Gary’s awesome adventure:
Leaving from the Granton Train Park at 10am, then on to Dromedary, Elderslie, Kempton, Apsley, Interlaken, Arthurs Lake, Miena, Waddamana, Bothwell, Den Road and home.
I left home at around 8:30am, all rugged up for what I thought was going to be a pretty cold ride. A quick stop in Midway Point to top up the tank on the mighty 250 (a whole $2.50 or so as it turned out) and then set course for Granton.
Riding on the Brooker past Claremont and Austin’s Ferry saw me engulfed in fog. Thick fog. Cold fog. But that’s OK, a hot coffee awaits at Granton!
Except when I broke out of the fog and rode down the hill towards the Granton roundabout there was a complete lack of a coffee van. One of my fellow riders resorted to crossing the river to get McDonalds coffee! The decision was made that we’d stop at Mood Food (Kempton) for coffee, and so anyone needing to grab some lunch for later could do so.
“Stands up” saw 15 riders and 1 pillion depart, heading towards Kempton over a primarily gravel route. The roads were good, with some of the higher elevations having very light fog that nicely highlighted the sun rays shining through the trees.
The closer we got to Kempton the nicer the weather became—it wasn’t a warm day by any stretch, but it was a very comfortable winter ride, with no rain, no wind, and enough sun to be comfortable.
Lunch was at Waddamana—one of those places I’ve driven and ridden past countless times over the years and thought “must go there one day”. Today was that day. Riding down the hill towards the power station museum was where I finally worked out the range of the little XT250 - full tank to reserve is almost exactly 200km with this type of riding. So Waddamana was lunch for me, and drink time for the bike.
With everyone fed we headed off towards Bothwell for a quick stop, then onwards through Den Rd and out to the Midland Highway. For me, Den Rd was the highlight of an already great day - somewhere between a farm track and a road (but still in quite good condition).
Hats off to Gary for planning this one and being TEC, and to Justin for leading the ride.
