I hardly ever go north, so I went north. I got on the motorway, and I\u2019d been going for twenty or thirty minutes before I realized I had run out of plan.<\/p>\n
I put it in the lap of the Road Gods.<\/p>\n
\u201cDubs I turn off\u201d I said, and pressed the button to display the odometer. The last two digits came up \u201c77\u201d a few kilometres on, so I took the next exit. It was signposted \u201cCooranbong\u201d.<\/p>\n
The exit ramp ended in a T intersection. \u201cOdds left, evens right\u201d, I said, and looked at the odo. The last digit was odd. I went left. I followed the road. Mandalong, Jilliby. A few kilometres of dirt. Not a super exciting road, but scenic.<\/p>\n
Another T intersection. Evens, so I went right. I played with a guy on a Honda Shadow and went up the hill at Yarramalong. T at the end. Evens again, right.<\/p>\n
I knew the road. The Wollombi Bends. Great bike road. Last time I lost my licence was from being booked there. This time, they\u2019d re-paved the turns where the road was chewed up and I could go faster. There was no highway patrol.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s folk art, metal sculpture, at the side of the road near Laguna. An abandoned car wreck with a pair of enormous metal ants on it. \u201cOdds I stop for the next one\u201d, I said; and checked the odo. Last digit was three, so I stopped a little further on where someone had made a giant metal rhinoceros.<\/p>\n
I took a photo and considered my options. The Wollombi Tavern was less than ten kilometres north. \u201cOdds home, evens pub\u201d, I said. Evens again.<\/p>\n
I stopped outside the Wollombi Tavern a few minutes later. I checked out the bikes parked outside, and made a mental comment about each. \u201cFaggot, faggot, faggot, larping faggot, faggot, sweet VFR.\u201d<\/p>\n
I bought a beer and went out to the rear veranda. It has a nice view. There was one table free, so I put my helmet and my beer on it and sat down.<\/p>\n
A guy came back to the table next to me with a tray of beers and said \u201cSo tell me more about these bears.\u201d He had a north American accent.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not as bad as people say\u201d, said his friend. \u201cIf you\u2019re that worried about them, just put some sticks on your head. They\u2019re scared of deer, and they think the sticks are antlers.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust be careful picking up the sticks\u201d, he continued. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t want to grab a branch snake.\u201d<\/p>\n
I sipped my beer while the joker expanded on the dangers of Australia. The victim revealed himself as Canadian. He said he didn\u2019t even know there were deer in Australia, and the joker said there were two types, imported ones from Indonesia and marsupial deer that carried their fawns in a pouch.<\/p>\n
About half way through my beer the Canadian said maybe he wouldn\u2019t camp and would stay in motels. \u201cGood\u201d, said the joker. \u201cThe only thing you\u2019ll have to worry about is the spiders.\u201d<\/p>\n
I finished my beer and stood up. The Canadian heard my chair move and turned his head to look at me, so I took my gloves from my helmet, and looked carefully inside each one, and then looked carefully inside my helmet.<\/p>\n
I headed for the door. I heard a voice behind me saying \u201cThere. Did you see what he did there?\u201d<\/p>\n
I headed north and put a route in the GPS to return via the Putty Road, which is a good ride. It would have made my return home far too late, so I did a U turn and headed back past the Wollombi Tavern. The people from the next table were outside. The Canadian was looking under his car.<\/p>\n
I got home around 1800. The girl-child greeted me and asked how my ride was.<\/p>\n
\u201cExcellent\u201d, I said. \u201cI watched someone prank a leaf.\u201d<\/p>\n
She smiled happily.<\/p>\n
\u201cOoh\u201d, she said. \u201cDo tell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019d been going for twenty or thirty minutes before I realized I had run out of plan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":238733,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[221],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238720"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238720"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249451,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238720\/revisions\/249451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}