Monthly Archives: May 2010

Made a quick trip to Beechworth in north-eastern Victoria.  Fanged over to Mansfield, then the great trip over the ridge to Whitfield and the King Valley.  Temperature dropped to 8C over the top, with cloud patches on the cliff where the power lines march up and over the ridge.  There are no safety rails here, and we had the interesting experience of being in freezing cloud, while there was sunshine only a hand’s-breadth away.  Passed the ubiquitous 4WD right in the tight hairpins!  Lovely fang up the King Valley, past the wineries, then into Beechworth.  Stayed at the Old Priory, not doubt once filled with young nuns taking cold showers.  But I digress…

Ate at Tanswell’s Commercial Hotel in the main street.  Good food and beers from the Bridge Road Brewerey on tap.  Ooh, yeah.

Next morning we descended through fog to the Whorouly Grocer’s for breakfast.

The Ducati was now rather low on fuel, and the Oxley servo was shut!  (The Breva is fantastic here because of its 22L tank.)  We made it to the Golden Arches on the freeway near Glenrowan with 1.5 L remaining – assuming the tank was full in the first place!

Home via Violet Town – what!, no statue to Killing Heidi! – and then via Colbinabbin and Heathcote, where I saw my first Breva 850.

Took the Cali out for a couple of hundred kay run.  She’s pulling like a freight train after I replaced the throttle position sensor recently.  Makes me realise that it had been playing up for some time.

Stopped off at the look-out at Guildford, near Castlemaine.  Hadn’t been up here before because the Chief didn’t want to ride up; it’s pretty steep, particularly the last bit.

The day became quite cold, dark and overcast as a weak cold front moved through.  A fitting backdrop for the Devil’s numbers to come up on the dash.