Most of the way there, I knew where I was.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d taken a Wednesday off in lieu of overtime, and headed south from Sydney. The Royal National Park isn\u2019t overflowing with bicyclists and Stapo on weekdays, and I got through it pretty quickly.<\/p>\n
I got up Macquarie Pass pretty quickly too, so I took the turnoff to Kangaroo Valley. The traffic was light and the road winding, and I got to Nowra in what seemed like record time. I figured I would cut across the mountains and join the Hume for the trip home.<\/p>\n
I debated with myself whether to stop at Nerriga for lunch, but decided I would skip lunch and keep going. Half an hour later I found myself on a dirt road that was looking increasingly unfamiliar, and the trip meter indicated I had between forty and sixty kilometres before the tank ran dry.<\/p>\n
Then I came across a small hamlet consisting of a pub and a phone booth.<\/p>\n
I walked in and leaned on the bar. A woman appeared from the rear and asked if she could help me.<\/p>\n
I told her a schooner of Carlton Draught would help me, and she set about pouring one.<\/p>\n
I asked her where the nearest place was where I could buy fuel, and she told me to keep going and turn left at the T intersection and I would find fuel within twenty kilometres.<\/p>\n
I thanked her, and paid for the beer. It was a hot day. I raised the glass, and drank half of it.<\/p>\n
She said they don\u2019t get many motorcycles on this road, especially on weekdays. She asked where I was going.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust for a ride\u201d, I said, and sipped my beer. \u201cI have the day off, so I thought I would go for a ride.\u201d<\/p>\n
She asked if I always go for a ride on my days off.<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty much\u201d, I said. \u201cI have a stressful job. It keeps me sane.\u201d I took another swallow of the beer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mean\u201d, she asked, \u201cthat you go insane if you don\u2019t go for a ride?\u201d<\/p>\n
This was getting tiring. I swallowed the last of the beer. \u201cI chose my words poorly\u201d, I told her. \u201cI should have said \u2018it helps me keep my sang froid <\/em>\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYer what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy sang froid <\/em>\u201d, I repeated. \u201cMy equanimity. My cool.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFrench?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n I reached for\u00a0my helmet.<\/p>\n \u201cSorry, I have to be going\u201d, I told her. \u201cCivil of you to offer, though.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cYou mean\u201d, she asked, \u201cthat you go insane if you don\u2019t go for a ride?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8443,"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\/8442"}],"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=8442"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8804,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8442\/revisions\/8804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikeme.tv\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}