Parkes Loves Elvis

Every year for the last 20 years Parkes has held it's Elvis Festival Find Out More About It Here.

What with Parkes being only an hour or so's drive from us you would think that music loving people that we are would have made our way there way before now. Nope every year I find out about the festival from people at work or play who have just spent the weekend there .. I always miss out. This year someone said to me on one sunny Monday in the middle of one of the fiercest heat waves that Australia has had in many a year ...'You going to the Elvis Festival this weekend?' I have to be honest, I did jump up and down a little bit in excitement .. 'You mean I haven't missed it?!?!?!' was my reply.

So I went home to Terry and told him that the Elvis Festival was on. Half a hour later Terry came back out of his office and told me we had accommodation for the whole weekend. Wheeeee!!

We were booked in for Saturday and Sunday night, the plan was to make our way down to Parkes early on Saturday morning for two reasons .. to beat the heat and see the street parade. We slept in a bit .. we missed the parade and the heat nearly beat us by the time we got there. But hey we got there and, after going to the wrong motel to start with, we finally had a nice cool shower and wandered down the street to see what was happening.

We found the commemorative wall of Fame.

There wasn't a real lot actually happening in the street, I think there was supposed to be buskers and stuff but it was already 38ºC at 11 am so I didn't blame anyone for making their way indoors. The shops had gone all out for the festival though and there were some wonderful displays in the windows. The theme for this year was an Aloha Elvis in Hawaii theme.

Parkes was founded by Sir Henry Parkes, who also gets into the Festival mood every year.

Let's go look for food at one of the clubs or pubs, we made for the park with the markets and the Big stage that was promising free Elvis's all weekend. It had lots of Elvis's but I spotted the cars with big fins, these were the cars that had been in the parade and I wanted to go look at the pretties.

After looking at stuff and finally finding food we headed back to the motel at about 4pm, by this time it was 43ºC and the walk back to the motel proved too much for us. We got the first taxi we saw.

 Dinner was at the motel that night and we got to listen to Elvis while we dined and had cocktails.

 












T'was a lovely relaxing day even in the heat. The next day we were planning to go to an early morning Gospel service with ... yep you guessed it .. Elvis, then go check out the Elvis museum which also boasted having a car and farm machinery museum.

The next morning dawned bright and hot again, and we slept in again. Oh well we'll see the Gospel Service next year. First thing on the agenda is to check the bikes and get some aloha pics of them.

Lucky we weren't riding that day, the heat was as bad as the day before and storms were being predicted for that evening. There were fires close by but none that were effecting us yet, we were keeping an eye on the websites. We did get to visit the Henry Parkes Centre Complex which has all those museums in it. There was a lot of fascinating stuff in there so I'll save that for the next post .. and the trip home was going to include a visit to The Dish, would be interesting to see how it looks in the middle of summer.

12 months later and the courage is building

A bit over 12 months ago I bought a bike. The first time I rode it I got all worried and nervous that I would never be able to keep it upright. I had some drama's trying to keep my baby bike on her wheels when I taking it slowly on her. I decided to take her to Newcastle for Christmas that year. That was a long ride and huge adventure for me which you can read all about here. This year we did pretty much the same kilometres on a trip somewhere else for Christmas and I couldn't help comparing this trip to the one we did 12 months ago.

My confidence has come along in huge leaps and bounds. And I think that my riding skills have improved out of mind since that ride to Newcastle. With the first trip everything was so new to me, just travelling at speeds over 60km/h (town speed limits) was something so new to me that I felt uncomfortable, and things like bumps in the road and trucks passing me were an adversity that I had to overcome. This trip I didn't worry about those things, I have a whole new set of things that I have to learn about. But I did think about that first trip a few times and even smiled proudly at myself a few times about how I have learnt since then.

We did the first trip in small stretches, and that hasn't changed much yet, I still find it more comfortable to ride for no more than about 100km's before getting off the bike and moving stiff joints. It helps that Terry needs to stop often for petrol, I always go pay so I can move my body around a bit.

The trip this year was to Wagga Wagga to visit family and meet some new people too, about 400km again, but this time I was riding the whole way on my own instead of getting to jump in the car and let Terry take over when I got too tired.

Here's a map ....



View Larger Map

We took the less well travelled route through Molong, Canowindra, Cowra, Young then Junee, which is not far from the farm we were staying at for the next few days. First stop was Molong and there was nothing open except the petrol station so I broke out the water and a chocolate bar and we sat on a bench on the main street to eat it before we headed on our way. I turned on the GoPro then, to photo, I much prefer photo to video at the moment. It has taken me three weeks to get all the photos downloaded, sorted and edited, I still haven't looked at much more than the first five minutes of video that I took.

