After the year’s longest night, a good size group came out on a lovely winter’s day
to join Pat’s ride from Officer and it was a great ride. It was a mild 11 degrees on my ride to the start point
After a brief highway stint,
we headed north into the hills and on to Gembrook, where a “communication glitch” had most of enjoy a lovely ride east to Bunyip State Park, where we did a U turn and returned to Gembrook. It was a beautiful road full of great twisties in both directions so perhaps Pat can claim it as a highlight even if he didn’t ride that bit.
We the rode north past
Kurth Kiln and on to Yarra Junction before heading into the Great Divide and on to Neerim South for our “cuppa” - rest break. On the road though the upper Latrobe River Valley on the way to Piedmont, the temperature dropped to 2 degrees! I was quite pleased that I’d finally got my heated gloves working correctly. Thankfully, the temperature rose quite a bit once we left the mountain valley.
After enjoying some camaraderie
and warm drinks and snacks we rode south,
and I managed to lose the group – whoops. – No matter, I rode on to the designated lunch stop and the group arrived in Lang Lang about 10 minutes after I did.
Prepared for winter riding
The bonus of that was that I was at the head of the hot food queue.
Had a thoroughly enjoyable day – Thanks Pat and also Brian Q for doing TEC duty. Great to see so many people coming along to enjoy the ride and camaraderie.
After lunch Pat had an appointment with watching a footy game and I had a birthday function to attend so we rode home together and after riding north to Nar Nar Goon, we headed into the hills and enjoyed some more curves and mountain scenery before parting company at The Basin.
Cheers
John Cook