The weather forecast said 24 degrees and sunny yesterday so, in the absence of paid work to do, I opted for a ride. As always I took my phone which has quite a good camera. It seemed to me as I set out that I spend a lot of time on the bike concentrating on the skills of riding and not as much time as I should do admiring the view (it might seem strange to say so but I never cease to critique the things that I and other road users do and I am always looking for things in my own riding that I can do to improve it). Bike placement, awareness of the situation around you, cognizance of what the other traffic is doing is essential if one is to survive the ride and profit from it, but it does tend to narrow the focus so I decided that I would make the ride a little more about the beauty and variety of the countryside for the day and a little less (though only a little) about the technicalities of riding.
I chose one of my most familiar and enjoyable rides, a round trip of about 500kms, easily doable in the day, allowing me to be home before the light started to fade, the wildlife started to appear and the cold started to make itself known. The road is one which I have traversed by car as well so it is very familiar and I knew where the good sights were to be found. I found myself thinking that the enjoyment of riding can actually be a detriment to the enjoyment of the surroundings as I am the sort of person who rides point-to-point with a subconscious reluctance to interrupt the flow. One of the things that I find frustrating about group riding, as I think I’ve noted before, is that you’re pretty much “locked in” to doing what the rest of the group is doing. Solo riding allows you a great deal more freedom to “stop an smell the roses” as the saying goes.
So it seemed totally perverse, as I thought about the process, to note that I rarely ever stop while on a ride, except to get fuel and have a comfort stop. I trace this back to my early days of riding and driving and a fierce but underlying competitiveness that has always existed between my brother and myself. As youngsters we regularly drove together and rode together, whether it was just a short squirt or an interstate run. And it was always unspoken, but very clear, that getting wherever we were going first carried some sort of cachet. I can’t ever remember actually RACING Paul, but I can recall numerous (MANY) occasions where every advantage to be in front was sought and was taken.
This competitiveness has become an ingrained part of my driving, and, to a lesser extent, my riding. On our recent Queensland trip my wife remarked on a number of occasions that it was nice to only drive shorter distances rather than being “on the road” all day every day (though I am sure she would have preferred an even MORE relaxed pace than the one I set!)
So yesterday I decided that I would lift my head beyond the instrument panel and admire the view a little more. Of course the semi-sports riding position of the VFR is also a factor that militates against this idea, God knows how sports bike riders are able to see the scenery from their “hunched-over” perch. I decided I’d look beyond the immediate confines of the road and try to notice things a bit further afield. And one of the candidates for this closer examination was early in the ride.
Montpelier Drive runs along the very top of a ridge and the countryside falls away on both sides. The ridge itself is very high so the view from the top is spectacular and you can see considerable distances to both the west and the east. I’ve often thought that I should take some photos from there but I never have. Stopping and admiring the roses is a little trickier on a bike than it is in a car. The most obvious limitation is finding a safe place to stop the bike while you do so. Care needs to be taken to be far enough off the road (a little tricky on country roads) and also to find a secure footing for the side stand. Making sure that the bike isn’t facing downhill when one does so is also critical. It amazes me that I was well into my riding career before I learned this one. Stopping beside the road on the way down Saddleback Mountain lookout above Kiama so that I could take a photo of the spectacular view one day, I walked a bit further down the road to improve the angle only to hear the dreaded “crunch” and looked back to see the bike lying on its side. Lesson #32. When parking using the side stand and the bike is facing downhill, ensure that the bike is in 1st gear before walking away!
Anyway, after a couple of attempts, I found a spot and snapped off the shot at the head of the page. Turning to face the other direction, I took this one (to my mind a much better composed effort)
I was just about to put the phone away and ride on when I looked back across the road and noticed a movement in the paddock. Sure enough, a family of three kangaroos was grazing next to the dam. I quickly zoomed in and snapped off this shot before the noise of a passing car spooked them and they moved off.
The rest of the day consisted of looking a little beyond the obvious. I must say that travelling in the Minibago has been a huge boost to this concept. Sitting so much higher than you do in a car, you see much further and get a quite different view of the familiar as well as the unfamiliar, another undocumented feature of the van! I’ve always liked looking at creeks and rivers on the sides of roads and I saw the old familiar ones in a slightly different light yesterday. I noticed the road much further into the distance at a few places, noting how the rise and fall of the highway sometimes means that you can see where you are going even sooner than you would first expect. I ALWAYS lookout for wildlife, it’s a matter of survival, but I am not sure I have ever seen so many kangaroos and wallabies on the roadside and in the immediate vicinity of the road in the middle of the day. Traditionally, they are most abundant at dusk and in the early morning, bu their increasing numbers in the wild seem to be making them more plentiful in broad daylight as well.
Most of all, though, I revelled in the fact that sights seen had never, ever been quite like they were when I saw them and will never, ever be exactly like that again. That is an amazing thought and gives weight to the “carpe diem” philosophy. I am pretty sure that I’m not the only person who sees something and thinks, “I should stop and look at/photograph that.” Mostly, I find myself rationalising that it’s too hard to find a place to stop, it’s too far to walk back to the spot once stopped, it won’t be there by the time I turn around and the myriad of other excuses that we use.
So, at the risk of being “preachy” DO stop and DO look. DO photograph while you are travelling. The destination will wait and the timetable is flexible. It really isn’t that important. And, in the broader perspective, DO stop and smell the roses of life. It’s never, ever, been quite like it is right now and it will never, ever, be quite like this again. Don’t hurry on and risk missing out on something wonderful.