Rain, rain etc..

Unless you have been living on the east coast of NSW you probably wouldn’t have caught up with the fact that we have already experienced more rainfall in the first half of the year than we normally experience for the whole year and more is to come. While this has had all sorts of implications in all sorts of areas it has certainly impacted on the ability of motorcyclists to get out and about on their bikes. At the bottom of the page here you can catch up with a few short rides that I have managed to squeeze in in between showers and downpours but it really has been pretty rare to get a day when there was no rain at all.

But yesterday, Sunday, a day on which I rarely ride given the propensity of there being many crazies on the road, dawned dry and looking like it may stay that way. I had already been out on the highway on Friday afternoon while returning from my concert gig on the north side of town and, unlike the usual Fridays, the run home after 1530 in the afternoon, was relatively traffic-free. Given that it was also the last day of school term and I expected to be duelling with the holiday-makers, it was quite surprising. My wife suggested that, because the weather had been so bad and was predicted to stay that way, many people had decided not to go away. She was probably right.

Anyway, I trundled out of the garage, gave TWK a kick in the guts and headed out. I decided to do The Lap in reverse, not reverse gear, but in the opposite direction to the way I usually go. This means heading down the coast through Jamberoo, Gerringong, to Bomaderry via Bolong Road, across the highway at Maccas and up Cambewarra Mountain. Then it’s down through Kangaroo Valley, back up the mountain via Barrengarry, Myra Vale Road and Pearsons Lane and out to Robertson then down Jamberoo Mountain, back through Jamberoo and Albion Park and home via the freeway. A distance of 160kms filled with plenty of enjoyable roads.

I was delighted to find that, much against expectations, the traffic was reasonable though a stop/go on Cambewarra and another on Jamberoo Mountain did pack it up a bit. Traditionally on Sundays you get the tourists and the appropriately-named Sunday Drivers, but they were generally well behaved.

I was also VERY surprised to note that the road conditions were much better than I expected. With all the rain that we have had I expected to be dodging potholes all the way but the road surfaces were much better. Of course the road was mostly wet and very wet in some places but careful riding and good tyres meant that that really wasn’t an issue. The only bikes that I saw all afternoon were of the Adv variety, no road bikes or sports bikes at all. Maybe their riders were frightened off?

With clear skies the scenery was superb (see above). In the depths of winter, the paddocks are still brilliant green and the cloud formations were also at their picturesque best.

I wasn’t hurrying so I stopped and took more photos than I usually would and why not?

The road remediation work taking place near the top of Cambewarra is crawling along with not much progress being apparent since I was there last. I suppose the work has been considerably slowed by the rain as well. Likewise the extensive work along Jamberoo Mountain Pass is slow.

There appeared to be very few bike at TFRPS but the car pack was crammed to the gills so I didn’t stop.

Home in time for a late lunch.

Now, in other news. I have had to have my riding boot repaired again, not the same problem as before. The gear lever on TWK is slightly longer than that on the VFR and it finished off the process of destruction of the rubber pad on the top of the boot. I tried fixing it myself but was not successful so I took it to my tame footwear specialist, just up the road from me and he fixed it, and what a super job he did.