Getting Ready for Another Big Trip

This will be the longest trip so far and I have to say I'm starting to get really excited!!

The trip will start off with a group ride, then a weekend with friends followed by a week or so of rest and relaxation with my husband. Here's the story, it all started with the AGM of the Shadow Riders Australia last year in Dubbo, they decided to make it an annual event. And now that event is only weeks away!

We'd organised with the Queensland guys to ride down from Dubbo to Victoria at the last event, as they have to go through Dubbo to get there, and I thought it would be nice to ride with others for at least part of our trip. So in a little over three weeks we will leave with them and take two days to ride to Bright, Victoria.

From: Bright Victoria Tourism Page

It's a mountain village that's supposed to be beautiful during Autumn, and guess what, we will officially be there in Autumn. I'm not really expecting it to be like this though, we are getting there right at the start of Autumn, the middle of March and the seasons all seem to be running late this year. We are still getting more days of temps over 38ºc than not, and that's just not normal for February.

We will be spending the whole weekend with the Shadow Riders. They have a lot planned for us, in the program there are rides and meals and even a darts competition. I haven't played darts for years and even then it was down at the local pub after a few beers, I just hope I don't disgrace myself too much and manage to get a few pointy bits into the board.

Here's a map of what the trip will look like.




View Victoria Trip 2014 in a larger map

Now after doing this map I realised that I lied. I know you are shocked but we are not all perfect :) It's probably not the longest trip we have done, not in kilometres anyway. It is however the longest in time, we will be away from home for 11 days this time. Normally that would drive Terry crazy, he'd be thinking about all the work he has to get done the whole time .. but I think I've hit on a solution this time. Let me tell you why ..

As you can see by the map we are heading down to the coast after the SRA meet to a little town called Lakes Entrance. We are possibly meeting up with an old work mate of mine who moved to Melbourne recently, if she can get the time off work for it. If she doesn't that's OK, we'll just spend the half day we have there wandering around looking at the sights. Then we are heading back up the coast into NSW .. and here's the clever bit.

We are staying for a few days in a little place called Bermagui (pronounced ber-ma-gu-ee) with a client of Terry's. Yep he offered us free accommodation a while back when Terry took on the job for the tourist accommodation he has in this little seaside town. I'm not sure even what kind of accommodation it is, but we have taken him up on it for this holiday. It means that Terry will be working while we are there, but that's alright, he will ease his mind, so we can both enjoy a long relaxing holiday. I'm living with the belief that while he is working I will be putting round looking at the sights or lazing on the beach, but I do have a feeling I'll get roped into helping with a few things. Not much though, I reckon we'll have more than enough spare time to explore.

Then after that little rest we'll just be heading home. Taking two days finding accommodation where ever we are when we feel we have to stop for the night.

And so I have started preparing the bike for the big trip. I've been planning the things I need to do for a while, as has Terry. I got some new presents for Roxy and Terry was busy looking for the things he wanted for the Black Shadow. I found a new screen which I'm rather excited about, it's easily removable so I don't need to have it on all the time but I'm really hoping it will help ease some of the fatigue I get after really long rides.

I also got some new highway bars. These were purely cosmetic as the one I had on worked perfectly well, I just never really liked the way it looked on the bike. I also never really liked the way it was fitted onto the bike, the top attachment point was using the small bolt that attaches the top of the radiator to the bike. It's always worried me that with excessive vibration coming from the bar my radiator wouldn't be particularly happy and I'm always looking for leaks from the radiator indicating a nasty crack. No more of those worries with the new bars, these ones have a more streamlined look, they look pretty sexy actually! And they attach as two separate pieces to the frame of the bike. They got put on last weekend, but no pics yet as there's one other thing I did while I was at it.

