A story worth re-telling: My Phillip Island trip 2008

What follows is a little recount of an 'interesting' round-trip I made to the MotoGP at Phillip Island in October 2008. It was written not long after my return and describes... well, read on to find out!

Dedicated to Marco Simoncelli
1987 - 2011
Ciao Marco #58

I departed south from Sydney on the mighty "Razzo" (my Moto Guzzi Le Mans II) on the Wednesday with a view to making Orbost that day. She was packed to the gunwales, including two items that would later prove invaluable (!). Weather was perfect as I tracked down to Canberra over the usual road, filled the tank near Queanbeyan and headed down the Monaro Highway to Bombala.

That is where the first item came in handy. Needing to fill up, I spied a servo across the road up ahead, full of crotch rockets and rice burners, all with the same intentions as me. I turned across the centre line and as I was about to go into the driveway, I dabbed the brake to slow the old girl down a bit and she just low sided me right in front of about 30 pairs of eyes! The front tyre just let go at approx 10kph. The bike ended up on its side with my leg pinned under the RHS soft pannier. This was saviour item #1 as it not only prevented further damage to the bike, but it also was very 'soft' on my right ankle despite all that bike weight on it.

The only good thing about all those guys watching was that I just lay there while they lifted the bike up and off me. I pushed her up to the pumps and had a look at the damage;  not too bad: 1 x broken bar-end mirror, 1 x bent footpeg and 1 x scratched engine protector. The damage to me as a bit more substantial: 1 x torn rib cartilage and 1 x bruised ego. The sore ribs would prove to be lots of fun for a bloke that had to spend the next 6 nights trying to live in a small tent!

I taped up the mirror ok, but there was nothing I could do about the peg. It was bent down 45 degrees and the bloody footpeg hanger is one thick piece of metal and not easy to straighten in the field. This was definitely not the ideal peg configuration for travelling over what was to come next.

After a quick fill up, I decided to get the hell away from those prying eyes (me? paranoid?) and off I went. This year I planned to deviate in at Bombala and go down via Delegate and Bonang, approx 160km to Orbost, nestled on the Snowy River.

Bonang "General Store"

This is really a fantastic bit of road, but has two dirt/gravel sections of approx 7 km and 14km in length. I was a bit jumpy after the off, so took those very easy. They are in very windy sections so it would be easy to come off. The rest was brilliant, but tiring. At one stage, there was a "winding roads next 110km" sign, and it did not lie. Unbelievable number of turns and twists, most quite tight but the road surface is very good, and the corners are very well surveyed.

Stop for a stretch at Lakes Entrance

The evening approached pretty quickly and I was buggered, rooted and totally stuffed. That last 20km found me just wishing I was at the end. I had two near misses with wallabies in that last 20km as well. I was very glad to finally pull into Orbost!!! What a great section of road, one that everyone should have on their bucket list. I saw ZERO cops on this whole day.

Day two saw me heading down via Bairnsdale, where I happened upon the Barry Sheene ride, finding myself fair smack in the arse-end of thousand bikes or more, mostly moving very slowly... arrgghhhh!!! It was fun for about 15 minutes, then I just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge! I finally managed to lose them and at Morwell, took the B460 road down to the Island via Leongatha, Inverloch and Wonthaggi. This stretch of road is very nice with plenty of fast sweepers. Did not see one cop the whole part of this ride, until I got to San Remo.

I arrived at the Island as planned mid afternoon, in blazing sunshine (as opposed to 2007 when I arrived in the dark with it pissing down). I grabbed a site in the middle of nowhere and put up the tent.

My tent site at Trackside Campground

 I won't go too much into the racing side of things except to say that the weather was brilliant, with only Friday arvo and night being (very) wet. The racing was also fantastic and I managed to get right around the track a few times, and watched qualifying and the race from my seat in the Siberia stand at Turn 6.

I sent a couple of evenings around the fire at l'Hotel de Hatchy, which was much appreciated (thanks Hatchy!). There were not many Guzzi's to be seen, but I spied a couple of Mk IV's, a lovely 1000S, Dave's Norge, a Sport 1200 and a couple of Breva 750's, plus of course, Hatchy's Cali II.

Cheers Hatchy!

To say the trip back home was 'unbelievable' would be an understatement. I had planned a two-day affair, by going up the Great Alpine Road via Mt Hotham and across Mt Beauty and over the Snowy Mountains. So, no need to get away early as two days to cover approx 1200km would be a piece of piss, right? So much for planning. The weather on Monday morning changed everything.

