Sydney to Canberra
(September 1999)

Seeing as I was heading to Sydney for a weekend away with the boys (NRL Grand Final) I figured I'd take the opportunity to get in a few miles on some of the Aussie roads. It'd serve multi purposes. One it would let me ride some roads I'd never seen before, let alone ridden. Two, I would get to see my sister in Canberra and I seldom get to see her. Three, I would get away from the guys who's rate of downing the amber liquid far exceeds my own.

I phoned a couple of bike rental places in the hope of getting a cruiser for a day hire but the only option I ended up with at short notice (I'm a born again procrastinator) was a Honda VFR750. Now, I had not ridden one of them before and to tell the truth I wasn't too sure even what one looked like but I was pretty sure it was nothing like my Vulcan cruiser. In my view, any bike with an "R" in it's title had to be a sporty being "R" for Racer and guessed VFR stood for something like Very Fast Racer (but more likely V-Four). Anyhow, I figured I would have to sacrifice my upright riding style for one more similar to that of a monkey humping a football.

I booked the rental from 1:00pm Friday to 1:00pm Saturday which was intentionally done to have me get the ride in on our day of arrival in Sydney. It would allow me to avoid the first night in town, usually the worst one drinking wise knowing the crowd I was travelling with. I reckoned I had the whole thing planned so well but I should have realised that when I came down with a horror head cold two days out, my plans were likely to go a bit askew. How right I was.

With incessant sneezing and runny nose I dosed myself up with Sudofed which is supposed to be pretty good as it doesn't make you drowzy. Thursday then I was feeling a lot better and that night flew to Auckland where I was to be picked up at 4:30am next morning (bloody early flights, hell that's even before sparrow fart). Anyhow, a spot of light TV and then an early night. WRONG! These damned Sudofed not only don't make you sleepy, they in fact prevent you from sleeping. Consequently, I don't think I got a wink of sleep before I decided to get up at 3:30am, shower and ready myself for my pickup.

4:30am and a rumble is heard outside my unit, here's a lovely HSV Holden pulling up. I didn't realise Dave had a new car. I grab my bag, kick it out the door and throw it in the boot as he flicked the boot release. Then he hopped out and I realised it wasn't Dave at all and he realised I wasn't the person he was to collect. Back inside to wait.

Dave arrived five minutes later and things went well for the next few hours. Arrived in Sydney and through customs no problem (group of 32) then found that bus hadn't arrived to pick us up. Busses came and went, just not our one. A few were quite peeved by that stage as they were all planning on playing golf at 10:30am, it was 9:00am by then. Nervous moment for a few huh. Bus eventually arrived, and we trundled into the city. Well, we trundled about half way and crawled the rest. Bloody train strike and half a million were all commuting on clogged roads. SHIT!

Got to the hotel too late for the golfers to make tee off so everyone hit the bar instead. I quietly quaffed a lite beer and slid out unannounced for Redfern. Had no trouble getting to Redfern and found the bike rental place with little difficulty also. Then on completing all the paper work he asked to see my passport. "What for?" I asked as I had left it safely at the hotel. "Photo ID" was the answer but he was sort of happy to accept my sisters word via phone call to Canberra although I could tell he was a bit nervous still. Anyhow, the bike was as I more or less expected, a low racer with lots of red plastic and foot pegs so far back you almost end up lying on it face down. Suited up and braved the lunch traffic on my way down the coast road through Woolongong. Plan was to then connect up with the Hume Hiway then down to Canberra and I figured on being there by about 6:00pm, time for dinner and an early night.

That was the plan but coming into Wollongong I saw the sign pointing to the Hiway so turned left, completely ignoring the fact that the sign said Pacific Hiway and the one I needed was Hume in the opposite direction altogether. Consequently I spent nearly 40 minutes and three stops for directions before I found my way back on the road I wanted. I then found that the Hume Hiway is way up higher than Wollongong and the best part of that was the climb necessary to get there. If anyone is planning on riding over that way, make sure you head for Maquarrie Rise, it's a real bottler, lots of twisties and uphill all the way. Great on a sporty that's for sure. I was having a real blast. Got to the top and figured I had better start looking for gas but knew I had a while before it became essential. Finally found the Hume Hiway and about 10 minutes on found one of those typical Aussie service stops complete with Petrol, food etc. There was even a McDonalds.

Gassed up and then zapped across the bridge to Micky D's where I had a quiet coffee and fries and read the newspaper. Biggest problem was all the bloody kids. Three bus loads of them (last day of school before school holidays ya see). Anyhow, suitably refreshed I gathered my stuff to prepare to leave but, no keys. Shit, where are they? I backtracked my steps, checked the pockets, toilets, pockets again, under the table, the bikes ignition (waste of time that, I knew I had taken them inside), pockets yet again all the time getting less rational in my approach and more paniccy. Found one of the school teachers and asked them to check with their students, did the same with the bus drivers, asked all the counter staff but still nothing. Damn!

Then I remembered the last thing I had done before noticing the keys missing was to clear the table (tidy Kiwi huh) and realised I had likely thrown the keys out in the rubbish. I dashed to the bin but found it fitted with a fresh rubbish bag. Found the boy clearing tables and he confirmed he had re cently emptied that bin (20 minutes or more had passed) but he offered to check the bags for me. I offered but wasn't permitted). Then followed a horrible wait for 15 minutes but he returned keyless. I knew he wouldn't have searched as thoroughly as I would have but they still wouldn't let me search.

