Misadventures Resumed

Beastie was ready to go. Sitting in Shane’s garage in Brisbane, waiting for me, waiting for the misadventures to resume.

Oh Beastie! Isn’t she a sweetheart?

I packed up my orange Round the World Panniers and sourced a matching orange ratchet strap to transform them into one piece of check-in luggage.

As I got on the plane in Longreach, I looked down at my boots and realised they were still stained with dried blood from the lamb-marking a few days earlier. Oh well, I thought. Can’t take me anywhere.

In a few hours I was back in Brisbane, back with my man Shane and back with my Beastie. Shane had replaced my broken front indicators with orange LED striplighting across my Barkbusters: low profile, hard to destroy, and yes – you definitely know I’m turning. Sweet as.

In fact, I was thoroughly spoiled because another of my absolutely favourite people was in town too: my best mate, Paul, had come up from Sydney for the weekend. Now, Paul is a man of refined taste so I hastily scrubbed at the crud on my boots (not very effectively, I will admit) and then went into town to drink wine, eat cake and generally bring down the tone of the place.

We went to a museum, played scrabble and drank coffee. Coffee. Oh, the coffee! The expertly roasted beans! The perfectly steamed milk – light and sweetened as the lactose transforms to sugars. It was enough to bring a tear to the eye of a former coffee snob.

Paul was staying in the city and it was surreal watching the office workers in their suits and heels, spilling out of offices and bars on Friday afternoon. In a rush to get to a meeting, brows furrowed; or half-cut, tie undone, as they drank to shed the week’s stress as the weekend descended. They were like aliens. It was like A Christmas Carol, watching vignettes from my old life being replayed before me.

I’d made the right choice.

* * *

A few days later I climbed a mountain with Shane, and didn’t even fall off it. The view was stunning. Shane followed me up the mountain, and he said his view was pretty good too.

That evening, Shane was riding to work in the right hand lane of a multi-laned road when a lady in an Audi decided to turn right out of a side street. Sure, you’re supposed to give way when turning right, but maybe that only applies to people who don’t drive Audis? I wouldn’t know, I’ve never had one.

Anyway, she drove her Audi right across the multi-laned road and Shane swerved but there was nowhere to go. His trusty old DR took the front off the Audi and Shane flew down the road head-first and rolled.

He’s golden, that boy.  He got up with a grazed elbow and scratched visor.

I don’t know who was more in shock afterwards, him or me. I kept looking at the swollen elbow, then trying not to look at the swollen elbow, and trying not to imagine what could have happened if Shane wasn’t so lucky and wasn’t so good at falling.

Later, we got a letter from the driver’s insurance company claiming that Shane should pay for the damage to the Audi because, on the driver’s alleged account, ‘I was just driving my car and a dirt bike came out of nowhere and hit my car.’ One strongly worded letter later and the insurance company sent a nice cheque for Shane’s new helmet and the damage to his bike.

Then I packed up Beastie and left, to ride halfway around the world on my own. My heart felt strangely broken.