A fine sunny day was promised by the weather forecast, and this along with the ride being in the holiday period brought a good turn out including classics to our meeting place at the Lyndhurst servo on Thomson's Road at the north end of the Mornington Peninsula. Ed led us south-east towards Gippsland and the landscape quickly became agricultural with rows of hale bales all around and rows of large pine trees planted long ago for wind breaks and shade.  Herds of black and white cows started to become commonplace and I recall a waft of manure as we passed a piggery.
We paused briefly at Nyora, Dean and Burger no longer with us after Dean had puncture problems at the start.  They met us later in Drouin after a detour to the seaside at Hastings. By now the caffeine and cake gauges on the Suzuki were showing empty, so I was much relieved when Ed led us into Loch for our morning break.  Here some of us favored the General Store, recently renovated, and others the Cozy Kitchen café where around our table I noticed the following choices mainly with different shades of coffee: a pecan tart, scone with jam, carrot cake and green tea, lemon slice, a BYO sandwich, and apple pie.

Refueled with these high octane foods and after pleasant socializing, we set off on a loop south of Korumburra via Kongwak through lovely countryside with rolling hilly vistas to the left and right, if you had time to look that is – the corners were numerous and often demanding.

Back near Korumburra I remember coming over a crest to find other riders had paused- unsealed roads lay straight ahead and to the left, while the sealed road continued with a sharp turn to the right.  Not believing that the ride would have gone down the dirt road I followed the sealed road – wrong!  It would have been better to have stopped and conferred.  The others were now following and the error soon became apparent when we arrived at the S. Gippsland Highway and no corner marshal.  Peter had a map which we consulted and Jack offered to lead us to Drouin which was the planned lunch destination (we knew this from Ed’s briefing back at the start).  We rode through Strzelecki past giant gum trees and sheep being herded, scenes reminiscent of Hans Heysen paintings.  Meanwhile Ed was leading the other riders on a parallel route to the west – we all met in Drouin at about the same time for lunch, a happy ending. As Ed said later: “… the daisy chain broke”.

After lunch the sun was hotter but once on the move the temperature was still comfortable, and we headed back towards Berwick encountering traffic lights for the first time for hours.  From here we went our different ways, Dean and Burger riding back to Ballarat on their Triumphs, a round trip of about 500 km I think Burger said.

A great day out in moderate weather in good motorcycling country with little traffic – thanks again to Ed, Bill for riding tail end, all who marshaled, and Reg for the photos.

Participants list:
GORDON PATERSON   TRIUMPH T100, 1957
BURGER DRAKE   TRIUMPH TR6, 1970
DEAN WATTS   TRIUMPH TROPHY, 1968
TONY BORDER   BMW R69/S, 1968
PETER CULLEN   BMW R60/5, 1971
PHIL MCARDLE   BMW R80 /GS, 1981
RAY ISLES   BMW R80, 1995
JACK YOUDAN   YAMAHA FZ1, 2006
BILL WEEDON   HONDA ST1300, 2003
JOHN &VICKI BEST   SUZUKI BANDIT, 2008
REG HAMMOND   HONDA TRANSALP, 2006
IAN RODDOCK   YAMAHA FJR, 2007
ED SLEIGHTHOLM   TRIUMPH BONNY T100, 2005
GRAHAM BOULTER   TRIUMPH BONNY T100, 2008.

John Best.