Bubble Gum and Cheese .. and all things in between

We finally got to Mudgee to visit the Cheese Factory. It's not called the cheese factory as I always thought though, it's the High Valley Wine & Cheese Co. but it came up with a search for cheese factory so you can understand my confusion. It's not completely my fault that Terry went straight past the place.

But I guess I should start at the start .. two weekends ago (yeah I've been a bit busy lately and it's taken this long to write about it) we decided that we should go for a ride. I was told about a beautiful garden that was open in Oberon and only open for a couple of weeks in spring and autumn. It's something special I've been told and that was the last weekend that they were going to be open. So we got up Saturday morning and kinda talked about going to see Mayfield Garden the next day, then we thought a bit more .. then we had a coffee and sat out the back thinking about it some more. Then we both decided that it was just a bit too far for a leisurely Sunday ride and chose to go to Mudgee instead which is only about an hour and a half away.

Sunday morning and I thought I should check the pressure in my tyres before we headed off. I haven't done it in a while since we haven't been riding a lot lately and I got a shock when I checked them, they were way down. So the priority was to get air first. We stopped at our usual petrol station and I found the air. Pulled up to it and took the hose to the front tire, removed the cap and tried to put the air nozzle onto the valve .. nope. It wouldn't go in there, there were spokes and suspension and brakes in the way. The rear was alright, the valve on that one is bent so that you can get the air hose on there, but the front is straight and pointed towards the centre of the wheel, combine that with an air nozzle that is about 20cm long and straight, it just wasn't going to happen.

We spent about 10 minutes rolling the bike back and forth trying to find a position that would let us get a square peg into a round wheel to no avail, then I remembered a service station that has a simpler nozzle without the long handle to get in the way. We headed across town to that one and met with success.

I learnt a few things that day, the first one being that I need to make sure I check my tyre pressure every time I go out on the bike, the second one is that I need to go find some 90º valves for my tyres. The next thing I learnt as I put away the air hose, flushed with a feeling of achievement from my victory .. and noticed the bubblegum stuck to the knee of my jeans .. eeew.

Then we were on our way!! I was on the new seat and kinda excited to be trying it out on a longer run. I noticed straight away the difference in the handling last time I rode but I also noticed the difference the right pressure in my tyres made today, I think half of the differences I'd felt last time were from the tyres not the seat, and I'd just put it down to the seat as that was the thing I was thinking about at the time. This time it didn't feel as weird to me and the handling was much more to my liking.

I'd remounted the GoPro for this trip, onto my handlebars, and now it was within reach for me to turn on and off at will .. now I just needed to remember when I'd last hit the button to work out whether it was on or off. I found out later that there's a little light that flashes on the back of it when it takes a photo and I could have just looked for that to work it out, but for most of the trip I didn't know so I just kept hitting the button and wondering if it was taking pics or not.

Every time we ride along this highway towards Wellington I'm always amazed and stunned by this view that I get hit with as I come over a rise and then back down this long sweeping bend. It's such an open area and you feel like you can see to the ends of the earth. I've only ever noticed it while on the bike, in the car it just doesn't have the same impact, and I've wanted to photograph it to see if I can catch that feeling. The Gopro caught the scene to some extent but I think I'm going to have to stop there one day and see if I can get a panoramic shot of it. Even this shot just doesn't do it justice.

We were soon on the back road to Mudgee.

I got some great shots, I like the mounting on the handlebars, it's not as great as down low on the highway bar but at least it doesn't shake up there. And it's a much better point of view than on the helmet.

It's a pretty cool road, you go through some forest and past some meadows complete with cows to wave to.

Of course those cows are great at avoiding cameras.

Just before we got to a twistie little bit of road that goes through the forest I lost Terry. He was in front of me and I lost him when a car overtook me and sat between us. When I lost sight of Terry I kinda slowed down. It's an interesting road but not a good road. There's a bunch of tar snakes and some pretty awesome grooves that go straight where the road bends.

I was on my own for about 10km's, that's a first for me on this type of ride and I was kinda freaking out a bit, but once I found Terry again I realised what an accomplishment that was for me and was kinda elated ... just kinda :)

It wasn't too much further to go before we were in Mudgee ... all we had to do was find this place. Now remember I actually thought this place was called the Cheese Factory. I had a good idea where it was and gave Terry some pretty good directions from behind him. But when I finally saw the sign that said something I wasn't expecting it to say and then realised that it was the place we were supposed to be in ... ahh well Terry's better at U-Turns than I am.

