Day 17 Mittagong to Goulburn 86 kms. 17km per hour av. good riding though after yesterday!
A long but good day of riding the big long climbs but completely unlike yesterday I had some down hill runs too! One of which I wound my bike out up to 58.9kms per hour! I hadn’t gone over 45 since my scarey incident coming down onto Mooni Mooni bridge on Tuesday and my bike got the speed wobbles at about 50kms per hour! It was pretty hair raising, at the same time I got speed wobbles, i ran out of shoulder, the road got rough and I had to merge into the traffic on the bridge because on my ‘reconoitre’ back in ! August I failed to notice that important fact
Anyway it was all pretty scarey. I ended up getting new tyres on my bike as they were’nt seating right in the rims. I had been a little ‘reticent’ to take it up to a high speed again, but today I just ‘went wild’, there I was coming down a huge hill 30kms from Goulburn, sweet wide shoulder smooth as a baby’s butt and I thought what the hell, now or never and wound her right out! It was exilerating, I nearly hit 60kms per hour! And enjoyed every second of the descent. Good to feel like i’ve ridden through fear after my ‘near death experience’ on Mooni Mooni.
My crew came into Goulburn when I was about 35kms from town to set up camp and do a few jobs. I pulled up at Marulen for a hamburger with the lot and a coffee. I’d been visualising the hamburger for 20kms! It tasted pretty good.
Was very happy to pull into camp here (after I overshot the caravan park because again I was going flat out down a hilll after an extremely steep long climb into goulburn at Governer’s Hill! The van park was just before the bottem ofthe hill, there was no way I was pulling up! The Govern’ers Hill Caravan Park has generously donated a nights site fee to ride4acure! Which I am very grateful for.
Am riding into Canberra tomorrow to Campbell whihc is very close to Capitol Hill. My niece Kate and her husband Adam are generously letting us ‘camp’ in their front yard with the caravan! Amanda will be flying back to Melbourne and my sister Veronica will be taking over the ‘ute wheel’ for a week. It’s Joe’s birthday on Sunday, the big 11! He’s pretty keen that he’ll be spending it with some family and it’s a day off the bike for me!
Thanks to all the people who are sending me lovely messages of support! I absolutely appreciate them.
I especially appreciated a photo Fiona Murray sent me yesterday, she’s droving a mob of cattle with another crew from Wingham to Nabiac for a campdraft this weekend. The future of ride4acure eh?
Yes I beleive it is!
November 6th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Hi Maura and clan
thinking of you every day, especially today while riding a friends horse helping to push 780 head of cattle into Wingham for a campdraft this weekend. How good would it be to ride for a cure on horse back !!!!!!! – I’m in. Having ridden the road you’ve been on and about to do with Dennis and Reg (and Kerry) we appreciate and understand what you do. Except we did it a bit easier as a group, your a solo legend. Enjoy the wind in your hair hurtling down those smooth hills its the best feeling. Go girl
Fiona and Lexi
November 6th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Yes Fiona, on the long ‘moments’ of empty thinking while riding the bike I frequently have images of horses, cattle, dogs, droving and ride4acure all in the one frame, I’m hatching a few “watch this space” ideas. But a very wise woman ‘mentoring Margie in Melbourne’ helps me stay very focused on what I’m doing right now and not to ‘let my energy go to far ahead of me’, but I have the ideas, sketch them out a little in my mind and on paper, work out who I need to network with and then set them aside. This one is definately gonna be a goer, “I feel it in me waters dear!” And of course the whole idea of a ride4acure droving trip would be so EXACTLY HANNAH, she’s smilin’, she’s smilin’…….
November 9th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Dear Maura, I have been following your progress since I met you outside the coffee shop near Gordon St. Cycles Port Macquarie. I truly admire your courage and I am sure Hannah is looking down on you keeping you safe. Your trip is not only raising money for a very important cause but creating an awareness not only in the population that are at risk, but everyone and reminds us all to be forever vigilant. I know as a parent of teenagers and young adult children, that there tends to be a complaicancy about the risk factors. We tend to be so good at keeping them protected from the risk factors when they are small children. But when they become older we gradually lose out influence and control over such things.
I wish you a safe and fulfilling trip. Cheers. Shirley