On the Christmas 2011 trip I took a couple of photo's from the car while I was driving, of Terry riding, I have to admit tis much easier and safer to take pic's of my hubby on a bike using the GoPro.

And I love that I can catch pictures of the rustic old bridges that we cross sometimes while we are on the go.

As soon as we got onto the highway out of Molong one of the first things that struck me was how open this country is and how far I can see!

We stopped at Cowra for our next stop and bite to eat, I also took the socks and boots off for a while for my poor little feet to catch a breath of fresh air. It was hot and getting hotter as the day went on.

There are some trees on the side of the road here and there now, but the things that are really catching our eyes are the huge storm clouds that are ahead of us.

We watched them closely and had just decided that we were going to skirt them when the road turned and we were facing this ...

On that first trip for Christmas last year Terry got caught unprepared in the rain, and it's something that I do dread. But we are better prepared for it now with wet weather gear in the saddlebags all ready to go. My jacket is supposed to be all weather, with vents for hot days which you can close to waterproof the whole shabang. The waterproof stuff works as we found out on the trip to Canberra a couple of months ago, but the temperature today was heading towards the 40's by the feel of it so I kept my vents open.

Then yep, we hit the rain, or it hit us. And it was hard! This was the hardest rain I've experienced so far, and even though I asked Terry if it was actually hailing (I think I got hit by drops through the vents though and it wasn't hail) it wasn't really that bad. I'm feeling a lot better about riding in the rain, I know what it feels like now I guess and knowing what to expect and how to cope with it is most of the battle won eh.

See that blue sky ahead of us, it taunted us for a while then we finally broke out of the rain to it and our gear was dry within minutes. All but the patch under my butt where it had pooled then spread out when my bum left the seat with a particularly awesome bump in the road.

We stopped at little place called Cootamundra for fuel not long after that and my butt got a chance to dry off.

After a little sidetrack where I got Terry lost, he really should just follow me not listen to my directions cause he still hasn't worked out that when I say turn right I mean the other right (left). Anyway we did finally get to the farm we were staying at after about 7 long hours, we were both pretty melted by the time we arrived at the top of the driveway, and I came pretty close to letting Roxy lie down when Terry stopped in front of me .. I'm pretty happy, and very proud, to say I didn't let her, for the first time I managed to hold my baby up when she was feeling determined to take a rest.

The first thing I did was take off as many clothes as I decently could then told Terry to pose for a shot of him, the bikes and the view. I don't think he really felt like posing, but he did. Then his son took his bike and Terry took Roxy, up to the parking area near where we were staying while I walked off the sweat and took in the surrounds.

It is a lovely farm, and they run a function center and theatre restaurant and other things there. They have an old stable that has been converted into accommodation which is where we stayed.

The view from our windows was so peaceful ...

Oh I got this pic of Terry's big boy that I love so I had to add it somewhere, I figured this was a good time for a bike pic.

Terry checking out the view from the house, this house used to be a convent apparently. You wouldn't know that now, it just seems to be one of those awesome big farm houses that has been added onto endlessly til it becomes a bit of a maze and has veranda's and doors everywhere.

We sat on one of those veranda's for dinner that night, which was cooked by our hostess for the weekend whom we'd met that day, wow what a wonderful cook! And a lovely person that we were glad to finally meet. So after a scorcher of a day, we found out later that it was 39°C when we arrived at about 3pm (no wonder we were melting!!), there was a spectacular lightening storm that started just after we finished our meal. We sat in the darkness and watched natures show for about an hour then headed for our beds early. It had been a long day.

The next day we explored our surroundings a bit before brekky .. we found some roses, the rose garden is stunning and these are old fashioned roses that have a scent. There weren't many still blooming but I bet when they all are it's heavenly out here.

Terry checked out the view from one of the veranda's.

Then after brekky, cooked by Terry's son we headed to the old chapel...

Which not only has more stunning views ..


 It has also been turned into a coffee shop type affair .. we finally got some awsome coffee made by Ben ...Thank you Ben :D

After a relaxing morning we needed to head into Wagga for some emergency Christmas eve shopping. We had planned to get some presents for the new acquaintances when we got there because we needed hints from people who knew them, plus we didn't have a lot of room in the saddlebags. A trip to the shops was needed and we were luckily able to beg a car to take. All we had to do was let the car owner take the black shadow for a little ride ... easy we can do that :)

That's Terry's son in front of us, and no I wasn't taking pics while driving, Terry took the pics while I drove.

