I live in the clouds. For years, as an academic, that was figuratively true. But it’s also literally true. To go just about anywhere else in this vast continental country of Australia, the journey is always down hill.
Now, of course, this is no Tibet. Or the Canadian Rockies. It’s only 1,150 meters here. But that’s still way up there in a country that peaks out (on Mt. Kosciuszko) at 2,228 metres. But no one lives on that (albeit road trafficable) peak. The elevated tablelands where I live is home to people, lots of sheep, a couple of Koalas and vast tribes of Kangaroos. Kangaroos still, fortunately, outnumber humans around here…
There’s some choice of escape routes to the world below. My favourite just happens to be via what I think of as one of the world’s most spectacular bits of road. That’s the ‘Waterfall Way’ that literally leaps off the cliff face of the rural village of Dorrigo. Down, down, down via a windy, twisty motorcycle hooning road. Down from the rolling virulent greenness of Dorrigo’s potato farming and dairy lands into the lush temperate rain forest that girdles the escarpment’s edge like some kind of verdant moat. And, within a space of only 20 minutes, you exit, brakes smoking, into the lush tropical nectar-drenched, blossom fuming coastal hinterland of the wondrous Bellinger Valley. Alternative Lifestyle Capital of the Eastern Seaboard. There are few places where geography changes so rapidly as you descend this hill. Open grassy sheep country to mangoes and illegal weeds; all over a classic, world class drive.
Unless, as is usual, you end up banked behind the caravan lemming parade, gray nomading off to – or away from – the coast on an endless pilgramage to rediscover the imagined pleasures of freedom from a long-lost youth. Which really would have to be one of the world’s most exasperating frustrations to those who choose to fly by bike; motorbike or bicycle.
Which leads me to the fruits of my contemplations on my most recent trip down that illustrious hill. This bit of road is custom-tuned to the maker’s intentions for my cherished Triumph Tiger 1050. But it is an even closer fit to the song sung by Msrs Pinarello as they visioned my Pinarello Prince into this car-clogged world of ours. Up or down. The ride would be a classic.
But I have a problem: all the tin-topped traffic that vermin-plagues this road. The wobble weaving of drivers with skills extended just to maintain a straight line. Clearly, driving round corners is a skill beyond the basics with which they are licensed to comply. Or, infinitely worse, is a skill that they think they possess but clearly don’t. You see, with so many tin box Don Quixotes, corner hooning is a misplaced test of manhood to which they aspire like jousting with knights dressed as windmills; without hitting we two-wheelers as a by-product of their ineptitude. They ruin all the fun! They’d turn what should be the last bastion of road riding pleasure into a plague-centre of mangled death.
My dream is to ascend this wonderful 11 km of Onda fork-wavy twisted curvy road. Then, ride straight back down again. Refill with fat-loaded treats at the Post Office/Petrol Station/General Store/Local Pub/purveyor of frozen goods store in the hill bottom, one-horse Village of Thora, and do it all over again!. But I can’t. I would succumb to blind-corner broadsiding by the talentless tin-entombed throngs who infest the hill. What a surprise for a teeny-pimpled/balding be-bloated mid-life crisised Holden V8 hero to encounter a bicycle enroute to disrupt their fantasies of race track manly glory. That’s outside the death-band of my personal risk seeking profile, I am saddened to say. That and sky diving, ascending Mt Everest in the dark and wrestling brown snakes for fun.
Until, that is, I was leveraged out of my car-oppressed state by a sight to behold! As I was re-fuelling my Triumph at the Jacaranda-festooned Thora Store, I noticed something rather strange. Something unexpected and certainly inspiring. I noticed one of those ‘hippy vans’ pull up beside the road. Hardly unusual around here… But the surfer dudette at the wheel stepped out to wait for someone else to arrive. That someone else turned out to be her twenty-something surfer dude mate on a rigid mountain bike! A board shorted, sandal wearing, surf shirted, surfer dude who had just ridden the ride I’d been moaning for, for so many years. He was all smiles. The image of stepping off a perfect wave. They threw the bike in the back and drove off to hit the beach. Now that made me feel strangely dislocated like an ageing phobic contemplating impossibilities which, for others, are at a vastly closer reach. For the first time ever, I contemplated my big-engined motorbike with disdain. I wanted my bicycle, right now! Right there and then, I would have launched off to take on that ride. Next time, I will. Now that someone else has shown me how.
Entries (RSS)