We headed in for lunch, and it was a very nice lunch.

Mine was a beef and red wine pie .. made with wine from their vineyard.

Terry had this .. ummm it was chicken and corn kinda layered in this flat bread. We cant remember what it was called but it tasted good. I also need to train Terry to leave the chips alone til after I've done the food shot.

As we waited for our food I took a couple of photos. I'm still getting used to this camera and I had taken a half dozen shots before I looked at my exposure settings .. ah well I'll take some more shots.

We could see the bikes from where we were sitting.

The shop and cafe.

Terry relaxing.

The airport isn't far up the road and we watched this little fella flying quite low over us.

After a relaxing lunch we headed into the shop to check out the cheese, I was pretty proud of myself for remembering to bring a little cooler pack with an ice brick in it, and the ice brick was even still frozen when I packed our goodies into it for the trip home.

First we needed to find a petrol station that didn't have cars lining up to the road. Having achieved that we headed down the main street of Mudgee.

I've shown those trees in another post but it was in spring when they were covered in tiny pink flowers .. now they have their autumn colors on and they look just as lovely.

We turned a corner and this view hit us. The street was pretty, we knew it would be as we'd come into town this way .. but what's with the sun?!?!

It was only about 3pm, maybe 3:30pm. It's way too early for the sun to be hitting us in the face like this. Well that's what I thought. Terry had his sunnies in his backpack but he thought he could get up the road a bit before he really needed them. I had my tinted visor on so it wasn't so bad for me, but Terry hasn't got one for this new helmet yet so he just had his clip on sunnies ... they're a bit daggy but so much better for the bike than trying to get prescription sunnies to work properly.

Leaving Mudgee and this was going to be a familiar sight for the trip home. Lots of sun. At least I got some very pretty photos because of it.

It was reflecting off the road into our faces by now, making the road hard to see but it also picked out the tar snakes and made them easier to see.

That is when you could see anything through the tree shadows.

We got to a little village called Goolma before too long and Terry wanted to stop to see if he could find his sunnies. I agreed as I've always wanted to get a pic of the pub here, it's bright blue and I honestly don't remember there being anything else in this village ..

I spent about ten minutes looking in Terry's backpack for sunnies .. then Terry took it off and spent some more time looking while I went across the road to get pics.

It seems I took longer than Terry as the GoPro proves .. Terry waiting patiently...

While the sun got lower on the horizon .. and brighter. And the sunnies were no where to be found.

We jumped back on the bikes with me leading so that Terry could follow my light at least, and we took it slow.

Not far from Wellington you pass this interesting little construction. Terry researched it when we got home and found out that it is a train line bridge that never got finished. The line was supposed to go from the village of Sandy Hollow to the dip in a road called Maryvale. Both very tiny villages with nothing of interest between them. It was started in the 1930's and they stopped contruction halfway in 1951 when they decided that they didn't really need it. Apparently it was going to be used as a main means for transporting all sorts of things that are now transported by road trains. It was all built by hand. It's fascinating and Terry has a hankering to find out if you can follow it from one end to the other. We might do that one day if we can.

The other side has a line of Poplars that are looking pretty stunning in their Autumn colors.

I was planning to stop here for a photo shoot with the bikes but by this time I was just wanting to get this ride over and done with. My back was starting to hurt a bit and the sun was making life very interesting. I could just see us getting stuck riding in the dark and while that probably would have been better for Terry, with the tinted visor it just makes my life harder.

We pressed on. We made Wellington without any problems and then it was just highway all the way home. We stopped again in Guerie for another look for sunnies which met with no success, at least it gave Terry a break from the sun for a bit. When we got back out of Guerie Terry noticed a bike coming up behind us, I expected it to overtake us pretty early on but he just sat behind us all the way to Dubbo. I guess he was having trouble seeing too.

It was a good trip, it was certainly interesting and tested out some new things for both of us. We have decided that in the cooler months we will be travelling west of home, so that we will have the sun behind us on the trips home. I also worked out that the seat isn't quite right as I ended up with back pain the next day and have already taken it back to my seat man to be fixed up, more on that in the next post.

The next day I made us a lovely lunch with the cheese we bought.

Trying Out Some New Stuff

Thursday was Anzac Day, yet again I thought I really should try to get up early and go to the dawn service, and yet again I couldn't drag my sorry carcass out of bed before 9. So no dawn service this year, hopefully it will happen next year. So Terry and I decided we were going for a ride that day anyway. I had half an idea that we would catch a march in a little town somewhere but really both of us just wanted to ride.

