Page 20 - Exhaust Notes January 2024

January 2024 Exhaust Notes - Edition No 333 
Sunday Short Ride 7th Jan
Title Ride Report Header

Ride Leader John Grace Ride report Gentle
Report Photos
Pics the Lens

Sunday Ride to Ballarat 7/ 1/24

The prophesied weather for the day was that it was going to be very wet, especially as we were going to
Ballarat.
Whilst I was sitting by myself at 9:05, the Ride Leader John G. had not even arrived I am thinking that
everyone thought it would be to wet for an enjoyable ride, wait a minute, someone on a new Triumph 1100
Tiger has rolled up? It turned out to be a prospective member asking if he could join us on the ride, I
explained that there hopefully will be more rolling up for the ride. By 9:25 there are 6 intrepid riders ready to
ride before the rain is going to hit us.

We departed at 9:32 am (take note of the time, latecomer), with John leading our small group, to Ceres, across
st
to Gheringhap, where we allowed the “latecomer” to join us, (it is certainly helpful that we include our 1
stopping point on the Ride Calendars), then to Steiglitz and on to Meredith for smoko, toilet, and tall tales.

We departed from Meredith with John agreeing to stop and allow us to put on wet weather gear if the rain
started, we travelled north along the Midland Hwy to Clarendon then to Lal Lal, Yendon and towards Mt
Egerton. We stopped along this road to put the wet gear on as it started to drizzle, at Mt Egerton John’s GPS
decided to have a rest, therefore John and I swapped positions in the ride and I lead off to take us to
Millbrook, Bungaree, Pootilla and then to Kirks Reservoir where we stopped to check out the facilities and
superb landscapes.

With John back as our fearless leader, we found our way into Ballarat where we saw numerous wonderful old
buildings and the historic Sovereign Hill, during this part of the ride it was shown to me that we have an
apprentice “Biggles” amongst us, he had a few women pedestrians wondering if they knew the person on the
motor bike waving to them, as Tail End Charley, I had a good laugh anyway. Back to the ride, we were going
to have lunch at Buninyong, but we had to detour before we got there due to the whole town centre and to Mt
Buninyong being closed off for a sports event. John then decided to go straight to Rokewood so that we could
buy lunch from the General Store.

We enjoyed lunch, out of the light rain, under the rotunda opposite the shop, where there were more
discussions held to solve the financial worries of all Australians. It was then time to mount up, and we said
our goodbyes to Mike A, who was going to Colac and to our prospective member Mark, who lives at
Bannockburn, we were going directly to Shelford and finishing the ride at Inverleigh.

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