The Penguin and I had a really wild weekend. It was the three day Regatta Day holiday weekend. There was much going on in Tasmania this past weekend. The big Regatta with boat races and swimmers plus sideshow alley. The three day Wooden Boat Festival was in full swing. The big food festival, Festivale, was on up north. I did not attend any of these because our Ulysses motorbike group (for riders over 50 who have a motto of Growing Old Disgracefully) hi tailed it up to the northwest coast.

Was the weather beautiful and serene? Nope. Not a chance. Day I saw us doing about 480 kms through the middle of the state. The weather was : mild, gusty windy, fog to ground level, gale force winds out of the west into our faces then pouring rain, opening into sunshine during the last hour of the ride. Did we enjoy it? Oh yeah, lots of fun.

We had twelve bikers and surprisingly seven of them were women and five were men. We now equal the men in participation in this group.

We stayed at a caravan park in little cabins. I booked myself a single cabin. It was like something out of Winnie the Pooh. Little living room, kitchen and a very tiny bedroom but it was quiet and allowed me to have a good night’s sleep.

Day 2 saw us riding to the west coast of Tasmania to the Arthur River. The west coast of Tasmania is wild and wooly. The wind comes sweeping across the southern ocean and there is no land mass until you reach Africa. So nothing to delay or stop those winds. We felt them at full force. I was hanging on so tightly my friends almost had to pry my hands off the grips. It also rained. We went through the Tarkine Wilderness area. We also visited a lookout site called The Edge of the World. Beautiful and wild. Riding through rainforest we got a lot of rain. There were several trees down on the road we negotiated our way around. It was beautiful and soggy tourists we saw along the way waved at us or photographed our group of nine. Again 5 women, 4 men.

That night after enjoying a BBQ in the cold night air we all slept well. The night air was so cold our teeth shattered and our legs shook as we told one after another hilarious story or joke. What a fun time.

Day 3 saw us heading down the west coast to Queenstown and then across to Hobart. We left at 9:30 am and arrived home about 6:00 pm. We were exhausted but stopped to take several breaks, warm up. The lowest temperature was 7 degrees C and the highest was 14 which felt like a heat wave. (40’s to 50’s in F).

The spirit of the group was wonderful, the riders were sensible and considerate of one another and nobody broke off from the pack and took off on their own.

Tuesday dawned in my own bed and I did not move much yesterday at all. My muscles were sore, my bike is in dire need of a good wash and my clothes lie in a heap in the laundry pile. Did we have a really good time? We sure did.

The Travellin side of the Penguin really came to the fore.

Total Kms:  1200 (750 Miles)