffed with fresh veges, smeared with ketjap manis and mayonnaise - amazing work, Jo!

Next up was DIY (Destroy It Youself) sushi with all the trimmings.  We had salmon, crab, omelette and a host of crunchy veges to stuff inside our dried seaweed sheets.  Trav and I both got very enthusiastic with the fillings, which led to him creating a sushi roll visible from space, and me accidentally giving myself a year's intake of wasabi in 3 bites.

 Sushi ingredients.

 Joe carving up her roll.

After this, we were all too sated to move, so we assisted our digestion with some post-prandial libations: scotch for me and cocktails for Trav and Jo.  To his credit, Trav also managed to imbibe a measure of scotch, but not without considerable protest.  There's no accounting for taste...

 This is how you make sure the sugar sticks to the edge of the glass.

 Mixing things up.

 Cheers!

 Trav, deeply unenthusiastic about alcohol.

Later, after a lot of laughter, we retired.

I had the best night's sleep in the spare room.  I think this was because Jo had put hotel shampoos and pillow chocolates out with my fresh, fluffy towels.  I felt very special :-)

Trav pumped out some of these babies for breakfast:

 Eggs royale a la awesome.

 Arty menu shot.

Chowing down, talking smack.

Overloaded with good food again, we got down to our final packing business.  It was time to quit poncing about and go ride some motorcycles.  Destination: the Lakes district to the southeast.

Trav was finding it difficult to get both swiss balls inside his tank bag.

Not long after, we were on the road for real.