Relaxing on the Island

Monday evening 20 Feb
Once we had settled into the house, shopping done, washed the bikes, washed the clothes, a couple of very weary riders hit the sack. One thing about being this far south and daylight saving time, I wondered why when I was preparing dinner just after sunset, that I felt incredibly tired. It might have been something to do with it being 8:30pm and we'd been awake from 4:30am.

Tuesday 21 Feb
I had noticed that the bracket for one of my spotlights had broken at the weld for the cross brace. Clint sourced a local welder to fix it, but it wouldn't be until this afternoon when he got home from his regular job.

When I packed, I made sure that I had a good jumper in case the Island turned cold as it can do. What I didn't pack was a long sleeve shirt to give me some sun protection should the days be bright and sunny. Clint and I met up at the local Coles where I was returning some Brie that was too old. We decided to go for coffee at one of the establishments on the main street while it's still quiet. From here it was off for a walk down the main street in search of a suitable shirt. While paying, the lady behind the counter was saying how respectful the motorcycle community were in comparison to the V8 crowd or even the holiday crowd. It's common knowledge among the rental property owners that the motorcycle folk invariably leave the houses better than what they found them. That was really good to hear.

Clint had bought some chain lube and degreaser to use on my bike and bike cover. The night before when we covered up the bikes, chain lube junk found its way onto my bike cover. Not a good thing as lube junk would spread over the cover and my bike each time it was used.

While I was writing up our ride for the blog and FarRiders, Clint cleaned the chain lube junk off my bike and cover.

We lazed around for the afternoon, between Clint working on the rider registrations from the last FarRide and arguing with the iPad over how to put photos into our story, we waited for the welder guy to let us know he was available.

Around 6pm Clint suggested we go for a ride to the end of the island to photograph the sunset. When we worked out the sunset time was 8:11pm, we decided to have dinner first. Hard to adjust to daylight saving.

We rode out to Grossard Point. It provided a good vantage point for us to set up our cameras to record the sunset.

Riding back in the dark, we could see rabbits scurrying around. Coming from Queensland where rabbits are considered a pest and illegal to have, seeing these little critters out loose was an oddity.

A lot of FarRiders stories were being posted. I spent a few hours reading while Clint worked away on the various web duties he has.

Wednesday 22 Feb
Our son Adam was coming for a visit today. While we were waiting for his arrival, the welder guy phoned. He was available all day today. Clint took the bracket to be fixed. Meanwhile, I decided that I would clean up with outdoor setting. It was covered in dust and cobwebs. The evenings are so mild that it would be good to make use of this and the BBQ later in the week.

Adam arrived on his Honda Revere. It's a rough little bike but it's reliable. It was close to lunch time, so we wandered down to the waterfront to have lunch at Harry's. Our table was on the verandah overlooking the pier and water. The meals weren't large, but they were satisfying for a light lunch.

We wandered down to the pier for a look. We saw that there were inter-island cruises available. Next one was to Seal Rocks departing at 4:30pm. We booked our passage and wandered back to the house. We stopped off at a local coffee shop to indulge our coffee addiction. There were some really tempting sweets, too. We each ordered our favourite and they were good. Much to our surprise, the lady who served us was concerned that the piece of pie that Adam had was not up to standard. She offered Adam another piece to check the quality. Adam had it wrapped to take back to the house. In reality, it was late in the day and this piece was a bit on the small side. This was just her way of clearing stock in readiness for the next days trade. We wandered back to the house to relax and chat while waiting for our tour.

Back to the pier, there's a seal that likes to hang out here. It looks like he tries to take the bait from the fishing lines. We boarded the boat Kasey Lee and watched the seal seemingly performing cute acts in the attempt to get fed. No one was weakening.

The ride out to Seal Rocks took us past Grossard Point, where we had been the previous evening for sunset. We were running into the swell and the trip was a little rough but nothing to unsettle us.

Soon enough, we knew we were closing on Seal Rocks. The acrid smell of seal was drifting in on the breeze. The captain of the boat brought the boat close to the rocks to give us all good look. Cameras were clicking, there was a bit of polite jostling to find the best vantage point.

All too soon, we were headed back to Cowes. We said our farewells, time for Adam to ride back to Melbourne. After dinner, we moved into the lounge and watched a couple of our favourite television shows.

It's been wonderful to have time to visit the island and have a look around at its other features other than the race track.