BMW Ride

Made an attempt to be a part of the BMW Club of Victoria's ride "Willow Grove Wandering" held on the 20th of January 2008.

The ride started at Lyndhurst at 9:00. Way to early for me. On top of that it had rained and the roads were wet, so back to sleep I went at 8:00. I mention 8:00 because I had intended to meet up with the ride at Noojee, but that could be wet, so I'm not risking it. The next stop in the ride, Yarragon for lunch, seemed to have much more promise.

Got out of bed at 11:00 and judged the road nearly dry! Good enough for me, so I set off for Yarragon to meet the ride for lunch.

I arrive around 12:00 and not seeing any motorbikes, set up at the Yarragon Pub and have a cup of tea watching the live entertainment provided by the pub. Two songs later the bikes appear, so I head off to meet them. Barry Law gave a big wave, so I moved in his direction. All of the attendees where friendly and approachable, not something I'm used to. We had lunch at the Ice Creamery/Restaurant at the West end of the CBD. I had a quiche and quite enjoyed consuming it.

We set off not long after for the final leg to Tooradin. Mind you, we did had a stop at Nyora to check out the Speedway. The pace was quite a bit faster than what I normally travel at and explored some unused space on the speedometer. When I felt the pace was too fast, I just slowed down to what I felt was comfortable.

Just before we left, Barry indicated that he was off to a Model Aircraft flying field to which I indicated that I was interested too. We left the remnants of the ride at Koo We Rup and headed for the airfield. Quite a setup, very professional.
I'm interested in Radio Controlled Helicopters and was rather disappointed that the only helicopter at the airfield disappeared with its owner a few minutes after I arrived.

The wind was up and I thought for sure no one would be flying, but I was proved quite wrong. There were three 'pilots' there flying fixed wing aircraft and boy could they do some tricks. Very impressive.

As Barry and I watched the model airplanes doing there stuff, we discovered that we both played music and had a similar background. Barry is a keyboard player while I am a guitarist. Spent about an hour discussing our present musical directions.

Around 4:30 we decided to head for home. Barry guided me to the Cardinia Road intersection with the new Pakenham bypass and we went our separate ways.

All in all, a very good day, with a large variety of activities. Most enjoyable.