Solo Single Touring Part 4 - home again and a changed person

 

                                            Home again - tired but happy! 

 Next day, I feel 100% and ready to set out on the next bit of the trip; back up the south coast towards Ulladulla, or around there. Depends on how tired I feel as to where I'll stay, I only have to please myself!  Ha I have remembered the name of the Italian girl I fancied; Paola!!! She was lovely  Her and I say goodbye with a kiss and a hug, and then I set off up the road into a light misty rain. These are roads that I have ridden down the other way at the start of my trip. The roads might be the same but I am not. I have gained a huge sense of self confidence, learned to enjoy my bike a lot more, the joys of just sitting in the middle of nowhere looking at a view, and enjoying a bit of solitude. And I'm also better at talking to strangers, less nervous and more open.

Chugging on back up Highway 1 takes a fair bit of the day, and I'm taking it easy anyway, the roads are a bit greasy and on this road there is a fair bit of traffic to contend with. I stop at little places to look in antique shops, bookshops, have a coffee etc. Stop in Tilba Tilba, a charming place in the lee of the mountains for breakfast and its good. I could live here; it's a time warp with mostly only the good bits of the past. As I pass through Batemans Bay I now am on the new route, not travelled before by me. I commit the cardinal sin of stopping in McDonalds for lunch, and of course it tastes appalling after all the great stuff I have had in the last few days - why did I do it? To get dry? I wasn't THAT wet. Oh well.

Only about 60kms later and I pull into a caravan park in Ulladulla for the night, hire a van, and have a shower, get changed into my non-bike clothes. Have a quiet meal at a pub and feel a bit sad, as it will all be over tomorrow. There will no looking forward to the next day, just looking back.

The home run now, but it’s a pretty big home run - more than 450kms. Easy on the autobahn on a RT Beemer, but it'll take a little longer on a single cylinder 600. Through towards Nowra and this is the Shoalhaven district, an area within reasonable drive of Sydney and with great natural beauty, and special to me as this is where my grandmother grew up. Through Nowra, a town that does not much for me and on towards the slopes of Mount Cambewarra, where my nans family where dairy farmers, having one generation before emigrated from Fife. I stop where I believe the old farm to have been, now carved up into hobby farms; it was sold by the family in about 1940. My great granddad had built from rough logs a homestead for his family on the mountain; nothing remains of it now. He was a cooper and wheelwright by trade, so I bet it was built well!

Over to top and into Kangaroo Valley, Nans old stomping ground but now instead of dairy farms run by families she knew well, it's all Sydney lawyers and millionaires and rock stars on their "pretend" farms. It too sad for words to think of the Valley that has now passed forever into memory; as another Ferrari or Aston sweeps past imperiously. There were some wild people around here in the old days, moonshiners that Nan and her friend Ivy knew well, 2 brothers...1 died in New Guinea fighting the Japanese, the other just lost the plot and moved away. It's a cracking biking road, up and over the mountain, into the valley, and over the mountain at the other end, but it's spoiled for me this day as there is too much traffic.  Still it's nice to go from the shade to the sun, see it all so green, and hear the engine thump away.

Towards Bowral, Mittagong and Moss Vale and its a good ride bar the traffic. It's rather posh around these parts don't you know, the pony club set is everywhere now replacing the farmers of the old days. This is where Sydney's rich have their country houses....and then it's onto the Hume highway for more than 100kms of boring motorway, then skirt the western edge of Sydney and climb into the Blue Mountains. The traffic is killing me now, frustrated and I'm hungry and need a break. Stop for lunch at Katoomba, and I feel I am nearly home now, only a couple of hours riding to go. I try to remember to be careful and not push it now.
Lithgow, Bathurst pass by in a blur, and then I'm in my town, Orange, and it's only 14kms home to my farmhouse at the foot of the mountain.   

Pull up at home, take the saddlebags off the bike and put them and the jacket, helmet and gloves on the back porch, the bike is pinking and tinkling as it cools down. Look at the bike and think "we both did OK we did".

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So was I changed? I think I was. I wanted to do more long trips. Wanted to ride in other states. Go to more biking events (In 1998 I rode to the Phillip Island Grand Prix). And I thought it might be amazing to ride in the UK and Europe. And in 2000 all these thoaughts coalesced in me moving to the UK, shipping the bike seen on this trip, to the UK, and going to the TT, and meeting the best mate a bloke could have. Yep, the trip changed me. I left my 21 year old self I had been stuck in behind forever. I was ready to try bigger things.