‘More Strife in Cabramurra’ The Riders: Those of you who have been in the Club for a while may remember when I bailed out of my BMW K75, the 'Bulldozer' near Cabramurra several years ago. Well I have just had more strife up in this highest of all Australian towns, but more of that later. This overnight run was almost cancelled when several riders withdrew late in the piece, however the remaining three of us decided that we had a quorum to continue & so we did. However it was whilst I was packing my gear on the Wednesday morning that I had a very strong premonition of trouble ahead on this trip: but what did I do? I ignored my instinct. It was a dull & cool day when the three of us met at Caltex in Hume & the ride to Cooma was uneventful but quite enjoyable, despite traffic significantly heavier than on the usual weekend. We arrived in Cooma & parked outside the 'motorcycle cafe' -The East End, only to find it closed. Not a bad omen though, we just went over the road to a Greek owned cafe, which did just as good a job for us. On the road again & we decided on an early lunch in Adaminaby. All was going swimmingly & the sun was out. Lunch done, we rode to Kiandra where we stopped to examine the pioneer cemetery. This hillside is a ghastly place on a wintry day, but we found it sunny & warm. Chilling though were the graves of these young souls & children, dead over 100years. This is worth a look if you are passing by. We rode up to Cabramurra, which Graham had never visited, & I led the ride to the lookout. On the way down my premonition became reality: yes I had a puncture ARGHH! This had been what I had seen in my imagination earlier that morning, I had ignored the vision & left my emergency tyre gear behind. Oh whoa is me! We soon determined that a sharp something, now gone, had punctured my tubeless tyre. I squirted in the emergency goop (MOTUL Brand) but all it did was bubble from the hole like frothy milk, useless. What I needed was a tyre plug kit: mine was still in my shed, useless too. Whilst Graham & Ian wondered what I would do next, I decided upon action. I wandered the streets of Cabramurra banging on doors looking for someone who had such a kit, & Lo! I found someone :a 7' giant called Mark who got one from his bike. Ian did the plugging & after a coffee the pressure was holding & off we went again. Glory be! We decided to return to the Snowy Highway rather than take the harder route via Tumbarumba. Evening was approaching by now, we had lost a lot of time, but the highway was a riders delight, a good surface, lovely bends & hills & almost deserted. We were in Tumut by 1800 & soon found our rooms in the Star Hotel. The rooms were lovely, new beds & linen & even a TV & only $35 each, beauty. There were no meals at the Star so we ate drank & made merry at the 'Packhorse', which was good. We rode to Adelong, which is a pretty town & worthy of an overnight stay if you like a change from Tumut. There are two good pubs there. Our route then climbed relentlessly on lovely roads, almost following a ridge all the way to the apple town of Batlow. There is very little in Batlow but there is a worthy lookout (I love lookouts except for Cabramurra's!). Heading south we were in forest much of the way to our next stop in Tumbarumba. This town always seems to have a wild-west look about it. We stopped here for drinks before pushing on to the challenging Elliot Way. If you have not ridden this road beware, if you have, you will know what I mean. Over the two days Ian had been regularly blasting away into the distance to stop & take action shots as Graham & I rode by. He did this too on the 'Elliot' & thus missed our stop at the entrance of the Tumut 2 power station. This is a hydro-power station dug entirely into the solid rock. Sadly only a long dark tunnel can be seen. We avoided Cabramurra on the return, too many 'bad vibes', instead riding on to Adaminaby, where we had a late lunch in the pub. This pub too is a nice one with rooms & meals, if you desire a room there. We had one more stop for a fuel top-up in Cooma then the long Monaro trip home. We had ridden 700Km by the time I reached home & that plug had held the whole way. Indeed the tyre was still holding pressure a week later. There are two lessons I learned from this trip: PS the Next overnight will be to the far south coast & into Victoria 30-31 Jan 2010 - Lorraine Litster
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