Long Ride - Day 1- Melbourne to Hay



Long Ride day 1 - Melbourne to Hay



Day 1 of the Long Ride started under a cloud, literally.  As the bikes were prepared it looked very much like it was going to be a wet day, it had rained all night and remained overcast as we started.

 

By the time we got going it looked like things might be okay, but my god, it was cold, and only got colder as we headed towards Kilmore and the first main meeting point of all the riders.

 

By 9:30am everyone was there and we headed off towards Echuca for lunch.  This was a very impressive site, around 60 bikes all parked together near the main street of Echuca.  Bikes of all sorts were there and the locals of Echuca were out in full support over as much support as possible.

 

As we headed over the Murray River into Moama what struck me most was how much the scenery had changed, it went from being reasonably full of life to that horrible flat Mallee scruub type landscape.  It was also amazing how much roadkill was on the side of the road, between Echuca and Deniliquin I reckon we saw around 30 dead kangaroos.  Did this mean we would have a few close encounters?

 

We arrived in Deniliquin as many other riders went straight past, wow what a mistake this was, Deniliquin is actually a very pretty town.  I wish we could've spent more time there.

The ride out of Deniliquin.  A very
pretty town.

The next stop would be Hay, the first over night stop.  It was around 120 kilometres from Deniliquin to Hay and from the onset the road was straight, dead straight.

 

It was amazing just how much the landscape was changing and you could see that we were heading towards something similar to desert.  Again the roadkill was high, very high and while we had seen a few wild emu's not far out of Moama we saw no wildlife on the way to Hay, unless you count cows as wildlife.

 

At one point there was around 10 kilometres of road that had cows roaming it.  They were running from the bikes, just standing still, which was a good thing but I wouldn't want to hit one.  The closest I came was almost having my head taken off by a flock of wayward cockatoo's ... dumb things.

 

By the time we had got to Hay we had covered 415 kilometres, and had been travelling for around 8 hours.  The great news was there was a cabin available in the Hay Caravan Park after having been told camping would be the go ... thank god for that it looked like it was going to be cold.

 

The cabin was ok, small but ok, but at least it was warm.  An idea of how small it is, is that I had to sit sideways on the pooper, it was too close to the wall.  Oh well.

 

South Hay pub, actually a pretty cool little place.

After settling in we headed to the pub, conventiently just a few metres from the gateway to the caravan park. 

 

A few beers and even more yarns, especially with a motorcycle club called the Patriots, a club associated with the military.  It was a good night of laughs before we headed off to our first night of sleep.  Tomorrow would be a big one.

 

The total raised is just short of $12,000 however, it is getting closer.  Thanks everyone who have donated in the last day or two.

 

Day 1 - 415 kms, total kms 415.