Been tripping around the place for a few weeks so haven't been on line, but as I sit here waiting to go home after nightshift I thought I'd have a moan about a little bit of weather I rode through the other week.
Over the years I've learnt never to trust a weather forecast, but for some insane reason I believed one that said isolated showers along the coast. Hmmm, sounds good I thought, easy ride home, not too uncomfortable.
Was doing my usually heading from Cairns to Townsville, which is 360km of highway fit mostly for cattle carts and little cars and there were a few factors against me. One it was about midnight. Two, the term isolated showers appeared to actually mean thunderstorms, lightning, heavy rain and 90kph gusting winds
So, I rode out of Cairns in a little drizzle, which is not much of a worry and headed south. And then it started, the heaviest rain I've ridden through in my life, or driven through for that matter and the trucks hammering around the roads didn't help one bit. That rain last for 300 km. Aquaplaned the bike twice (an experience I totally refuse to experience again
) and really couldn't see much and was not having the most fun, but had to work the next morning so I figured this is only nature, surely I can push through that minor detail, 
even when the wheel depressions in the road started to fill up with water and I was riding in the middle to keep from drowning, i thought I can do this, just tuck down behind the windscreen a little more, easily done The gusting winds made for an interesting experience as well. At 200 kg the VTR seems like a heavyish bike, but the wind didn't care for that and added its fun to my misery.
And the cracking of the rain drops against the visor was starting to drown out my music, so i fumbled around for the volume and turned it up. No way was a little rain going to stop me listening to my music.
Stopped for fuel about half way and the attendant was kind enough to let me know that it really wasn't the kind of weather to be out riding in, which, I guess, the humour was lost on me, even though he was smiling
The normal three and a half hour trip took me five and I was shattered when I got off the bike. My forearms were badly cramped from hanging on to the bars and I was walking like a broken old man. The poor VTR was coated in filth from the road and I was sopping wet from sweat, since my touring gear is waterproof and tired as hell.
I could have stopped I guess and tried to wait it out, but strangely that only occured to me once and it was quickly forgotten. I just turned the music up louder again to drown out any weak thoughts
But I count a fair bit of it to luck. I wasn't the only rider on the roads that night and not all of us survived. A few hundred km south of me a rider was killed in the same weather when his bike left the road and hit a tree.
Not a cool night.So there is my moan.
Have a great day