I had a couple of other motives to go riding too, I hadn't been on the bike in a while since my neck started playing up (it's all better now) so I was starting to get a bit antsy. I had my seat modified last week too and I wanted to try that out.

It wasn't a huge modification, I found a bloke in Dubbo who does motorbike seats in his back yard. All I wanted was a bit of foam shaved off the top of the seat and the sides a touch so that I could get my feet more squarely on the ground when I'm moving the bike around to park, especially when I'm backing her. I told him what I wanted and also that I found the seat very comfortable at the moment and I didn't want to lose that. He fixed it up a treat!

When I got on the bike in the morning I immediately noticed the difference. While I'm backing her I still use mostly my toes but I can get more foot on the ground and more leverage to push, which made everything I did that day so much easier. I backed the bike out by myself that morning which is something I have never done without Terry standing by to catch me. I was pretty chuffed with that! Then every time I had to back into a park I found it easier and easier, oh why didn't I do this ages ago! The one thing I did notice was that it effected was my centre of gravity. I felt a little off balance at first and the first round about I went around I kinda jigged around it like I used to when I first started riding, I felt so much closer to the road. But I soon got used to that and my dodgey cornering got smother by the end of the day too. I love the seat as it is, it's still comfy enough for me even though I think I lost about an inch of foam, and the leg position for me while riding is so much better. That's something I didn't think I needed to change but I found that I can now reach the pegs without stretching out so much and that's a whole lot better.

So the first new thing I tested out that day was fantastic!! I was also trying out a bit more with the GoPro mounted in the new position on my highway bar. I love this perspective and got some great shots of Terry.

Another reason for this ride was to see if we could find some Autumn. The competition on the SRA Forums is themed Autumn, I figured I should be able to find some Autumn leaves outback style.

But alas the only shot that had anything like Autumn colours was this one, and it's not as good as I'd like it to be.

We crossed from Mendoran to Gilgandra using a road that neither of us has been on before.

It was a pretty country road, with a few bridges, some bush ...

And even some cows in fields who watched us go past .. I waved :-D

They didn't wave back.

The shots from the GoPro make it look like we were riding into the sun all day, but actually it wasn't that bad, it was about midday. I think it must be because of the low perspective that the sun looks so low to the horizon.

One  more shot that I really like ...

Then the interesting shot ...

I'm calling these the Wobbly Boot shots. I got a bunch of photos like this and think it must have been caused by the vibration of the GoPro, I did notice early in the day that the whole thing vibrates like crazy just while I was sitting idling. I'm not sure why all of the photos didn't turn out like this though.

We got to Gilgandra and were going to go down the main street to check it out but decided not to as it was a public holiday so there wouldn't have been anywhere open to grab lunch and it was too late to try to catch a march. So we headed straight for the truck stop just outside of town to get coffee and sandwiches. We did spot a young girl and her boyfriend fuelling up their very loaded bikes while were there. What's so exciting about that I hear you ask, well the girl was tiny, and they were obviously touring .. her touring bike was .. a posty bike! Sorry I didn't get pics but that loaded 100cc Honda in posty red loaded up with camping gear in a milk crate tied to the back rack just made my day ... what fun she must have had!! We had fun too.

Oh and the other thing I tested out ... contact lenses. I've used them in the past but they started irritating my eyes after about a month of use. After a bit of a chat with my optometrist a few weeks ago he said I should try just using daily ones for when I go riding as my glasses are just a pain under my helmet .. almost literally sometimes. So I tried them and they worked great .. yay. What a wonderful success that day out was.

Up, Up and Away

By The 5th Dimension 1967 

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
We could float among the stars together, you and I
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon

The world's a nicer place in my beautiful balloon
It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon
We can sing a song and sail along the silver sky
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon

Suspended under a twilight canopy
We'll search the clouds for a star to guide us
If by some chance you find yourself loving me
We'll find a cloud to hide us
We'll keep the moon beside us

 Love is waiting there in my beautiful balloon
Way up in the air in my beautiful balloon
If you'll hold my hand we'll chase your dream across the sky
For we can fly we can fly
Up, up and away
My beautiful, my beautiful balloon
Balloon...
Up, up, and away.....

 As you can probably tell, we went to see some balloons. Canowindra (pronounced Ca-noun-dra) is the ballooning capital of Australia and for good reason. The reason is that it is in a crater so there are no thermals and little wind to take the balloons off course. The best thing about this is that the national Ballooning Challenge is held only a 2 hour drive from us every year, how lucky can you get!!

