Despite quite short notice, eight of us assembled at Officer today and did a bit of a reconnaissance ride into Gippsland.  As it was a reconnaissance ride, I believe the two U turns included in the ride were perfectly acceptable.  One was due to a road closure and the other down to my route selection.   It was good to see Barry and John join us on Hondas, but we were still outnumbered as Andrew, Carlo, Ian, Jeff and Tez were all BMW mounted.   Ian did a great job as Tail End Charlie and his BMW had some special features

·         His GPS didn’t want to function

·         To compensate, his bike transmitted a special signal which turned every traffic light red for him after the other 7 of us made it through!  We waited and regrouped near Nar Nar Goon and joked that there would be no more traffic lights and of course we found one more in Leongatha and yes, it caught him again!     

Once I confirmed that our route was to the south in Gippsland, we left and immediately headed north into the hills and got some bends in before we had an early cuppa/rest stop at Garfield. 

Then it was due south towards Catani, but a road closure brought plan A to an end.  A U turn and 20 km detour got us back on route and we enjoyed the views and bends into Poowong and on to Ranceby.  We then took a detour to Lancey’s lookout

which was an enjoyable ride and confirmed that the road beyond that was loose gravel.  Another U turn and we got to enjoy the road on the opposite direction which we as actually quite nice.

Then it was down through Korumburra and Leongatha to Meeniyan where we enjoyed lunch in the back yard of a café. 

After a leisurely chat and break we rode north through to Thorpdale and checked out some potato fields

before joining the Monash Freeway and heading back to Melbourne.

Thanks to all who came along and made it such an enjoyable ride.

Cheers

John Cook