Lavers Hill Sunday 22^nd November 2009

All I want to do now is go to sleep. Ah, warmth, the beautiful warmth of the indoors. I'm exhausted after 530kms, half of which were utterly freezing and just miserable! Someone didn't bring her winter riding jacket today and copped it bitterly; soaked from the waist up before we even turned off from the Westgate Freeway. I know, I know, self inflicted, but if you'd said that to me in Lavers Hill, I would have thumped you good and hard.

I got to the West Gate servo and found Ronnie, Ivan, Tony, and Robbie, who had brought along his new orange KTM950 for the very wet ride, huddled together. Pina and Misho weren't far behind, but no Ben. Hmm, curious.

We headed off, the rain pelted down unrelentingly; big, fat balls of rain—not drops! I dealt with the cold by daydreaming of how dry and toasty my T-shirt and jumper would be after just 10 minutes in a clothes dryer, and how happy I would then be again. I can tell you it really sucked when we got to Lara, where Cliffy was waiting for us, and then later, Lavers Hill, that daydreams are what they bloody are for a reason.

Not surprisingly, there was no clothes dryer out the back of the Lara General Store. Persistent, I asked Ronnie and Cliffy if there was any chance there'd be a laundromat in Lavers Hill and got a look from both of them. Persistence turned to desperation and I bought myself a newspaper and wrapped the top half of myself in it, including my arms, with Misho and Tony's help to tape it all in place. Doing the zip up on my leather jacket required the team efforts of Pina, Misho, and Tony. It worked a real treat until the newspaper got completely saturated, papermached itself to me under my jacket and acted as an ice pack all the way to Lavers Hill. Yeah, real toasty. Stupid Lara with no clothes dryer. I made myself so miserable by thinking how far from home I was as I forced myself through Turtons Track and the Otways National Park.

I finally made it to Lavers Hill, daring anyone to make eye contact with me. _If you're filthy and you know it stamp your feet...if you're filthy and you know it then you really ought to show it, if you're filthy and you know it stamp your feet." Too cold and stiff to be able to remove anything, I made my way inside the cafe, convinced that they had to have a dryer out the back somewhere. Ronnie came up beside me at the counter and told me that he'd asked the cafe proprietor for a garbage bag for me to wear to help ward off the wind and rain for the remainder of the ride, and they both showed it to me. When I didn't respond, Ronnie pointed out that that it was new and clean, and went further to explain that he would make three holes in the bag for my head and arms, and pointed to the bag again.

There was no way ho-zay I was riding even an inch from where my bike was parked. Unbeknown yet to Ronnie, I'd had enough of freezing and I refused to budge. That was it. No discussion. The group could continue on to Timbuktu if they wanted to. I wasn't moving. Meanwhile, the cafe proprietor dried our gloves for us, got me a heated wheat bag and a cup of boiling water to help me warm up, and turned the heater on in the back room for us. Very hospitable.

After breaking the bits of chunky, soppy newspaper off myself, I'd discovered the pictures and articles had tattooed themselves onto my arms, which would be a reminder to me, each time I looked at them, of my experience today.

Robbie was also miserable, but found some consolation in a dry shirt he'd brought along and laid out the rest of his clothes to dry under the heater. Tony followed suit by removing his jacket, boots and inner boots, and wringing out his socks, whilst lamenting how un-waterproof his new Alpines were—in fact, how un-waterproof everything was while his and Ivan's jackets left puddles on the timber floor.

Ronnie sat with Robbie, Tony, Ivan and I as we wolfed down lunch; each of them reliving their experience on the wet and slippery roads. I still couldn't bring myself to talk.

After about an hour or so of intense defrostation, and some coaxing from Ronnie and the loan of Cliffy's one piece DriRider hurricane suit, I eventually came round to continuing on with the group. Just as well it was dry and sunny the whole way home from Lavers Hill. We passed two marked vehicles on the GOR, one heading in the opposite direction and the other waved us on past the breathalyser check.

Ronnie and Robbie, you guys did great leading and tailing—and Ronnie, I really appreciate all your efforts today J There was probably more that happened on the ride, but I was too absorbed in my own misery to pay attention to much else. The rain would have been fine if it wasn't for the cold and wind. Still, the weather put a real dampener on what would have been an awesome ride but at least we all went home incident free. Thanks to everyone for being so nice and apologies for being a pain, but you all did, after all, get many laughs out of my unfortunate predicament. J

Ha Du