The light bar has been on the bike for a while, I'm not sure if I mentioned the little hiccup I found with it here. When I go over a particularly large bump, my driveway is one of those, or if I hit a bad bit of road too fast, the front guard hits the bottom of the light bar. It has spacers that came with it and it just hangs down a fraction too low. It's leaving a little mark on my guard which I'm obviously not happy about and don't want to get worse. So I took it down to my local bolt shop, where I know one of the guys from work. I asked him about it a while ago and he said yeah don't see why ya cant just shave a bit off one end. Sweet!! I took the lights apart while I was fiddling around and took them too him, he didn't have the right kind of grinder at the shop but he was more than happy to take it home and do it for me. The bad part is I told him to take his time and that I'd be back next weekend, now the bike is sitting with all her lights balanced in place and I cant do anymore work on her. Next weekend I'll get those lights back together and the screen on to see how she looks.

Terry couldn't find anything that he wants for the Black Shadow anywhere. He's at the very moment working on a solution, I'll give you that information when it happens. It's exciting! I only have that little bit more to do then book her in for a service and Roxy is ready to roll. I'll post up a few pics of her when I have her all back together.

A Little Video Tour of Forster-Tuncurry

Well as promised, even if it is a bit late, here's the video of our ride round Forster-Tuncurry. Have to apologise for some of the quality as the GoPro musta been dirty and the sun reflections are a bit bad at times. Also gotta apologise for the length of the thing, I just seem to have so much trouble cutting it down to a decent size. So it's 15 minutes long and if that's just too much for you I do understand and don't blame you for turning it off or going and doing the washing up instead.

Enjoy :)

I've done two versions. The first one has no music added for the people who cant watch with the music. If you'd like to know what I chose for my riding music it was Crowded House - Pinapple Head, Paul Kelly - Gunnamatta and the John Butler Trio - Peaches and Cream.

The second version has the music to enjoy if you can :)

Finally some Technology

A couple of days ago someone on the SRA forums posted up a link to a new helmet.

Here tis ... http://www.skullyhelmets.com/

Now to me this looks like it has some good points and some things that I'm not too sure about. To myself I was thinking .. 'not the kind of thing I would just fork out the money for without knowing more about it.' Upon reading the post I discovered that these Skully people were giving me the opportunity to do just that .. test it out before a I buy. Ooh well I'd do that.

So here's the story, you can apply to be a beta tester of these brand spanking new helmets. Sounds too good to be true I thought, but then I thought well they can't shoot you down for trying can they, so I applied. And now I'm waiting to hear whether I got accepted.

So why do I want to try it? Because of what the Skully helmet is capable of. I'm still kinda on the fence about it all but a couple of the features do interest me. It has a HUD that includes among other things a rear facing camera and GPS, those are things that I could see as useful. Some of the features may be lost on me, I cant ever picture myself using it with my phone to answer calls. I don't need those kinds of distractions and I'm the kind of person who screens calls at home and never .. ever! answers her mobile. So talking on the phone while I'm riding is never going to happen .. I'm way too busy enjoying my ride for those kinds of interruptions and nothing is ever that important.

The question I am asking myself is, would the features I'm interested in be distractions instead of being useful. Would a rear facing camera that shows me what's going on behind me make me lazy, so that I would not be as aware of what's going on around me and stop the meticulous head checks that I do now? I'd like to think not, in my mind knowing what's in those blind spots that I can never be really sure about, at a glance, could only help me.

The GPS is the other thing that has really got me interested. I don't use a GPS now, I've always thought of them as more of a hindrance up to this point in time, I'm quite capable of getting lost on my own without the help of an annoying voice in my head telling me politely to just do a bloody U-Turn cause you're going in completely the wrong direction! But having said that, I do see the use of them, and have one for the car for just in case I get too completely lost to find my own way out. I don't use it that often and I do also have a husband who is more than capable of getting me a little less lost sometimes (sometimes we just get lost together :D ). The only real reason I haven't contemplated getting one for the bike is that distraction thing, taking my eyes, and my concentration, off the road for long enough to make sense of something like a map just seemed incomprehensible to me at my level of riding. Now I'm thinking that having it there in my helmet, at eye level, so that I don't have to shift my eyes too much to see it, might just work.

