Rainy Day

I took to the Yarra and Dandenong Ranges last Saturday. Apparently I missed the rain by minutes when I rode east, but it was to catch up with me.

I wanted a simple ride, so chose familiar roads out to Yarra Glen, with a loop up Chum Creek Rd and down Myers Creek Rd, to lunch at Healesville.







These roads are winding, twisting, with great ferns among the gums. Then I made south along the route from Launching Place to Gembrook. I wandered about the town reading about the history of its uses - timber milling, summer getaway, and home to a small community. There was once a great park of exotic animals, nosing about in the bracken and dwelling in the bottom of black pools, to be dredged up if you dared at the end of a hook and line when the weather was cool. Hot weather brought fire and ended the life of the creatures and their place.



The weather was cool this day. I rode home in the dark in terrible visibility, drenched in the water that collected in heavy puddles from where it was bucketed onto me by passing cars. But the daylight hours of rain were a joy to me on my solid motorcycle, riding at speed amidst forests, sweet grass, and small farms.