Getting Trucked

 Foodies of the gourmand type will tell you that the ultimate dinning experience is a degustation dinner.  

This is one where there are ten (or so) courses, all small but each offering a veritable cornucopia of tastes designed to tickle your every taste bud.  Of course, the ideal degustation also includes half glasses of wine, each chosen to perfectly complement each and every course, starting with French champagne. Frankly, I find it to be the ultimate aphrodisiac. But when the meal is in Melbourne, and three international chefs from Spain, Italy and Australia combine their talents, this is an event not to be missed. 

“I’ve booked us in for a great meal – three international chefs are visiting Melbourne – can you get there on Friday week? This is classic Sheryle, organising the world.  “But I wanted to go riding that weekend” was my reply, followed by her quick response – “I’ll organise it!” 

The dinner was to be worth every minute, every dollar and every pain of getting there.  Fresh oysters with champagne to start, but not the ones from Sydney or weedy ones from Bateman’s Bay, but the really plump creamy ones from the Dentrecasteaux Channel on Tasmania’s south coast. Then seafood morsels, sashimi to start, with Australian wasabi (the world’s best), Balmain bug tails in butter, sliced rare wagu beef, cream leek soup, truffles, Chinese duck, peppermint gelati and a host of other minute offerings, each provided with a perfect match of wines commencing with a whiff of a great Riesling from Tasmania, a pinot from Spain or NZ, something from Margaret River to shiraz from Rutherglen and a noble rot sticky from the Hunter. As they say, “the angels were truly dancing on my tongue tonight”. Only Tetsuya from Sydney could have done better, and then it would have had to have been on one of his really great nights. 

But to make it to this veritable feast and to ride our bikes back to Canberra via Orbost was going to take some special organisation up front.  And so she did, calling “Bikes Only Transport” in Queensland who happened to have a service centre in Queanbeyan. They transport motorcycles, and only motorcycles, around Australia.  

As it happened, I need to be at home one lunch time when they came to collect them.  Of course the truck driver is a biker, and readily claimed to be a multiple-miscreant, owning more than one machine.  So you can imagine he took special care.  Firstly they very carefully look over each bike for damage, to avoid later arguments then load them into a 15 tonne van, using a hydraulic lifting tray.  Then the bikes are strapped via the handlebar and across the seats, to mounting plates especially built into the floor of the truck (see the picture). I signed the paper and waved my pride and joy goodbye, hoping on hope that all would be ok and that I won’t be collecting a couple of hundred kilos of scrap metal at the other end.

 Two weeks later, I fly into Melbourne and cab it to Sheryle’s local office, which happens to have an Audi dealership on the ground floor. Of course, that is where the bikes are sitting, perfectly safe.  A couple of locals have already spied the ACT registration plates and are fascinated to find out what we are up to and how the “little Vespa” came to be in Melbourne.  After packing her computer and papers somewhere, we ride to the hotel, which was just down the street and dress for dinner.  As mentioned, the latter turns out to be one of the best, and half the foodies from Melbourne have turned up for the French truffles and ultra-fresh seafood, plus magnificent wines.  

Luckily we have walked from the hotel for dinner, and now we stagger slowly back along the river, hoping uselessly that the little exercise will offset the food and alcohol. 

The next day, Saturday, we had decided to ride the short distance to the Yarra Valley and stay at the Seibel Lodge, not so ex-y (especially if booked via the internet) and very quiet. It is set in the countryside to the east of the city.  However, the internet mapping system from which we had printed the directions took us via the back streets of Melbourne, with one wrong turn, that was completely my fault, resulting in an interesting U turn on a busy road and some very discernable semaphore from Sheryle, clearly aimed at the fool on the silver R1150RT.  

The rest of the ride took us out and around the winding roads of the nearby hills rather than directly up the express way – great for the ride, difficult for the navigation.  This prompted me to seriously consider the BMW Navigator II but at a retail price of $2600 is simply too much – one day it will be on special and I will be the first in the door to acquire one – or maybe I should just attach an old GPS to an equally ancient PDA and make maps (there must be an article in that one for someone with some computing knowledge!) 

The Siebel is set in the rolling hills of the Yarra Valley, and apart from stylish rooms, offers two other services that we will definitely avail ourselves of.  The first is its “Spa” which includes a brilliant massage service of which we avail ourselves.  Guys – if you have never had a massage (other than the Fyshwick type) then try an hour of pummeling – it really cleans the system out and puts a hop in your step. 

The second is the food of chef, Marc Brown, African American and ex of Axis Restaurant at the National Museum in Canberra.  We take it easy, as tomorrow will be a long day. 

Sunday dawns fine and cool.  This time I have taped a local map onto my petrol tank so as to “lead the way with style and aplomb” – not pretty but very effective. Nowadays, gaffer or PVC tape must be the 8 gauge fencing wire of noughties. The road winds off through the hills, and I choose to take the scenic route, almost to Mt Baw Baw.  The corners become more frequent and decidedly interesting, to the point where the local authorities have put up the yellow “slippery” diamond signs – only this time they have a bike on them, not a car.  The slip-road back down to the Maffra and the Princess Highway before Bairnsdale is one lane wide, but perfect hot-mix bitumen snaking its way through a huge eucalypt forest – what a find! 

Around Lakes Entrance we paused for a comfort stop and Sheryle asks how many kilometers she can run the Vespa on a full tank – to which I reply airily – 300.  A quick calculation tells us that the distance from our start to Orbost is 304km and you guessed it, she ran out of petrol with the odometer reading 299 kilometres from the last tank full!  A quick nip into Orbost on the 1150RT saw me acquire a gold plated, most extravagant five litre fuel drum in Australia (plus petrol) to get us both back to the station and a coffee and chips. How low had we sunk! 

At this point I had planned to ride to Bega and stop in a local motel, unbooked, then ride home via the winding Imlay Road the next day.  But Sheryle had other ideas, so we headed straight up the Bonang and Monaro Highways to Bombala and Cooma and home, to spend the Monday with our children.  Little did they know or care about my sacrifice! 

But the ride was perfect. We covered over 700km that day, with the little Vespa and the BMW not missing a beat.  The high plains road between Nimmitabel and Cooma is one of my favourites, wide open, sparkling and free so we will return another day soon, to wrestle with the Imlay or wander the deep south – Victoria’s Gippsland or maybe a quick fang to Phillip Island – what do you say to that eh? 

Olaf Moon - Copyright 2004.