Hence the reason I'd be interested in trying before buying. I could just do it the way I check most things before buying .. Google it. But I figure since they are giving me this chance why not give it a whirl. If I don't get the chance to try I guess I'll just have to wait til it comes onto the market and look at all the articles and reviews on it to try to decide if I'd like it. If I do get to try then for sure I'll write up my thoughts and let you all know about my experiences.

What do you think, is this innovative technology or just another distraction?

Sneaking to the Coast for a Weekend

I'll warn you in advance, this one is a photo heavy post. And there's not much to do with bikes either, besides the fact that we rode the bikes to get there, this one is gonna be chock full of holiday snaps.

Yep we managed to sneak away for a long weekend just for ourselves. Well it wasn't all for ourselves, there was a reason, my Dad. I was chatting on the phone with my father a while ago and he reminded me that he'd been living in NSW for over two years, and still we hadn't seen him since our trip south nearly four years ago. Oh I felt bad, so I was talking about a trip to Taree sometime soon. Every month I'd say we'll do it soon .. maybe not this month, too busy .. there's too much holiday traffic .. cant get the time off work .. there always seemed to be a reason why we couldn't go this month. Well I asked and got an extra day off work this month and planned to go east come hell or high water.



View Larger Map

And it nearly was high water too. Dubbo recorded a fall of over 20mm for the Thursday that we had decided to start our ride. Now I don't really know much about rainfall amounts, and those kinds of figures mean nothing to me not being the farmer type, all I knew was that whenever I looked out the window that day it was pouring. It wasn't looking very promising, we had planned to ride the first 200km on the Thursday afternoon when I'd finished work, to a little place called Merriwa. It was one of those last minute decisions that seemed like a good idea at the time, that meant that the next days ride would be easier and we would get to Forster with enough time and energy to enjoy that afternoon.

Oh yeah and we weren't going all the way to Taree, we'd stop at Forster which is only about 30km short of Taree. In my fathers words 'why would you want to spend a weekend in Taree, there's nothing here.' So we decided on a weekend in Forster, where's there's plenty of sun, surf, cafes and relaxation to be had. Foster has a place in our hearts as it's first place that Terry and I went to as a couple and we have fond memories of that weekend.

Thursday afternoon, I sent Terry a text asking him what he thought the weather would do .. it became an unanimous decision .. it was just raining too hard to ride that day, it was decided to cancel the room we had booked at the little B&B in Merriwa and then just ride all the way through on Friday. Terry came to pick me up after work that afternoon with the wonderful news that the woman wouldn't cancel the room, actually she had already taken out the full payment from my bank account! Needless to say I was less than impressed by this .. I thought briefly about just writing off the money but it had just annoyed me that she had done this, and I'm pretty sure it's illegal too. Sooo we left Dubbo at 6pm on Thursday afternoon in pouring rain. Our destination was only 200km down the highway, but it seemed like the longest 200km of my life and it ended up taking us 3 hours to get there. The rain actually stopped about halfway there but the roads were still slippery and we were still kinda damp. Terry also found out that his back rack bag is not as waterproof as it's supposed to be .. he had wet pj's when we got there ...

It was a lovely B&B, but I have to admit that the only thing on my mind that first night was a hot shower and bed .. oh and food, it seems that everything in Merriwa closes down at 9pm, our arrival time was .. yep 8:50pm. We shared a chocolate bar and raided the coffee and bikkies in the kitchen.

The B&B in Merriwa, a converted old bank.

After a big breakfast we were all fuelled up and ready for the long haul to the coast. It took us about 5 hours to travel the 300 or so kilometres, but we were riding away from the rain, towards the blue sky all day .. seemed like an omen for good things to come. We just took it easy, stopping whenever we felt like it. No photos along the way but I do have a bit of video of the weekend with some of the trip down on it. I just have to edit it there's about 4 hours worth that I need to cut down to no more than 5 minutes .. well 3 minutes seems ideal to me but sheesh that's a lot of cutting .. maybe I'll do two videos. Anyway I'll post that up as soon as it's done.