Then came the first of a whole series of phone calls. One to the dealer with the sad news and he offered to check available options and call me back. Then one to sister to tell her I'd be late but may need to be picked up. Waited 20 minutes and the dealer called back. Only option (after I assured him the bike was still in the car park) was for him to taxi me the keys but cost would be $450. Extortion! I canned that idea and rang sister again to see if she and hubby could hire a ute and pick up me and bike. Then the inevitable wait for the return call. An hour had passed by now and I finally convinced the manager to let me search the bin. By this stage of course another half dozen bags had been thrown on top so I went through the top six or eight before a call came through for me. By the time I took that call, made another and got back to the bin again, some tidy turkey had put my searched bags back into the bin and thrown another half dozen bags on top of them. Bloody kids! Why don't McD's employ adults who can think?

Having given up on the idea of searching all those bags again I gave up and sat down, waiting, watching the bike, waiting and waiting some more. Six hours I sat there, six friggin' hours! I tell you, despite the friendliness of the staff and cleanliness of the place, I am in no hurry to go back into a Micky D's again.

Bro' in law eventually arrived with Rent-A-Ute, a couple of packing blankets, a few ropes and a five foot board. A couple of willing helpers assisted with the push up the ramp but of course the apex proved a problem and we had to physically lift it on to the deck due to the fairing grounding on the end of the tray. Centre stand down, nose up against the front of the deck and a big webbing strap was wrapped around the rear tyre. Each end of the strap was then tied to either side and then top of forks securely tied to front corners of deck. That bike was going nowhere thanks to the trucky knots my dad taught be many years ago.

Finally got in to Canberra about half midnight after a 90 minute drive where we talked so much about nothing in an attempt to ensure we both stayed awake. By this stage I had had no sleep since 6:30am Thursday (42 hours) and I was totally shagged, almost hallucinating. Said gidday to sis' then off to bed but not before I was told ute had to be returned before 7:00am. Sheese!

6:00am found the youngest niece banging on the wall, our shared bedroom wall. Aren't kids such little darlings. NOT! Showered, coffee'd and then rang the air terminal to see if keys had arrived. No answer came the firm reply. By this stage, bro' in law surfaced and looked blearily at me while we tried to figure out how the hell we were going to get the bike off the ute. I reckoned we needed a loading dock but bro' reminded me how we would still need to get bike down off that. Damned Ozzies, too smart for their own good I reckon. Sis' rang the rent a ute place who suggested we try the super market next door. Bingo! Seems they have a loading dock with a hydraulic lift. Perfect. Drove ute around, backed into loading dock and had bike unloaded in a couple of minutes. Dropped off ute, picked up keys from airport and back to sis's place to pack and say cherrio's

The ride back to Sydney was rather quick. I left the outskirts of Canberra at 9:00am allowing me four hours to get to Sydney. Plenty I reckoned. The Hume Hiway is typical of the many I have seen in Oz. Dual lane expressway, no towns, just a solid blast on a dry road. Perfect. Rode a couple of hours but my sore butt and the need for coffee and gas dictated the inevitable stop. Another of those service stops just like the prior afternoon was in the right place so I pulled in, gassed up and parked the bike for a quiet rest and coffee. Joined the queue at the coffee counter but of course, everyone in front of me was a complete family with associated total lunch order including warming the baby's bottle. I juggled the helmet, jacket etc in the queue and counted the spare seats filling fast. Then I realised, I didn't have the keys! "Don't tell me" I swore and searched all my pockets about three times while I waited.

I figured they'd probably still be in the ignition but then all the available options go spinning through my head. Should I go out and check, only to lose my place in the slow moving queue? Should I stay in the queue only to dash out and see some hoon riding off into the distance? Knowing whatever I chose would be wrong, I stayed in the queue, spent less than 30 seconds getting served (why can't everyone else be like me huh?) and dashed outside. Bike was still there, keys were still in the ignition <phew>.

Half an hour after I stopped I was away again and made the toll gate outside Sydney at noon, three hours after leaving Canberra and having travelled 320 kms including a half hour stop. Man, these VFR's are quick. I needed to have bike back at 1:00pm, plenty of time I thought again but didn't allow for my complete lack of knowledge of Sydney or it's suburbs. I eventually made it on time but not before stopping three times to get directions (how come everyone in Sydney is fluent in Ukranian or Lebanese but not English?).

The whole exercise was (looking back) a lot of fun I guess but a very expensive lesson in how to keep control of your keys. On top of the $200 bike hire I was up for $65 ute hire, $35 for ute gas, $75 for air freight of keys, $50 for new ignition lock (in case keys had been stolen with intention to later steal bike) and $60 for fairing repairs (teeny weeny crack at very bottom where it hit top of loading ramp previous night).

Anyone considering a ride in Oz, I strongly recommend it but do remember to put keys in secure pocket immediately after turning engine off. Oh yes, don 't forget to check out that Macquarrie Rise from Wollongong to Golbourn, absolutely brilliant.

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