Day 7 - 27 Feb 2012
The next morning we wake up at the Hattons and start looking over the bikes.
I do a quick bit of chain adjustment, while Christo starts disassembling his right switchblock. One of the neighbours comes over and offers Christo some "Contact Sol" spray to see if it would help without the need to tear apart the switch itself.
A bit of fiddling, work the switch a few times, a couple of goes of the starter, Christo is just about to give up when he notices a mark on the wall in front of him. At the height of his headlights.....it worked!! Hooray - the problem seems to have ben a couple of dirty contacts! (There's a website for that - so I've heard....from a friends......well acquaintences....ummm....the pictures keep poppping up on the interwebz and I have no idea how my credit card was used dearest......OUCH!)
Hayley took us for a tour of Tony's workshop. Tony has been a motorcycle mechanic and racer for many years and still works on bikes and with racing teams.
A few MZs:
One of the Honda TT500s he's working on:
They've been to a few race meetings over the years:
One of the workshop areas:
Some pistons:
Eventually we hit the road, but it wasn't long before I discovered I had a passenger - a spider about the size of my hand. I tried to get him out, but he scampered through a hole in the fairing - as far as I know he's still somewhere behind my instrument cluster:
Down through Shoalhaven to Kangaroo Valley:
This is a nice, windy road with great scenic views as it drops back down to sea level - but I was just happy not to be on the Hume!
And across Hampden bridge:
Stopped at the Friendly Inn for a couple of drinks:
And noticed this little gem out the front(The Famous James):
(the owner still rides it occasionally and isn't selling - for some reason the offer of intimate body parts doesn't sway him)
Nowra is close by and we decided to visit the Fleet Air Arm Museum at HMAS Albatross.
They could tell we were coming:
Since I was here some years ago the museum has gone from purely volunteer and donation based to being run by the Navy's own history unit and given a budget. Many of the exhibits have been restored and are better displayed.
Only have photos of some of the displays below - we had limited time and my camera isn't the best. There are a large number of cased displays and many more aircraft.
Sopwith Pup with some of the covering removed:
Firefly:
Gannet:
(note the contra-rotating propellers - it's actually a twin-engine aircraft and one engine/prop can be turned off for added endurance)
Sea Venom:
Skyhawk:
DC3 set up for sub-hunting:
Iriquois:
Grumman Tracker:
Winjeel:
On the road again, we had to look for somewhere to stay(we made a very late start) and thought it would be nice to stay somewhere by the beach......
And it started raining again. We'd only just pulled off into Gerringong before Craig pulls over and offers a coffee at his place around the corner! Craig had just had a job interview that day and thought we looked like we needed a bit of time out of the downpour that was developing so took us home for a cup of tea, we found out he has a *very* understanding wife who didn't seem to mind about two strange motorbikes in the garage and two strange blokes sipping tea in the dining room while she tries to settle the kids down after swimming.....Craig - she's a keeper! I have to admit that I was a bit stunned by the hospitality for a while and got my triceratopses mixed up with my T-Rexes for while - I had never thought of either of them driving a scorpion tank - maybe it was the thought of all the legs on a scorpion that had me confused? I hope the young bloke forgives me. Pass the karma around, people!
After a while. the rain abated, so we adjourned to the garage and talked a while about longer rides and how to make them easier - some bikes have a 200km range, but if you're in a comfortable riding position and you stop every hour or so to stetch, see the sights and rehydrate all that really limits you is to plan your fuel stops, and if you decide not to go much further, it's still riding more and seeing more in different places than your average weekend rider. Actually I still haven't explored all of the roads within 200km of home yet and I'm starting to regard highways/A-roads as "cheating".......I better work on that....
Eventually we left with idea of a short day (distance wise) and a cabin by the beach - but the first couple we tried had a minimum stay of two nights, the next shut it's reception at 7pm (so with daylight saving it's still not dark and the idea seems slightly barking stupid with extra ludicruos on top).
Unfortunately, we had also noticed that Christos lights had failed again........bugger........so we were limited to daylight riding and major towns again.
While we weren't planning on riding at night(particularly if camping), the lights problem meant that we couldn't really "push the edge" of the daylight window - in some cases being able to decide to ride after dusk to get somewhere can open up a lot of possibilities, not having this opportunity robs us of up to 2 hours of "discretionary travel" per day.
We gave up, headed north to Kiama and managed to get a cabin in a massive caravan park there. Next challenge was dinner - how hard is it to get a couple of burgers in a seaside holiday town?
....
That was rhetorical - about the only place still open did fish and chips(no burgers) and was just about to close.......for greens and other non-fried vegetable matter it had to be a bucket of coleslaw from the late night Woolies up the road....
And that was it for day 7 - the kindness of strangers and the desolation of off-season holiday-season towns on the NSW south coast.