We rested in the motel and grabbed fish and chips for dinner. Wow I miss seafood!! And that was it for Friday, we were meeting with Dad late in the morning then heading down for more fish and chips for lunch .. yay!

Dad

Now Dad's probably gonna kill me for posting pics of him here but I got some really good shots of him so had to be done. First pic .. photo of a man happy with his fish and chips.

Second pic .. photo of a man wondering when his calamari is gonna get here ..

Terry

Then we wandered down to the wharf to check out the scenery and people watch for a while.

 Dad and I are good at looking at stuff ..

And sometimes we even look at the same thing ...

We lazed round for a while, catching up then sadly it was time for Dad to head home. I think we were all tired but it was great catching up again and I hope we don't leave it so long next time.

That evening we headed to a local tapas bar for dinner then came back to the motel in time to catch the regular evening chorus. Native parrots of all types were feasting in the palm trees bordering the motel. I took a lot of photos of them but only this one of some Scaly Breasted Lorikeets turned out.

They were great to watch, there were some Eastern Rosellas and Rainbow Lorikeets there as well playing and making a racket.

The next morning we really had no plan of what to do. We wandered down the main street for a quick breakfast that turned into a long one. Then headed towards the beach.

We found some local markets which we wandered round for a bit before heading back towards the channel. Where we found the fishermen were cleaning their catches by the water. Some other creatures were quite interested in what the fishermen were doing too.

That was across the water from us, closer to hand we noticed ...

It seemed these two had the monopoly here, and they knew to wait patiently.

I didn't mind, it meant I got a tonne of great photos of one of my favourite birds.

And the reward for all that patience ...

The pelican gets his fish .. and I get a fantastic pic!!

Forster had a sister town on the other side of the channel called Tuncurry, they are joined by a bridge.

And in the middle is a heap of these sandbars and a largish sand island .. the sides of which are all covered in boats of all sizes and shapes. I was amazed at the amount of water activities going on here but then is it the middle of school holidays and this is a very popular tourist destination. I could see why.

I would have had a go on one of those ski-jet thingys but apparently they don't hire them anymore cause of insurance of something .. shame, one day I'll get on one :)

We'd talked about hiring a little boat with Dad the day before but really were happy enough just sitting round and relaxing, it seemed the Sunday was going to be more of the same til Terry suggested we jump on the bikes that afternoon for a bit of a ride round the town. All of that ride is on video so I'll save the commentary for when I get it finished.

After dinner that evening I was trying again to get a good shot of all the parrots when I noticed that the sun was setting quite prettily .. I grabbed my camera and headed for the water.

Got some good pics too .. what a great way to end a perfectly relaxing weekend.

The next day we headed back home. It was a long ride at just over 500km so we stopped often. We even stopped at one place that I didn't even know existed, well we'd driven through Denman often enough but I'd never realised it had more than just a couple of houses by the road. There was a cafe called Chocolate Hills, I had to eat there!!

And that's about it. Took us a long time to get home but it was still daylight at least. I don't think I like travelling that far in one trip though, from now on I'm going to plan our trips like I have in the past with the longest day being no more than 400km's. The heat was turned up again after the first hour or so and that in itself makes for a longer journey since we have to stop more often just to hydrate. I really wish summer would just take off now .. and I'm waiting for Autumn so we can ride again. Our next big trip is coming up soon, in March we head over the border to Bright, Victoria for the Annual SRA meet. Can hardly wait!!

Have a Great Christmas

It seems to me that the months leading up to Christmas I just seem to get too busy and too tired to ride or even think about riding. I am noticing a trend in my blogging that shows me writing much less in those couple of months. Not just from being busy and tired either .. it's at least 40°C here today!

With that in mind I'd like to take the opportunity while I have not too much on my plate today to wish all my blogging mates everywhere a special Christmas and hope the new year brings you all many more wonderful adventures :)

What ever you are doing over the holidays whether it's spending time with your family, getting out on a new adventure or just kicking back and relaxing ... I hope you have a great time doing it!!

