Though he couldn’t, Dustin thought last night must have been one to remember.  He could remember visiting the hospital, dodging questions about his personal life, wishing his best to Daniel, and then escaping into the night.  He hated hospitals.  After that, he thought maybe he’d met up with some friends at the local watering hole.  Kyle, Dustin exclaimed inside his head as an image of his best mate bobbed around like an apple, he might have been there.

The headache that lingered was one of monstrous proportions; an eigentone that resonated deep along the walls in the space between his eardrums.  He could feel the harmonics as they ran along the jaw-line into his root canal.  Dustin clenched his teeth together.  It was really starting to give him the shits.  In a vain move to unblock his ears, he held his nose.  Hand cupped over his mouth, Dustin puffed out his cheeks.  Bad move, he thought with a wince.  Now his whole head throbbed.  It felt like an Irishman was dancing a jig on his grave.

As he slouched at the table, Dustin couldn’t help but feel numb and disconnected from his surroundings.  With the lanterns lit dimly as they were, all you could make out of neighboring patrons were their silhouettes; phantoms that whispered conspiratorially to one another, haunting visions that whose shadows flickered eerily on the walls.  Why am I here?

A kind of stoic solipsism washed over him, a gloomy introspection.  His surrounds kind of hovered and buzzed around the edges, like background noise, before finally settling into a dull hum.  He welcomed the respite.  Dustin’s focus returned to his chopsticks, and he watched as they fidgeted for greater meaning in his noodles.

A short time later, bangles chinked together and a hand darted in front of Dustin’s face.  Looking up, he could see it was Sascha.  She looked happy.

Smiling brown eyes parted high cheeks that swept out from a button nose.  It was a neat effect, so she said, as it gave the impression her eyes were larger than they were.  And that, so he’d been instructed carefully, was a good thing.  Full lips drew attention down a fine jaw to her slim neckline.  She was wearing a grey-wool sweater.

Sacha had a bubbly effervescence about her.  And even in dull mood, you had to work hard not to be infected by it.  He could see her grinning at him.  He smirked back and immediately regretted it.

“Aww diddums,” she said, pinching his cheek as the waiter slipped the chair under her. “Big night?”

Feigning aggravation, he rubbed at it. “Huge.”

“Do anything interesting?”

No response.

“Did you catch up with Kyle?”

“Kyle, where?”

“Last night.  You know, at the party.”

“The party?”

“You know: music, drinks, light entertainment, the pool, scantily clad women. Party.”

“Right.  The party.  Yes.”

“You don’t remember, do you?”

“No.”

Sascha plucked a miniature bread stick from the bowl in front of her.  She seemed content to nibble at it for a moment while she fashioned the next stage of her inquisition.

Sometimes, Kyle was just one of those people that got on Dustin’s nerves.  He was a self-professed genius, by his own accounts, to which various contraptions and ideas would’ve been attributed had they not been pilfered by his peers.  He professed to know a little about everything.  And somewhere, hidden behind those layers of pseduintellectual bravado, Dustin wondered it wasn’t a lonely soul who peered out at the world.  But for all his outward aloof, it was his doomsayer qualities that Dustin loved.  A self depreciation that can only be found in the noblest students of inward eschatology, destined to walk the world in search of some elusive and horrible truth.

“You’ll never guess what I was watching this morning.”  Dustin thought he’d better initiate something that resembled conversation before she strangled him with a napkin for arranging a dinner he wasn’t mentally attending.

“Surprise me.”

“Well, I flicked it on”, he said “and right there in front of me…”

“Yes?”

“Wiggles”

“Wiggles?” she looked puzzled.

“You know, the Wiggles.  They sing and dance.”

“Paedophile.”

“Shut up” and he frowned at her before continuing “so anyway, I figure that’s where I want to be in twenty years.”

“Singing nursery rhymes? Dancing with fluffy toys?”

“No, to still have an idea of where my toes are.  Those guys are pretty flexible you know.  It’s like new-age yoga; killer with the ladies.” He glimpsed up from his bowl to see if he got a rise out of her.  ”If I’m forty-five, pushing fifty, and can still bend like that… man.  Look out!”  He made a posing gesture as if he was midway through seventies-style rock photo-shoot, and he heard her chuckle.  But then she whacked him in the shins.

“Ok, let’s order.”

Dustin woke to find himself choking on a pillow, in precisely the way that pillows do if you gnaw on them.  This wasn’t his room.  Stumbling out to Saschas kitchen to grab a drink, he could hear the TV in the background.  She was silently wording the music to a late-night musical.

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” He wouldn’t have picked it so easily had she not been twirling a cocktail umbrella in time with the music.

“Come back to bed.” Dustin said.

“Maybe.”

“I’ll give you a spoon full of sugar.” He said, wandering back in the direction of the bedroom.

“Nice try, Romeo.” She piped at his retreating back.  But as he turned around, she frowned.

“What?”

“Nothing, must be the light.  You just look taller.”

