friends reunited

Back on the road by mid morning, after limping Blue along in first gear to a one man mechanic a few kilometres outside town. Not a fun ride. Especially over gravelly roads where I fought to control the back end, even though I was crawling. The screw was a big one, about 5cm long, and had made a sizeable tear in the inner tube. But it was a relatively easy fix and we were back in business.

Despite the hiccup, I'd worked out there was still one final challenging route left to ride on my way back into Melbourne. The Black Spur run comes down through a steep, tree and fern lined valley. The trees are tall and straight, and come right to the edge of the tarmac. And there were more of those devilishly delicious twists and hairpin bends to keep a biker boy entertained! The biker atlas author reckoned this to be one of the best runs in the country, and I wouldn't argue with that. But it was short too... just 13km. I did 845km on a single one of the other top 200 roads .... THAT'S going from one real extreme to the other.

Back into traffic and a crawl through the sprawl of the Melbourne suburbs in mid afternoon traffic. Not nearly as much fun. Back at Jackie's home and I dumped my gear outside ... I'd forgotten the code to her alarm and didn't want to set it off. Didn't want to wait too long, either, as I had a date with a mate.

Claire was a good pal during my first job on the Reading Chronicle a hundred years ago. I lost touch with her down the years but knew she and her husband had moved to Melbourne. All my attempts, on and off for several weeks back in UK, to locate her had drawn a blank. But Google in Oz must be different, and I traced her to a charity where she used to work, and some kind soul there put us in contact. Spent a lovely evening catching up on what we've done with our lives in the twelve or more years since we last met. Promised I won't lose contact again.

Persisting down as I rode the twenty five minute trip back to JD's. Got soaked... yet again. I'm now warm and dry without the prospect of a long journey ahead again tomorrow. And while I've been out this evening, Jackie's kindly done my washing too! Probably the last laundry before I fly home. It's good to be back here again for my final few days. I can relax awhile....