Page 9 - NLH Newsletter February 2022

nd
2 February 2022* Destination: Patonga??

I hopped out of bed at 7:20 am and took a look out the window. The view to the south was totally miserable, exactly
the same as yesterday, so I made the coffee and climbed back into bed. No such luck yesterday! Yesterday was
the first Wednesday of the month and that meant our ride day. Because the rain was not bucketing down there was
a chance it may recede or even go away. Who knows, I thought. In an hour it may be all gone. So, with that hope in
mind, I headed out to Freemans’ Waterhole, todays’ meeting spot, wondering who would be there.

Upon arrival I saw there were two members of our group and
I made three, then another arrived. One was Gary Hughes
who stated he was only there for a coffee then going back
home because he “thought the ride day was next week”! So,
as 9:30 was nearing, we had a discussion about our
destination. It was to have been Fish and Chips at Patonga.
Mark Thomas had contacted me on Monday night to inform
that the fish and chip shop was closed indefinitely. So, on
went the thinking cap and I rang Ettalong RSL Club. This
became the new destination. During our chat, the other two,
Paul and Peter, could not be talked out of calling off the ride!
We left at 9:30 something for morning tea at the Corrugated
Cafe after getting Gary to take a photo of the three
participants for the newsletter. By the time we arrived at the base of Bumble Hill I pulled over to test the mood of the
group. It had not stopped raining since we set out and to the South, it appeared to be getting a lot worse. Peter had
never experienced the service at the Corrugated and said he wanted to give it a go. Paul said “why not” so we
continued.

On arrival at Peats Ridge, we ordered our M/T and I purposely saw we took our time. I Told Paul I had intended to
stop in at Central Coast Motorcycles on my way home after Ettalong. Paul said let’s go there now and think about
Ettalong while at Gosford. The rain eased a bit during our bike shop visit and after more discussion, the West
Gosford RSL around the corner from where we were, became the latest lunch destination! We arrived there ten
minutes before lunch went off at two o clock.

After some bonding and a lot of chat by me, the other two are more reserved, it was decided to call an end to
todays’ excitement and head to our respective homes. Co-incidentally we all lived in the same direction so, up the
hill to join the freeway and then we sat on 110kph all the way to the Toronto turn off. Just to show who was boss on
this ride, we had non-stop rain all the way. The only thing out of the ordinary that happened was, when we were
about to leave morning tea, a bloke approached and asked who
owned the Bonneville? When Peter fessed up, the bloke said do you
want a set of genuine panniers, hardly used, for a song? Pete was
driven just up the road to have a look and decided they would be
good and he would buy them, and the bloke brought him back. Then
he offered a pair of hardly used exhaust pipes!.....

About an hour later I pulled into my driveway at 4:15pm, happy to be
home but not sorry for having done the ride. I reckon you can’t
afford to not have rain riding experience and I do rather enjoy the
challenge it presents.
Till next time, Ken Taylor.
9