From The Pen Of The White Shadow

Hi! My name is Roxette but my friends call me Roxy. I am a Honda Shadow who happens to have a very sexy white color scheme .. hence the name of this Blog. Yes I am the namesake of The White Shadow Diary. As such I thought it was about time I had my say here.

Now I dont want to sound like I'm whining but I have noticed that the White Shadow has taken a bit of a back seat in Brenda's life lately. Both the bike and the blog. I know she's been a bit busy of late, her work has been hectic with her taking on a new role as a trainer and now they have all this new staff, yes she gets home after work and just flops onto the lounge and immediately falls into a trance in front of the TV. Not to mention the fact that her computer recently started to give up on her, she did get a new one (that's what I'm playing with now .. fun!) but she has hardly turned it on, there's only one folder of photos on it so far .. she's really been slacking!

Brenda and Terry had a wedding that had to be attended last month, I thought for sure they would be taking us, but no .. the black shadow and I were left at home, quietly crying ourselves to sleep in the dark for two days. We both got very dusty! They went all the way to Canberra without us and their pathetic excuse, neither one of us could fit the present on our back racks ... I reckon they shoulda just bought the present down there.

So having raided Brenda's one folder of photos on this new pc I found this ...

That's the lovely couple, Terry's son and new daughter in law. Looks like it was a fun wedding doesn't it. I was feeling very left out when I saw that picture .. then I spotted this!!

There was a scooter there!! And I wasn't even invited and I'm a grown up .. sigh. It looks like the bride actually rode up to the end of the aisle on that scooter ... oh what fun!

I have mentioned to Brenda that the next time she knows a bride that wants to go to her wedding on a bike, I would be a great choice .. I'm all class!

Both of our riders have been promising to take us out for a weekend jaunt for weeks you know. And it still hasn't happened! I don't mind spending time with the black shadow (I wish Terry would give him a name though, the black shadow is such a mouthful) he's good enough company, but he is quiet a lot of the time .. the best fun we have is on the roads, zipping along looking at the scenery with the wind blowing through our chrome. Oh I miss that!

But no, our riders have been too busy or too tired, last weekend they promised us a nice long ride while Terry went to sort out some work stuff. I heard them talking about it, "we'll take the bikes, blow the cobwebs outta them" I heard Terry say that. Nope Friday night their shed blew down in an almighty wind. I heard the bang and it kinda scared me, I thought our house was blowing down and we would be crushed. It was OK, it was only the lawnmowers home. That small catastrophe put a damper on our ride plans though, our riders were busy cleaning up the mess all day Saturday then catching up on Saturdays stuff on Sunday. Yet again us poor bikes were left sitting forlornly in the driveway whimpering softly in loneliness.

Oh it's not all bad, don't get me wrong. Brenda does take good care of us. She noticed that we were both getting very dusty one afternoon last week and got out the hose and bucket and gave us a nice bath. And she does ride me to work when she can .. actually I think it's just when she thinks she can do without her morning coffee, a lot of the time I hear her taking off early in the car with the words "I need my coffee!" on her lips. But at least a couple of days a week I get out with her for the short journey to her work, then I sit outside her work all day and get lots of admiring looks from passersby. I don't mind that :)

We are having fun on our short rides, Brenda's really coming along nicely with her skills lately. It makes it all the more enjoyable that it's the only time we really get together lately, when it does happen, even if it's a short ride it's just so much fun. I've tried to talk her into keeping on going past work a couple of times but Brenda wont do it .. sheesh I don't reckon work would miss her for just one day.

This weekend we are going for a ride! They cant get out of it, they are meeting other riders from SRA and they organised this ride ... they are the leaders so that means no getting out of it guys!! Yay!! So hopefully Brenda will take the camera, I know she is planning to take the GoPro cause I saw her charging it last night, then she will have to post the story. I can make do with the precious time we spend together riding to work for the rest of this week, cause I know that we are getting out onto the highways in just a few short days. I cant wait!!