We went under this viaduct and I just had to stop on the way home to see if I could get a pic of it.

We got home just as the sky's were opening up for a repeat performance of the storms, this time it was a bit earlier in the day and they weren't as close but I did manage to catch one flash of three bolts stretching across the sky on the GoPro.

Then I got some nice pics of the sun trying to break through afterwards.

That night we went for some Christmas drinks in a Daimler limo....

Wow this has been a pretty fantastic chrissy and is gonna be hard to top. We had a bit of a sleep in Christmas day and then had a lovely breakfast with fresh fruit and yogurt and paté and ham and all sorts of amazing food served with a smile and a wonderful Christmas feeling that I have rarely had the joy to feel ... not having children of my own means I have missed out on that part of the festivities. I liked to visit it, we had a lovely time, but we decided nearly as soon as we woke that morning that we were going to head home a day earlier. The weather was playing nice for once and we decided to take advantage of the cooler day to get home.

This is the driveway out of the property, and I was pretty proud to have gotten off the very loose gravel in the car park and pointed in this direction. Most of the trip home was video on the GoPro but as I said I haven't looked at much of it yet let alone decided if it's worth editing for here, if it is I might post it up later, or I may just rip some pics from it.

It wasn't as long a trip to get home, even though we stopped at Cowra for about an hour during the hottest part of the day it still took us less time to come home. What a wonderful Christmas it ended up being, not just the great ride, but also spending time with special people. There were times when I honestly thought I'd taken on too much with such a long ride in the heat, and I had a bit of a melt down at Cowra where I felt that if I didn't get off the bike I was gonna just cry or scream or both. I got off, had my melt down then got back on and we made it home on Christmas day in time to catch some chrissy left overs.

By the end of it all I was more than ready to get off the bike, the last leg we rode straight through from Cowra to Dubbo, about 200km. We were both tired and glad to be home, but it was still nice to come home to a house full of people and more children celebrating Christmas. Perfect.

Merry Christmas

Just a quick post to say Happy Christmas to everyone who has joined me on my adventure this year. We will be biking this year again for chrissy and we wont be home til after all the excitment has died down so I thought I should do this before it was too late.

Hope you all have a great Christmas and an awsome New Year, stay safe and have as much fun as you possibly can!! (And hope santa brings you all the presents you asked for .. but you have to be good for that to happen remember ...)

With all the getting ready for the silly season I haven't had much time to do much blogging this month, though I have been looking at what you have all been up to. I have so enjoyed reading all about everyone adventures, thoughts, advice and looking at some amazing photos throughout the past year. I look forward to seeing more of you all next year and sharing some more of my own adventures too.

Seeya's all next year :-D

It's Just Too Hot

This week it seems the whole eastern side of Australia has turned it up a notch. We've had high temperatures that have never been heard of before in Melbourne (the coldest, wettest city in Aus) and the rest of this side of the country has gone with the flow. Last weekend I was complaining about not being able to go for a ride cause of the heat and it only got to 38°C / 100.4°F, We went to the local coffee shop for lunch then straight home again cause we were both melting in the heat. I wore my old jacket with all the hot stuff stripped out of it so it was a nice cool mesh with protective bits. It was a tight fit, but I'd boldly stated in the morning that I was going skins for the little ride to the cafe cause it was just too hot, then I picked my helmet up and couldn't go any further. I didn't even get out the door before I realised I just couldn't ride without the protective gear. So I sweated instead .. ugh.

This weekend started with a high temperature of 41°C / 105.8°F on Friday, it stayed at that temp til long into the evening and I think it only cooled down to about 24°C or so over night. Yep it's just too hot to do anything. Saturday was the same so we headed out early to the markets then came home before the heat really set in, on the way home I got Terry to drop in to check out this bike that I've seen a few times out the front of the local bike shop. It's got me intrigued, I wanted Terry to check it out.