It was wet, wet, wet. The tent was soaked as I had to pack it up in pouring rain. Did I mention it was wet? I certainly as not looking forward to sleeping in that on Monday night. As I retraced my way back to Bairnsdale, the weather just got wetter and colder, unbelievable as the day before was sunburn-hot and cloudless. Decision time... I decided that the mountains looked wet and cold and no fun was to be had there, so I decided to make for Sydney in one day, via Cann River and back up the Monaro Highway. This was the start of the rest of a very, very, (dare I say 'very') long day.

I took the sweepers north of Cann River at reasonable pace, but was constantly held up in the twisties by guys on big cruisers that went fast in the straight bits, but as soon as the road twisted, they suddenly got all touchy on their (rear?) brakes.

It got colder as I climbed. This is where saviour item #2 came in! Over 12 months prior, I was in Aldi doing some shopping and picked up a pair of gauntlet gloves for two-thirds of five-eighths of sweet bugger all. These were taken home and left on a shelf, never expected to be used. When I packed the gear for the trip I threw them in, thinking I may need them in the Snowy. How right I was.

I grabbed a cup of coffee at Bombala (no low-side this time!) and with my 'new' gloves on, pushed on up the road. It got colder and colder and colder, and not far up the road I thought I was seeing things as snow started to fall. And not light snow either. This quickly became driving snow! My specs fogged immediately and I had to push them way down my nose. My left hand became the windscreen wiper for the next 40km or so as I slowly made my way up past Nimitabel. Bikes were parked there that were indistinguishable as they were covered in inches of snow. No stopping for me, as I did not wanna get caught there, frozen for all eternity. And so, on and on I went, wearing my trusty Aldi gloves, never 100 percent sure of where the road was or how much longer I had to endure.

Eventually, I started to go down and the snow finally petered out, only to be replaced by rain once again. We finally made it into Cooma, stopping at Maccas to get a large coffee and try to warm up. My hands were the only part of me that was remotely warm (thanks Aldi!!!) and hypothermia was kicking in. The people at the Maccas just looked at me like I was some kind of nut, looking something like a cross between a wet Yowie and a hunched-over 100 year-old swagman.

I finally stopped shaking and climbed back on board and roared off up the road to Queanbeyan, where I needed to fill the bike and empty the bladder. I bought two cups of the crap servo coffee that was available and while standing inside to keep warm, watched a cop pull up for fuel. When I went outside, we struck up a conversation and he mentioned that they had closed the road back up Nimitibel way due to snow. All I could think of is thank the good Lord I made it through! I don't wanna think about what would have happened if I got stuck up there. The cops last words to me were "Good luck for the rest of your trip." I was gonna need it. It was getting dark...

So there I was, with it being already dark outside and me still 300 km from home. At least it had stopped raining and snowing after 700km. We must be grateful for small mercies. Two things got me thinking; one being that Canberra region is well known for being the home for an evil plague of kamikaze kangaroos, and the other being that the lights on the MKII are so bad that I swore never to ride at night outside a well-lit city. This night I was to break that promise.

So what to do? It was almost 8pm, so I gritted my teeth, set the lights to permanent "high" beam allowing me to see at least 30m ahead, and headed down the Federal Highway. My plan was to latch onto a car travelling at a good pace and hang behind and use it as a combination light source and roo bar. The plan worked. About 15km outta Canberra, a big black Ford went by me as I was travelling at the 110kph. I tagged onto him at his speed of around 130kph for the rest of the way up to Goulburn and beyond towards Sydney. I stayed a solid 100m behind and I think he got the shits with me a few times because he sped up to 160+ a couple of times, but I stuck to him like shit to a blanket. Didn't see one bloody roo...

I rolled off the M5 and into Sydney and got home at 11pm, fifteen hours after leaving Phillip Island, now 1,050km away. I then proceeded to take a 30 minute shower, where the neighbours must have thought I was shagging at least a dozen chicks at the same time as I could not stop yelling "Oh yeah!" and "Give it to me baby!" and "Oh my God, that is fantastic. Give me more baby!!" the whole time I was in that shower. Bliss!

Well, that's my story... The MkII never missed a beat. Roll on next time!

The master of Phillip Island takes win #2

The former master of Phillip Island