100 Posts .. A Reflection

As I posted up the video in the previous post I noticed that it was my 100th post. That gave me thoughts about how far I've come since I started both riding and blogging about my riding. I went back and read my very first post. I decided to do a bit of a reflection of both the blog, the riding and the bike, it's all changed .. a lot!!

The blog has changed, I'm doing much bigger posts now with big glossy photos. I guess that's a reflection on the new fascination I have with taking photos and trying new things like video and the GoPro. I also think it's because I don't really have as much to write about my riding, everything just seems to be going so nicely, so I pad it out with lots of pics.

The White Shadow at Newcastle Harbour

But then I had a lot more the write about back then I think. Reading my first four posts about learning to ride .. sheesh just getting the courage to ride .. was fascinating for me. You can check them out HERE if you're interested. I loved the first post about our trip to Newcastle, remembering how weird it all felt to be riding into the wind, I never thought I would get used to that or be able to go faster than 80km/h.

I feel like I have come a long way with my riding but still remember some parts very vividly, I still get butterflies every time I have to do a U-Turn and I did mention how hard I was finding them in a lot of posts. But some of the things I had actually forgotten about .. my problems getting used to braking, I'd forgotten how for the first couple of weeks I was actually braking so hard that I was riding the tank. Then there's the way in one post I would be all excited that I'd got the hang of something then a couple of posts later I am lamenting that I will never get the hang of it and that I think I'm doing it all wrong (I'm thinking particularly about braking and keeping one foot up while stopped here). Now I don't think about those things .. now I just wanna find more exciting things to do.

Another post that I loved but really am disappointed that I didn't put more pics in was the one about my ride to Gulgong   

The White Shadow in Feburary 2012 in the main street of Gulgong.

It was an exciting ride and it shows in the way I wrote about it, the thing that still sticks in my mind is the smells .. good and bad, I still love riding past a freshly baled stack of hay or a wet forest. I'd forgotten about how much every little bump in the road used to affect me though.

It wasn't really that long ago that I was worrying about not being able to park or back the bike comfortably cause I couldn't touch the ground properly. Now while I'm still careful on gravel, I don't stress like I used to, and parking is just happening naturally all of a sudden. I find that pretty amazing actually.

I have done a lot of posts about prettying up my baby, I even did a post where I officially named her .. Roxy. Those posts are interesting too, not just to show how the bike has changed and evolved but how I learnt more about her and what makes her tick. I still have a long way to go there!

Roxy as she looks now, on the road to Broken Hill

 Then there are the rides where we met some like minded wonderful people and shared the adventure with them for a while. The first one was the adventure to Queensland where the Shadow Riders Australia (SRA) took us under their wings and showed us around for a day.

Morning tea with some of the Queenslanders.

And that was so exciting on so many levels, there were so many firsts on that trip that I can't list them but by far the best first was getting to meet all those wonderful people.

There were other rides with groups and every time I remember the dread that I would do something embarrassing in front of all those people, I never did until the last big meet up when the SRA came to Dubbo for their first annual meet. Yep I dropped poor Roxy right in front of the leader of the group, who leaped to help me almost before I realised what was happening .. such a sweet man, as they all were.

And fun too!! Check out the posts HERE if you're interested.

Of course there are a lot of other posts that I love and reading back through them has been absorbing for me, so many that I could point out that it would take another 100 posts .. so I wont go on. It's all there to look at any time I want to.


That's what it's all about isn't it? It's why I wanted to do the blog thing to start with. It's a record of the journey that is my bike riding adventure. From the very shaky start to the awesome plans for the future. It's fun!! So now 100 posts in and I'm still going strong, my love for riding hasn't waned (like most things I take up often do). I'm still blogging, though yep have to admit I do have times when I just don't get to it as much as other times, but I still love it! It has been a great adventure so far, I have learnt so much, and there's still a lot more to learn and experience .. I can't wait!!