Picture from Kawasaki Motors Australia

It's a Kawasaki Vulcan Custom Special Edition, click the link above to check out the stats. It's nothing like the White Shadow, it's actually kinda dark with all that mat black where the chrome is on the Shadow, so even though the majority of the paintwork on it is white (it's a gorgeous pearl white too which you can't really see in the photo) it comes across as a black bike. It's so different to what I'm used to, but I'm almost in love with it. Terry was kinda interested, but he didn't really go for it like I did, maybe it's a girly bike. He took us inside to ask about it and the bloke went to get the key for it for me .. he said 'you wont believe how this thing sounds, ya just gotta hear it for yourself.' He was right, it was amazing! It has a lowering kit as well as the air filter and exhaust thingys and it's just too hot for words. I asked the obvious question and no I can't afford it. As Terry pointed out, I can't ride it yet anyway, I'm still on the restricted licence til next May. But I can dream can't I :-D

The Green Giant

He was huge and he was scary!! He was adamant that I wasn't going to touch his new domain with my shammy!!

OK he wasn't that huge as such, but he was adamant and he had plenty of attitude!

I had just finished washing my baby bike and was busy drying her off with the shammy when I was accosted by this menacing green maniac!

 

I stopped what I was doing straight away .. not cause I was scared .. but cause I was laughing too hard to keep working!!

This guy had little man's syndrome to the max, he was being as threatening as he possibly could at me then found my pillion seat and decided to do a few laps on it before I could catch him and put him safely in a tree.

He did like my bike, he has good taste!!

Ears .. To Plug or Not To Plug ...

Well I'm all for safety and my hearing is precious to me. As I have a degenerative hearing problem that just means I'm going to be deaf eventually anyway I am all for protecting what hearing I have left. Specially since I didn't protect it when I was younger and sillier. I have been looking for earplugs for when I'm riding for a while now.

I started out going to Bunnings and getting the $3.00 earplugs from the power tool section.

I put them in the way they told me to and waited for them to expand ... intense pain. Yep I have sensitive ears but sheesh not that sensitive. Something must be wrong. So I read the instructions and put them in again .... eeeeek ... I clawed them out as fast as I could. OK they weren't quite that painful but yeah they hurt still. I did the only thing I know to do when I'm after an answer to a question ... I Googled the earplugs. I found a number of posts on forums from people who said that these types of earplugs hurt them, the solution most people seemed to go for was getting custom made ones.

That solution seemed to be a last resort, I looked at a few online and found out about some that Muso's use with the help of a fellow blogger's comment. They looked the part and I was going to go have a look at what was available from my local music shop when I closed down. Hmmm ...  OK I was going have to take a look at what was available at the Hearing Centre's in town. This town has 2 Hearing Specialist Centres that I know of and I wouldn't be surprised if there were more, it seems there's a roaring trade for hearing centres in Dubbo .. must be all the machinery those farmers work with all day. And then I forgot all about earplugs.

I went all winter without thinking bout them, well I didn't ride that much through winter. Then when spring came I thought of them .. once or twice. On a work trip to Sydney I noticed a sign for earplugs on the back of the toilet door in the ladies at the airport. Oh they looked good, I should go check it out while I wait for my flight. I found a good book first though and forgot about them again for another month.

I reckon by now your thinking that I'm really not serious about protecting my hearing like I said at the start of this post but really I am, I'm just a bit slack with some things sometimes. If something isn't in my face then I tend to forget it easily and that's what kept happening with the earplugs. Then one day I was shopping and spotted the plugs that I'd seen on the back of the toilet door, it seemed like fate that I happened on them at a time when there was nothing to distract me from them so they went in the trolley.

The first thing I did when I got home was pull these babies out and start playing with them, they are silicon and are supposed to mold in and seal your ear, I couldn't fit the whole thing in so I broke one in half and stuck it in as I was reading the warnings on the back of the packet .. "WARNING: Use whole earplug. Do not cut, break apart or elongate." Ahh oops, well I put it back together and had another go with the whole thing ... ouch it actually changed the pressure in my ear and hurt, and it didn't fit in, there was some hanging out over my earlobe.

They weren't going to do the job but they did get me moving a bit on getting something that would work. It was only a couple of weeks later that I remembered to drop into one of the Hearing Specialist places on the way home from work one day. I asked about earplugs and got a perplexed look, I wonder why I get those looks so much I'm pretty sure I'm speaking the same language as other people. It's odd that a hearing place doesn't have much in the way of protective equipment. I finally got the girl to understand what I wanted and she told me the only thing I would be able to get would be custom made earplugs and they were expensive ... $198.00 a pair! I told her I'd get back to her. I was hoping there would be another answer.

Then I went to the other music shop that I had finally remembered about (this is the one that didn't close down) and ordered two different types of smaller earplugs made for ladies. This was looking promising.