I've never been this close to a balloon before so obviously haven't been up in one yet, but that will have to wait til next year I think. I didn't want to miss out on the excitement though so we headed to Canowindra to go check out the Balloon Glow and night markets.

The markets were buzzing with people everywhere. We met up with a friend of mine from work and her family.

She's a good sport, clinks Kristie!

 We found a spot close to the ground where the balloons were going up, right behind all the cars and trailers with baskets packed on them.

It was pretty cool getting to see all the balloons getting ready to set up right from the start. That's some fascinating equipment.

Before too long the sun was ready to set ...

And the balloons started to move into position ...

Now we had an unobstructed view ...

We were so close to the excitement that I was wishing that I'd brought along my shorter lens, I'd left it in the car in favour of the longer one thinking that I'd be miles from the action.

This balloon was setting up just meters from our feet.

The balloons were starting to take shape, and lighting up as they were inflated, giving us a taste of the light show to come.

A lot of hard work went into getting these floating beauties off the ground.

It seemed you had to check what was going on inside the balloon as well as outside ...

Really, he was the only one holding onto that rope ... it went to ...

Soon a few of them started to lift off the ground.

And light up ...

They just needed to be kept on the ground for this show.

Then the lights went out on the field and they showed their true colours.

Terry Went Bush

Terry went for an adventure the other day. Because my neck still isn't 100% I didn't ride to work this week at all, I'm trying to get it better for riding this weekend, so Terry decided to ride his bike out to a property where he had to measure up a job. He was going bush, and I was worried about him on dirt roads but he promised to be good and take it easy and he even took photos for me!

The views from this property are truly amazing.

He found lots of dirt, but assured me that it wasn't quite as scary as it looks, 'cept the time the car was coming the other way and he had to pull off the road. Gave him the opportunity to take more pics for me though :)

Although the thought of riding on that scares me, I'm a bit jealous that he got to go visit this lovely place, I might even be convinced to go with him next time he has to go out there .. just maybe not on the bike.

This is the old stable that is going to be converted ... it's such a great little building with so much character.

I'm terribly impressed with the pics .. even though they are really only pics he took to remind him of what the place looked like while he's drawing plans .. he took some that turned out very arty.

Lunch and Flowers

Easter weekend I had bugged Terry til he agreed to come for a ride with me to the Cheese Factory in Mudgee. We'd decided that Saturday or Sunday would be the best days to take to the roads as that would be the times when there would be less crazies on the road. Saturday got busy so we didn't make that then Sunday rolled around with the pitter patter of rain on the roof in the morning. No trip last weekend but really I didn't mind that much, you just have to watch the news on Easter weekend to be scared off the roads, I don't understand why people cant learn and stay alive on these long weekends.

So this week I have Sunday and Monday off, we'd decided to go to Mudgee on Sunday, the weather was perfect for riding and I had a hankering for some cheese!! Unfortunately I also had a bit of a sore neck that I'd been nursing all week, it was getting better but I wasn't sure about riding about and hour each way with a heavy helmet on it. So ... we stayed at home.

But don't despair, we did get to ride ... it was such a lovely day, cool and sunny but the forecast was for showers in the afternoon, so a ride for lunch locally seemed like just the ticket. I'd gotten a new bracket for the GoPro last week and wanted to test that out too, this one puts it on my handlebars or highway bar. I wanted it for the highway bar, to try some shots from close to the road. So I attached that and before too long we were ready to ride.

I got a lot of shots of the town and traffic which was surprisingly busy for a Sunday morning in Dubbo. I wont share those they really aren't that interesting. I found one of Terry in front of me that gives the idea of the close to road thingy, as well as a nice shot of my front wheel, I like this perspective.

We had a lovely lunch at Old Ganarin, actually the cafe there is called Elements, but Old Ganarin is a lovely nursery about a kilometre out of town. I'm not sure what it used to be but it's got some history that I really should find out about one day.

Terry pointed out the Old Building

I was pretty proud of myself for parking in the finest and slipperiest dirt car park that I've come across yet, and I did it all myself first getting into the parking spot then getting myself out of it again!

That dirt was like powder with a few nice round pebbles thrown in for good measure.

Lunch was under an umbrella sitting surrounded by some amazing trees, with tables underneath on the grass and butterflies and Wrens playing all around us. I spotted one tree just near us that I liked and Terry asked what it was.

