Day 2 - Towong Sunday 31^st October 2^nd 2010

Ian Payne	Honda CBR1000	Ha Du	Honda CBR600
Paul Southwell	Honda CBR1000	Cliff Peters	Kawasaki ZX10
Peter Jones	Honda CBR1000	Dave Ward	Kawasaki ZX6
Boyd Witzerman	Honda CBR1000	Rob Langer	KTM 950 SE
Misho Zrakic/ Pina Garasi	Honda CBR1000	Henry Wright	Triumph 675
Ron Johnston	Honda CB1000F	Ben Warden (lead)	Honda CBR954
			12 bikes, 13 people

Day two of our epic ride was to travel from our Towong base to Khancoban, Cabramurra, Elliot Way (Sue City), Tumbarumba, Rosewood Road, Tumut, Bondo, Tumorama, Adjungbilly, near Gundagai, Tumut, Rosewood Road, Tumbarumba, Jingellic, Walwa, and Towong. Estimated distance 554 km.

I left Towong early to head to Khancoban for breakfast. The roads were wet, the air clean and crisp. I arrive at the servo, fill up and head in to see Frou Mutta for my bacon and eggs. I walk in the door and I see Rob, Ben and Texas chowing down on HC&T toasties and wearing jeans, T-shirt and thongs. I think they decided early not to join the ride because the weather looked foul.

Eventually everyone rocks up, fills up, and we’re ready to go. As I suspected, Rob, Ben Fuller, Tex (Kurt McEnaney) decided the weather was too overcast and threatening more rain and so did not join the group.

We head off to the skinny road with a long straight bit, power lines and kangaroos (not sure of the name of this road but remember it from the last trip on the FZ). We get to the twisty bits and come across a huge tree fallen across the road, part way to Cabramurra. A couple of 4WD’s we passed on the way up park behind us, jump out of their truck and join us in the inspection. After some vain attempts to move the tree by hand we give up and hurl abuse at the 4WD rednecks for not carrying a chain saw (a prerequisite we thought) and then turn around to follow Ben to Walwa for more breakfast.

We arrive at Walwa, Some eat, some hover around bikes inspecting tyres while Ben works out a new route. We head west to Jingellic, then over the bridge over the Murray and into NSW. I recognize this road but only having ridden it from the other direction. I remember three years previous, on my maiden trip, following Danny and Misho at speed. I hit $2.80 on the R1. I’ve never been that fast since. Things get very blurry! No speed demons this time as we casually head into Tumbarumba corner servo for fuel.

From Tumbarumba we head to Tumut via the Rosewood Road. But first we travel along tricky little back roads before picking up the 50 km Rosewood Road to Tumut through the pine plantations. This is a seriously sensational road with wide, fast and constant radius sweepers with good visibility. On this stretch of road I’m following Paul who is setting a very nice pace. Suddenly, like green snot flying out of my nose after a big sneeze, Dave flies past me on the ZX green meany. “I can’t have this,” I thought. So I latch on to the back of Dave as he latches on to Paul.

As Paul is notorious for not letting people past, he ratchets up the pace which I thought was quite quick already. Speed goes up, lean angles increase. “If he can go round the corner, so can I.” This was serious fun and requiring every ounce of concentration on my part just to keep up. Paul, the sweeper master, was resisting any attempt at a pass. We were sitting between $1.60 and $1.80 consistently around 60 and 80 km/h corners. This was made possible by the exceptional visibility and wide road.

At the end of the road, down through the tight esses, I stopped to check my tyres. Lots of black spaghetti; the 003’s were working well. I felt like Casey Stoner.

We headed in to Tumut for lunch in the main street where we met another group of motorcyclists - the same ones from Yarck and Khancoban. We sat and ate nice Lebanese food (Tumut is very multicultural). We chat, look at bikes and compare tyres.

From Tumut we head to Bondo via the Wee Jasper Road. It starts out on the plain and then gradually rises. I thought the other road was fast. This one is faster. Massively fast! The road offered sensational grip, hugely wide with great vision, speed unlimited. I thought I was going fast when Dave, with Pina on the back, flies past me. Talk about rubbing my face in my own faeces. Then Ron motors past on the cruiser. “What’s a man meant to do?” So I crack open the throttle and catch up! We had a train going for a while of about six bikes. This looked impressive at $2.00+

I cannot begin to explain how good these roads are. They make the Nurburgring MotoGP circuit look like a goat track with heavy traffic. Seriously good, seriously fast, all sweepers. Just as you come out of one, you enter the next. Nothing like changing direction at high speed - this is when you need faith in your bike. The CBR did very, very, well.

We came to the end of the road where it suddenly turns to dirt. We stopped. Helmets off. Lots of very big smiles. Boyd had a smile from ear to ear. “You don’t get roads like that in Tassie.” I viewed my tyres. Half gone! And I’m only half way through day two. We enjoyed the moment and shared the exhilaration of what is a truly sensational road.

From here we back-tracked 16 km and then turned right heading to Tumorama and then 7 km of high speed (mainly $1.20 km/h) dirt before regrouping at the usual spot in the middle of nowhere. We chat and discuss the origins of Paterson’s Curse (Salvation Jane) which had carpeted much of the surroundings with its lovely purple flower. Not seen in Tassie, apparently.

From here we continued heading north to Adjungbilly and nearly to Gundagai. The roads are now narrow and start following the river with tricky humps and sharp, low speed corners. I nearly take out a semi on one corner. Gee, he was lucky, I thought. A few more inches and he woulda been gone! We eventually get back to Tumut for fuel, after the 155 km loop.

After refueling we headed back to Tumbarumba along the Rosewood Road again - sighting lap followed by the race lap. No more to say.

At Tumbarumba the group splits up. Ha, Paul, Henry and Ian went directly back to Corryong (70 km versus 170 km) while the rest followed Ben along Elliot Way down to Sue City (water hole at the bottom of very tight downhill section.) Then along the river before climbing very steeply up in to Kosciuszko National Park and around to Cabramurra (the highest town in Australia) for a group photo and rest.

After the break we stop again just out of Cabramurra for another photo opportunity at the usual spot overlooking the strangely near-empty hydro dam. Ben and Boyd decide to climb the steep roadside to get a shot, nearly breaking their necks on the decent. Don’t they know it’s dangerous!

After the photos we jump back on the bikes and head all the way down to the Khancoban via more magnificent twisties up and down the valleys. We’re on the road we attempted to come up in the morning, with the fallen tree. So, around every corner I’m expecting to see a tree strewn across the road and me smashing into it. Eventually we do come across the tree which has now been removed. Someone must have had a chain saw!

After a regroup ensuring everyone is safely through, we head back to Towong via back roads.

The ride ended up being 630 km long and we arrived back late. It was unanimously thought to be a fantastic ride with the roads being in exceptional condition everywhere. Even the road out to Bondo had worn smooth offering even more grip. Dave had Pina on the back on the ZX6 and was using every last rev of the 16,000 available.

That night we ended up down in the pub for a meal, commuting to and fro in the blue van provided by our hosts. This has become a tradition and despite two vehicles available for ferrying everyone to the pub, the preference was the blue van.

Thank you Ben for showing us the greatest roads in Australia; Google maps has nothing on you.

Thank you to everyone for the great company; it is a pleasure to ride with you, and trust you with what we do. We are very lucky people.

Also a special thankyou to Ron and Sarah for putting us up in their magnificent home. You are fantastic hosts and made us feel very welcome.

Peter Jones