They arrived the other day and the first thing I did was play with them again. The more expensive ones were silicon again but smaller, they fit in my ear but they still did that pressure thing to my ear too, felt like I was underwater and getting beyond my depth. And the warnings on the back of this one were even more worrying ... "If you push the earplug into your ear canal do not try to remove it yourself. See an Ear, Nose And Throat Specialist ...." Ummm I'm starting to really worry about these silicone plugs.

The other ones were nice and cheap, and they are pink! They are just a smaller version of the ones I originally tried from Bunnings. I rolled one up and popped it in .. it expanded .. it didn't feel like it was exploding in there. There was no pain. Yay we have a winner!!

So I stuck them in a few times round the house, just to see if they were comfortable, I didn't wear them for long at any time and I now have a bit of a sore ear. I don't think it's related but I'm going to wait til the ear gets better before I try them on the bike. I don't think I'll be riding very far any time soon anyway the weather has gotten a tad warm and is tipped to get warmer in the next week. So the only trips we did this weekend were to the coffee shop for lunch and home again. If these plugs cause issues with my ears I'm actually not sure what I will do maybe I'll have to shop around a bit more but I'm just not really keen to pay $200.00 for the custom ones when they may not be suitable for me either. I'll just have to see how the pink babies go first, fingers crossed they aren't going to cause me pain and weren't the cause of the ear infection I have now.

The Yeoval Road Finally!!

For ages I've been saying I'm going to go try the road to Yeoval and not doing it. Something always comes up and to tell the truth I think I've actually put it off, I've been a bit scared. This road had been recommended to me by one of the girls I work with who said 'all the bike riders go out to that road specially cause it's an awesome road with lots of twisties!!' So I was a bit nervous, I've looked at the road, Renshaw McGirr Way it's called, on Google Maps and it looks twistie alright. I don't have a lot of experience on twisties.

Terry had to go see a client in Wellington last Monday, and that was my last day off before I went back to work, so when he said lets take the bikes for a run I was pretty keen. Then he suggested we come home via Yeoval ... ahh yeah ... oh lets do this!!

I rode round Wellington for a bit while we looked at stuff for Terry's work then I had to negotiate two car parks on my own while Terry was busy. I did it all without a problem, oh the confidence is really getting up there now!! I tried not to get too cocky :)

So after Terry was done we headed towards Yeoval via the Renshaw McGirr Way, here's the video ...

As you can see by the video I went slowly round a lot of those bends but it really wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. I even had fun on a couple of them!!

We got through that mountainy bit and had a truck on our tail, he wasn't pushing but we weren't going over the speed limit which I'm sure he was keen to do, so at the first opportunity we pulled into a bus stop where the road widened enough for us to pull over without slowing right down to a stop .. he flew past us. About 5 km's up the road I noticed him pulled over, and then Terry pointed out the funeral procession coming towards us .. oh.

We pulled up behind the truck and waited .. and waited .. I was getting hot so I got off and took my helmet off and stood under a tree, when I spotted this watching us.

There are two of them over there ...

This is the best close up I could get .. I saw a sign in town pointing back this way for an Angora Farm, I think this might be an Angora Alpaca.

 Wasn't far to go to get into Yeoval.

Which is tiny but does have a Royal Hotel. I'm starting to see a pattern with these Royal Hotels, I'm pretty certain that every town in Australia might just have a Royal Hotel.

Across the road from that was the petrol station that Terry was happy to see!!

It also had this awesome mural painted by the local school kids! Love small outback towns!!

We hit the road again, this road is the Obley Road and is a part of a touristy thing called Animals On Bikes which has a whole heap of animals on bikes in paddocks or some of the smaller ones are letterboxes. They are sculptures in case you hadn't guessed, I only saw two of them on this trip tho, the first one was this one

It's a horse with gumboots on, not a great pic tho :(

We kept going and before too long the road became .. well ordinary.

Great scenery but in some places it was the worst road I've been on yet, just too uncomfortable for me to want to do it again anytime soon.

 Those causeways can hurt if you go too fast over them. like I did with this first one, the next one I slowed right down!

We made it home in one piece, and I did enjoy the ride even though I have vowed not to travel that road on the bike ever again. It was a great experience and I was pretty tickled with not being too freaked out by all the bends at the start. I also did a pretty tricky right turn round the end of a median strip out of the petrol station in Yeoval that I'm pretty proud of, when I got round that corner I saw Terry waiting for me. He told me when we got home that he was getting ready to come pick the bike up for me, such confidence, but he was pretty proud too that he didn't have to do it.

When we got home and I took my helmet off the GoPro caught this shot that I kinda liked.

 Then I had to take this pic ...

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