(This post continues on from 2-day tour (part 1))

I’ve recently been reading my way through the superb accounts of Ixion, one so lucky to be there when it all began…

Reminiscenses of MC – IXION (First published 1920-1927)
XI. ROADS.
IN spite of the huge sums which are expended on roads nowadays, they are certainly worse-probably much worse-than they were twenty years ago. The impressions of oldtimers like myself cannot, of course, be wholly trustworthy. The prehistoric motor demanded one’s entire attention, and no surplus faculties were available to criticize the road surface. Moreover, a youthful body is composed of fencing wire and indiarubber, so that it sustains lightly tribulations which would be torture to a forty-year-old. Again, the primitive machines were decidedly slow, nor did they grant us such long spells in the saddle that there was time to get cramped, for we were perennially hopping off to effect some small repair or to run alongside the labouring engine up some mild hill. Nevertheless, when all these allowances have been scrupulously made, I am convinced that the national road system has steadily deteriorated since 1900 or thereabouts.

There are two types of country road in Australia. Those that go ‘nowhere’, and those that just take a little longer to get there.

Our chosen route turned out to be the former, but in the meantime I was determined to experience this particular road through my bike which, after not even a year of being it’s proud owner, was increasingly becoming an extension of my body and senses.

No wider than a single car in places, and with a surface that had undergone continual spot-patching since the time of Ixion, his assessment of modern road conditions was certainly ringing true... Ringing through my palms and elbows, and resonating in my posterior, which was suffering from my ill-informed decision to wind up the rear-suspension stiffness for ‘improved handling’ in more favourable conditions.

Despite the numerous downsides to motorcycling that any rider will recount ad-nauseum to their ‘driver’ acquaintances, these quibbles certainly reinforce the joy of the exercise.  In fact, the more drenching the rain, numerous the intercepted bugs,  frigid the air,  numb the fingers, dusty and rutted the road – the better, as this all provides the adventurous rider a sense of ‘being alive’. Certainly a resounding joy will be soaked up like a hearty soup on a freshly baked bun when those obstacles have passed, but in the meantime they make a good story on later telling. I’m sure these tales of hardiness contribute to the mysticism of the motorcyclist, but also serve to paint as being a bit strange.

Our road at this stage was heading along the base of a long gully between adjacent eucalypt forested ranges. Prosperous-looking farmland occupied much of the gully-flat and on occasion a thoroughbred, pleasantly enjoying some lush hay, would perk up and race us along their fence line. At close to 4-o’clock the air was becoming crisp, punctuated by the sweet lingering smell of burnt iron bark expelled by the occasional brick-chimney of grandiose farmsteads and claptrap hovels alike. This, was turning out to be one of those ‘hearty soup days’ and I was attempting to soak up every last tasty drop – If it wasn’t for the inconsiderate pompous suburbanite occupying the entire width of the road in his 4-wheel behemoth.

Suddenly my ears hurt, my vision became blurry and my previously relaxed torso tensed in anticipation. What was this? My bike was steady, the ‘cager’ still occupied my forward view?.. A flying-Blatty, travelling at unprecedented velocity, mere millimetres from my right-hand boot hastily answered my query.  His move would have been supreme in grace, but for his bike, which was no-doubt straining at the excessively open throttle. He did however, manage to triumph over our nemesis, who now split us on the road – a seeming eternity passed before I felt it appropriate to pass on the treacherous surface and join the gang once more.

Many narrow wooden-sleeper’d bridges on the verge of rotting, tumbling down or both, hinted that this particular road was not high on the priorities of local council or regional motoring authorities, regardless  this was now our road and we pressed on. One town we happened upon (by the name of Yarramalong), which consisted in it’s entirety of a church, a petrol bowser and a pub/mealhouse (all in one establishment), was judiciously occupied by a small crowd of friendly adventurers and their mechanical steeds of all shapes and sizes, a grin, tip of the head and a ‘thumbs up’ was all that was required to become a member of their exclusive club as we passed.

'Our Road' along the valley floor.

The sun had been hidden behind the adjacent wooded-hills for some time now, so it was fitting that we shortly came to the end of the road. Well, it did continue for some way ahead, but 2-wheel tracks through long grass and saplings isn’t well suited to the slick-soft tyres of today’s sports-bikes, or vice-versa. I had noted back at the holy pub, a side-road heading north-west and potentially over the now familiar left-side range.  A group meeting was called and following the unanimous decision – we disbanded. Blatty headed home the way we had come with an exuberant display of noise and, well, just noise (and a flash of yellow L-plates) to impress the lingering church-bar patrons.

Fading light flickering through the gumleaves,  the aforementioned side-road beckoned (which my GPS had confirmed would eventually link up with other more substantial tracks to me on to Sydney). “You’re mad to ride at dusk”, any fellow rider would say, for evening-commuting wombats are a serious hazard that can collapse a bike’s front wheel at will, likely sending you off into the bushes with the single swift flick of a trebuchet. I was eager to push-on, there was no turning back (unless this road also turned out to be a dead-end).

will be continued… (Still on day 1. Gosh.)