It was a Weeping Oak, and behind it was a Weeping Mulberry, just like ours at home 'cept ours is bigger.


 While we were waiting for lunch we saw this weird little bug on the table, I had to try to snap a pic of it with the phone camera but even though the bug didn't turn out that clear, I do like the effect of the glass table.

After a pleasant lunch we wandered around through the nursery for a while I wanted to look at some pots for a plant I was given from a friend that is getting very pot bound, I don't think Terry was looking at anything in particular, just browsing. I spotted a plant that I really do have to have, if only I can remember the name of it .. I know it was a chocolate something because amazingly the flowers smell like chocolate!!

At least I have a photo of it to show when I go back with the car to buy things. After finding the pots and putting in my order with Terry, we headed home. I was so nervous about backing the bike on that soft dirt but did it fairly easily in the end. Before we took off I carefully turned on the GoPro to video, I wanted to see how the lower perspective looked.

We took a more back road route home to make it more interesting for the video and it was more interesting. Just as we started to get into town again Terry chased a huge eagle off the road, it swerved away from him and then did a U-turn and headed back down towards the road before realising that I was there behind Terry, that bird had a wing span that was nearly as wide as my bike is long and he missed me by about two feet. I don't think there was any danger of him hitting me but it was exciting to get so close to him!!

Oh I couldn't wait to get home and look at the video. And when I got home and went to turn the GoPro off, yep you guessed it, I found it wasn't on. Ugh .. oh well I have the memory :)

Concept to Reality

From: SRA forums

Someone posted this photo on the Shadow Riders forums the other day. My first thought was 'eek that looks uncomfortable!'. Then someone posted up some links that he found to this bike online here and here. So I looked at them and thought, OK this is a bit more interesting. I Googled it to see what else I could find, the articles didn't really tell you that much about it, just enough to make me want to learn more. I found a youtube that he had made here. Well that told me more.

I thought it was facinating that this bloke had found something that was just a concept then wanted to live the dream so much that he spent a lot of time putting it all together. He overcame a few hurdles and now rides his dream to work. How amazing is that?!?! While I dont really like the bike itself, it still looks uncomfortable to me (it has it's good points, there's plenty of shiny stuff). The idea that this man had his dream and made it come true is the real reason that I love this bike.

What do you think of the bike? Have you ever made a dream come true?

Edit: Oh and I just found a Youtube of him actually riding the bike, it's just him taking off from a driveway but gives you a better idea of how you sit on it and how it moves .... See it here

Three Things I've Never Done Before

Today I did three things that I've never done before. One good, two not so good.

I decided that I need to commute on the bike to work more. I need more of that town riding experience as when we go for rides it tends to be out in the countryside. Today was my first day back to work after holidays and today I had to get the bike out of a new parking spot. We have a new carport which both bikes have been snuggled up in for the last week. Terry was getting my bike out for me before this but today it was nicely backed into a spot between the wall and Terry's bike. It was a bit of a squeeze and I realised that I wouldn't be able to even swing a leg over to ride her forwards, I'd have to push her past Terry's bike. So with Terry watching me like a hawk while he leaned his bike out of Roxy's way, I gently pushed Rox forward. It was the first time I've pushed her without being on her, I used to push the scooter around like he was a little brother, but he was much lighter. I've always been a bit scared to try and push Roxy, today I just did it without even thinking about it and I was pretty pleased that I wasn't that hard. OK I didn't push her far but it was a first for me, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself.

Then I got all my gear on and packed my backpack for work, double checking that I had everything, then set off to work. I was practising just using the back brake to stop with, and keeping my foot on the brake while stopped, with mixed success. I can stop with the back brake but I still feel unsteady when I'm stopped and end up putting both feet down. I was almost to work, stopped at a round about when I did the next thing that I've never done before, as I went to take off my hand slipped off the clutch and I stalled. Ooops, it wasn't that bad, she stayed nice and steady, I dread that thing happening and making me lurch forwards like a stall often does and then Rox having a bit of sleep. She didn't but when my hand slipped it made realise the third thing I did that I've never done before ... I forgot my gloves. I don't know why unless it's because the gloves weren't where they normally are, in my helmet. Why that is I have no idea, all I can guess is that I put them away in a tidying frenzy while we had visitors and then I just forgot them.

I am so feral about ATGATT that I'm just plain ashamed that I can forget something so basic so easily, and once I'd realised I didn't have them I felt so uncomfortable. Ugh, I'm just going to put this all down as a learning experience and promise myself that I will do better. More commuting to work for me.