Backtrack & Christmas in the Mountains

22/12/2010 to 25/12/2010

If there’s one thing that’s sure in this world, it’s rain on a travel day.  To be honest, I’m so used to it being wet that I don’t even remember the specifics.  In any event, the ride back down to Yamba was devoid of highlights.  Not much was afoot in Yamba, with everyone preparing for the Christmas festivities.  While I was enjoying a few beers on the second floor outdoor terrace on the first night, two guys were downing a bottle of Bundaberg rum in record time.  They had a bottle of Bundaberg and a 1.5L bottle of Coca Cola, and the rum was the first to go, if that gives you any idea.  Bundaberg, by the way, is argued as both the best and the worst rum under the sun.  Given from whom I’ve heard the arguments, I’ve got my money firmly on the latter…the snob that I am, I only drink Havana Club Añejo 7 Year anyhow.  Which gets me thinking, my favorite drink, a Cuba Libre – a double (or triple) shot of that, some Coke and a quarter of a squeezed lime – would really go well right now…as long as we’re talking about cocktails, if you’ve never tried a mojito with a dash of triple sec or Cointreau, you’re missing out.  Back on topic, the whole of the second day was spent wandering the boutique tschotschke shops in search of Christmas presents for Georgia and Beau.

The next morning, I was up at 5am and on the road not a half hour later.  Much rain ensued, as if you’d expect any different.  Most of the ride was fine, until I got to the last bit.  The road from Comboyne to Elands is half paved and half dirt/gravel/rock.  After all the rain, the dirt/gravel/rock turned into mud, muddy gravel, ill-placed rocks, and potholes.  A wet dirt road wasn’t new to me (first ride from Coffs Harbour to Yamba), but this time I was in either pouring rain, zero-visibility fog, or a combination of the two.  So basically, the last 10kms or so was done at no faster than 50km/h, and this I had to do riding up on the pegs of the bike, with my visor open so I could see in front of the “windshield”.  

I got in to Georgia’s parents’ house around 11am, and of course about an hour later the rain stopped, further convincing me that it’s the bike that brings on the crappy weather.  Georgia, Beau, Fiona and Eddy showed up in the Troopy (an orange Toyota Landcruiser troop carrier with a less than cushy suspension) not long after, and we had breakfast.  A little while later, we all (about 8 or 9 of us) piled back in the Troopy and made the bumpy, curvy, and often driven-too-quickly-for-those-who’ve-just-had-breakfast drove down to Taree, and later Forster, to find good seafood at the local fishermen’s co-ops.  This ended up taking up the better part of the day, probably from 12-5pm, and Eddy was a great sport chauffeuring us around.

Upon our arrival, Mom’s care package was waiting in Kevin’s (Georgia’s father) car for me.  He had gone to the post office, and the woman there asked him if “Peter Vanderbrouk” was one of his aliases.  Nope.  Well, there’s a package for Peter Vanderbrouk with your address on it.  He didn’t want it.  She didn’t want to keep it either.  Apparently a good couple of minutes of back-and-forth ensued, until Kevin realized that Peter Vanderbrouk was Peaches’ real name.  You see, nobody here knows me as Peter.  It’s either Charles, or PCB, or Peaches.  Why Peaches?  My brother and sister-in-law also wanted to know…honestly I didn’t even remember (though they must’ve suspected it was a dirty story of some sort).  In the end, the package made it home; and I’d say everyone at the Watt’s household was thankful of that.  The homemade brownies and English toffee were huge, HUGE hits with the hosts.  So much so, that Sophie (who is a pretty incredible singer-songwriter) wanted to write her a song.  I was just excited about the astronaut ice cream and anti-bedbug sheet I got for Christmas.  Hopefully it’ll come in handy along the way, or better yet, hopefully it won’t be necessary!

Christmas was great, just like being with the family.  There was lots of really good food, probably too much wine and beer, and LOTS of presents (it took two hours to open them all, but we were a pretty big group).  It was unfortunately too short to fully enjoy, and not two days after I got there, I was back on the bike, in the rain, heading up north for my New Year’s date in the Whitsunday Islands.