Including 5 brave ladies, we had 20 participants join us for the ride. Day 1 took us from Pheasants Nest to Tathra via Tarago for morning coffee and  Moruya for lunch. On day 2, we were guided around the great roads in the area by a local rider, Rob Armstrong. 370 kms of dream roads for riders. I managed to pick up an award for the most corner marking duties for the day! At the ride briefing, Rob reminded us all to get a calcium scan on our hearts.  Despite not having any symptoms, a calcium scan at a health check-up resulted in him having an urgent triple bypass operation! On day 3, we headed up to Bombala via the mountain road through the forest. After coffee in Bombala we headed across the high country to Cooma. Great open flowing roads through the hills and past the wind farms. After lunch in Nimmitabel we headed down Brown Mountain to Tathra via a detour through Candelo. On day 4, we headed for home with the usual break offs as varying riders made their own way hom...

  A beautiful autumn day loomed and as I approached Maccas Heathcoate, I was thinking.....there gunna be squillions of riders ready to saddle up and conquer the wonderful roads of the Southern Highland's. That was not to be.....seems the Mexican Syndrome had seriously kicked in.   As it turned out, there was a contingent of 4 lonely Beemers - 2 x GS's and 2 x XR's that departed for Kangaroo Valley via Waterfall, National Park, Mt Kierra, Albion Park, Robbo Pie shop and finally Kangaroo Valley. I had earlier made extensive enquiries of the Kangaroo Valley Tourist Office endeavouring to locate a park with picnic tables as we had previously experienced difficulties in this regard. Anyway a long story short, I located a stop just over the Hampton Bridge on the Kangaroo Village side with Car Parking and 3 Picnic Tables by the river. Unfortunately, while the location was great, it lacked shade and therefore not recommended on a hot day.   Anyway, usual banter ove...

This is not an obituary. It’s a memoir; a ride down memory lane with Phil.   Phil was quintessentially English, of Welsh heritage of which he was proud. He said he was a blitz baby, born in the early part of the war as the bombs rained down on Coventry. He was his own man, never unfriendly but with a certain poise and an individual that did it his own way. You knew he was close to his family. He was smart. Classy sometimes like James Bond, but without the malevolence. Occasionally he could remind you of Inspector Morse, silver-grey hair, smooth and particularly so when he went through his Jaguar period.   He was a very good rider; experienced, tidy. He liked fat touring bikes, like the Yamaha FJR and the BMW RT.   I can recall following him up through the Murray region. You go up through Yackandandah and the Keiwa Valley. There is a very nice long cut up through Granya State Park which eventually gets you, via some wonderful roads, to Walwa and Corryong before you tour in...

  Our first try for the Cowra Back Roads Weekender in November was vetoed by Huey, who threw a “double-front” across the mid-west and dumped 200mm over that weekend at Cowra and Bathurst. I’d rung the Royal Hotel on the Thursday evening and the publican said “well it’s just started to rain, so I guess you’re not coming. See you next time”. Our next time was indeed the 8-9 March weekend.   Huey tried it again with cyclone Alfred, but we squeaked past the rain and our weekend was cool, mostly sunny, and mostly dry. Seven starters set off from St Ives at 8am to our first stop at BP Kurmond, where precautionary donning of wets was permitted due to low cloud over the not-so-Blue Mountains ahead. Mist and mizzle surrounded us from Kurrajong Heights to Mort Street in Lithgow, where we turned to a pre-booked stop at the Tin Shed Café. Clearly there’s nowhere else to stop in Lithgow on a Saturday morning as the joint was packed, and we drew black looks from waiting patrons as we pushed...

  The ride this week was to Mount Panorama, Bathurst. It was amazing after all the inclement weather over the past week, rain, storms and cyclones that we were blessed with a nice day. The Good Lord must have been looking over us all because it was a perfect day for a long ride. Well, my bike says 372 kms round trip arriving home before   5 o’clock .   We had 15 bikes leave Maccas at McGraths Hill at the earlier starting time of  9.30am .  Except for a short stop for roadworks and a slow moving little white Kia that kept flashing its brake lights at every shadow it was a good run along the Bells Line of Road with the temperature at 22 degrees at Bilpin.  After morning tea at the Service Centre at Bowenfels Kim and Peter left to return home because of other commitments but we picked up two more riders Rob and Andy who were caught up in heavy traffic and missed the earlier start meeting point.  It was  12.45pm  by the time we arrived at the top...

  Thank You to the 20 riders that braved a potentially challenging weather forecast to join me on the Four Ferries ride that was passed to me by Frosty when he discovered that he had a group of international visitors that would be arriving to see him at that time. Two virgin riders were identified and welcomed in the usual manner. We hope that you enjoyed the ride and company and look forward to seeing you on future rides We departed on time to ride to our morning tea destination of the Historical Ebenezer Church via Berowra and Sackville ferries where the ladies’ auxiliary supplied us with their magnificent Devonshire Tea of scones and coffee or tea. There was a bit of a scuffle to locate cash as eftpos facilities were discovered to be Not Available. At this stage Mark our highly efficient and reliable Tail End Charlie advised that he would be retiring from his duties as the were some issues with his bike that he needed to remedy. His duties were relieved by our independent suppor...

19 brave riders turned up in Berowra to sample my navigation skills and lead them to Broke. There were no virgins so I proceeded straight to the detailed ride plan which took all of three seconds : left from car park , then left, right and again right to Jerry's for coffee. Because of so many turns I had come equipped with my Manual Navigation System (MNS). Unfortunately the MNS self ejected through overwork, I think too many turns. Getting lost, I managed to eventually blunder my way in to Jerry's and there reunited with my MNS. After securing it back to its rightful place, all was back on track. Right turn from Jerry's car park and then I followed my nose straight to Wollombi for another scheduled stop . In there three riders lost confidence in my MNS and decided not to continue. Hopefully they found their way home. The rest of the trip, under my guidance with MNS's help, went without any further trouble. Sixteen of us arrived to Broke for a well deserved lunch and...