We had a beautiful winter day today and lots of people came out to Lilydale to join the ride to Wonthaggi.

I’ll no doubt miss some names (sorry) but some of the less regular riders included Peter in his Moto Guzzi, Peter on his old K100 BMW, Ross from East Gippsland and Mike who normally rides with Yarra Ranges Branch.  Steve was back from his riding abroad.  Andrew is riding again after his elbow injury, and we even had a father and son participation.   Brian Lacey arrived wearing a Ulysses vest and volunteered to do TEC duty.   

Once greetings were exchanged, bikes examined and briefings finalised, we headed off east and left the highway almost immediately.  We then explored a series of back roads to the east of the Dandenong Ranges and rode past farms, orchards and vineyards before descending not fog around Yellingbo.  Luckily the fog didn’t last, and we rode south to Pakenham in sunshine.  Unfortunately, we lost a significant part of the group who had turned left towards Gembrook from Cockatoo.  I got a call from Brian (our TEC) and we arranged to gather again at Bayles our morning cuppa / rest stop.  We rode on south via Cora Lyn and arrived in Bayles

where we were met by Reece who had ridden direct from Drouin to avoid the fog.

We then discovered we had lost our newest participant in that mix up.  Oh Dear!

From Bayes, we rode east and then south via Head Road and explored some alternative roads down to Loch.   I shortened that “leg” a bit due to the delays caused by our mix up and re grouping.   We passed the old Mobil servo in Kongwak and rode on down to Inverloch and followed the Bunurong Coastal Route

Bass Strait

Eagle Nest in the background

past Cape Paterson and on to the State Coal Mine at Wonthaggi

where we stopped for lunch and some camaraderie.  

 Then it was a fuel stop and north into the hills again via Glen Alvie and Almurta

Westernport in the background

Yes the old Honda needs a wash and some TLC

before joining the Bass Hwy at The Gurdies.

Many thanks to all who came along.  I had a great day despite getting a puncture on my way home.  Pumped it up and have now installed a plug,

I tried to get too much out of that tyre😏

but new tyre is needed.

Cheers

John Cook