What I Did On My Holidays

So, I went for a little ride on my motorcycle. Through Goondiwindi along the river road to Yelarbon, which meant that I had to backtrack a little bit to get across the river. I would probably have been better off going to Inglewood and then south as the road to Texas had about 30k's of the roughest dirt I've been on in a while. I did find a few good camping spots on the river, but I'll save them for future use as it was too early to pull up. Stopped the night at the pub in Texas instead. Dead as a doornail. Only to be expected on a Sunday night, I suppose.
I can't remember what the cafe is called in Texas, but it does a really, really big breakfast. The woman running the show is a bit of an odd-bod, though. Didn't want to know me at first, but then she rabbitted on like a teenager on a stolen mobile. So, after putting a bit more air in the tyres and adjusting the suspension to cope with the thirty or forty kilo's I just ate I was off.
Through Tenterfield to Casino. The roads are moderately windy and fairly smooth, unfortunately I was following a shower along which meant the roads were still a bit damp, which kept speeds down a little. Lunch at Casino - Arancini and salad, with Dolmades and things scattered about the place, pretty bloody good.
From Casino through Grafton, then back up the range towards Armidale. Roads still windy, but now they were dry so more speed was the order of the day.Through Ebor to the Oxley/ Wild Rivers National Park at Wollomombi, where I camped the night. It was the first time that I'd used all the you-beaut, Peter Brock Racing type camping gear that I'd bought over twelve months ago. It's all ball-tearer stuff, easy to use and effective.
Through Armidale to Uralla for brekky. Everybody must be fat in the Northern Rivers/ New England area, all the meals are enormous. Some of them taste good, too.
Then came the part that I'd been looking forward to all year, riding the Ox.
Without a doubt the best road I've ever been on. The Great Ocean Road is good, the Putty Road's o.k., Bell's is vastly over-rated, but the Oxley highway between Walcha and Wauchope is flawless. I'm not usually much of an Edwin P. Macho type on a motorcycle but you can't help yourself on that road. Anybody who finds themselves puttering along enjoying the (admittedly striking) scenery whilst riding the Ox should go straight through Wauchope to Port Macquarie and visit the Volvo dealer - your motorcycling days are behind you.
Apart from passing the usual assortment of cars and trucks, I also managed to get a VTR1000, took about twenty k's, but I got'im.
Down the highway as far as Taree (bor-ring) then up Buckett's Way to Krambach, turn left and back down to Nabiac. Kinda reminded me of the days of my youth, what would have been fantastic roads when they were first sealed are now goat tracks. Still, it was fun picking a line between the pot-holes and patches while sill trying to maintain a decent speed.
Went to the national Motorcycle Museum at Nabiac. Absolutely staggering. Unless of course, you don't like motorcycles, in which case you should report for conditioning.
Back up the highway a few k's, then over to the coast road through Forster/ Tuncurry to Buladelah. All these coast towns are pretty much the same from Lakes Entrance to Bowen, I don't really see the attraction. In the tourist-y ones anyway. Camped the night at the pub in Bulahdelah, which was pretty damned good.
Next day, it got weird onme. The plan(?) was to head back inland through Cessnock, eventually coming into Sydney via Gosford on the Old Road. Unfortunately I only got about twenty k's from Buladelah up the Booral Road when I fell off. Not really sure why, it happened pretty quickly and I don't have a clear memory of it - more like it is in the movies when the director only wants to give you hints in the flashback.
I can kinda remember the sun in my eyes coming out of a fairly sharp left-hander going up a hill and the back end coming out and trying to highside me when it got traction again. Going by the bruising, you would say that the bike just went out from under me, though. Dunno.
Apparently I was still bouncing when a council road crew came around the corner. Give 'em something to talk about in the smoko room, I suppose. They called an ambulance and, just like buses, none came for about half an hour, then two did.
'Cause my helmet was busted, they made me wear a neck collar the whole way to Newcastle (there's a hospital at Buladelah, but they only do x-rays Mondays and Thursdays), which took about an hour and a half. They did a bunch of x-rays, one of which indicated that I might have spinal damage, so they sent me off to do one of those thingys where you are put through a tunnel and a laser beam does laser beam stuss. As an aside, how much of the hospital equipment market does Siemens have, exactly. At one stage all I could see was the laser beam (red, unfortunately, the green ones on Telly look much spacier) and a sticker on the machine which said not to look at the laser beam.
Anyway, that doodah said that I didn't have spinal damage so I was allowed to take the collar off. The doctors still wanted me to stay in hospital, but I wasn't keen. After a free and frank exchange of ideas, we reached a compromise - I would stay for a couple of days in an on -campus(?) house set up for the relatives of patients to stay in. Never have I been pampered by so many different people. I don't know if it gave those ladies a chance to take their minds off their own problems or to give the sort of attention to someone that that would have liked to give to their ill relatives, but I got treated like a king. Thanks ladies. In fact, many thanks to everybody concerned, from the Great Lakes Council road crew, the ambo's etc, through the doctors and (particularly) nurses to the nuns and Toni the social worker who offered me advice and counselling. Apparently some people get a bit upset.
Anyway, after a couple of days there, I decided to keep going to Sinny, so I caught a Taxi to the station, the lady was friendly, so, thinking of Adrian (too shagged to do the link thing, you know who he is) I tipped her quite heavily. There happened to be a train at the platform, so chuck the bags on and go. Get off at Central and try to find a room (I did have one booked, but I was two days late for that). Nothing in the CBD so I got a taxi and gave him instructions on how much I was prepared to pay and how far into the 'burbs I was prepared to go and just told him to drive until we found something. The prick started to whinge about how long it was going to take so I told to pull up and I'll get the next cab (we were still at central). He had a change of heart. After about ten attempts at various places, I got a room at the Crest in the Cross. The cabbie then made me feel bad by rounding down the fare from $36.80 to $35.00. Straight up to the thirteenth floor and into a coma for ten hours - thereby missing my sister-in-laws birthday party which was the original reason for coming to Sinny in the first place.
First order of business next day was to find another room as the Crest only had single nights vacancy. Booked into some fleapi the other end of the Cross and took my stuff up there before ringing Hooch (see Adrian re- linkage). Spent most of the rest of the day doing not a greatd deal at all, except for buying a couple of hippy t-shirts.
Apparently, nobody in Sinny has ever caught a Taxi to the Coopers' Arms before, not only didn't the cabby know of it, neither did the base operator. From memory, Hooch's cabbie was ignorant of its existence, too.
Yes folks, that's right I met the erudite, intelligent, articulate and cosmopolitan Hooch. And what does one do in the company of somebody so refined?
Get falling down drunk of course. If you can do so whilst belittling the entertainment provided at the public houses of debauchery it's even better. At one stage I thought I had a new aboriginal boyfriend, but love is a fickle thing so we left him at the Coopers Arms and soldiered on to the Empire, where I saw the band with the world's most socially inept guitarist. You know all those cliches about lead guitarists? This guy was the exception that proves the rule.
So, next day, after I came back from my jog to Bondi and swim around south Head to Pott's Point, I realise that my mobile is nowhere to be seen. Or heard. So now I don't have Adrian's or Rat's number any more. Except that I do, they're on my 'pooter, not much good to me in Sinny, though. That's about all there is to tell - lazed around for a couple days, train to Dubbo, bus to the Ridge, then boss's wife home.
To find that I have three painters camped in my sleepout and on my vertandah. Oh, well, at least I've got another cook for a few days.