Dodging Rain at Nattai

Just a short ride today out to Warragamba dam. Checking the weather radar and forecast said it was going to rain today, but we headed out in sunshine. I picked Geoff up at his place and we went out through the back of Luddenham and up to Warragamba. I turned off to take a picture at the dam wall viewing platform, point to Geoff to go down there. Looks like he ignored that and kept riding , so we go split up here.

There was nobody about when I got there and 1 car pulled up to have a look  just as I was leaving.

Dam Wall

Warragamba Visitors Centre

I jumped back on and thought I'd better find Geoff, not knowing if he went in to the visitors centre or kept going I rode in to have a look. Nope he wasn't in there either so I continued back out and towards Silverdale. This is where I made a error in navigation and took a left turn instead of a right. I was going back towards Wallacia. Err oops so I did a U turn and came back again, probably a 5-10km detour, ah well shit happens.

So most of the ride down through to the Oaks and out to Nattai was by myself, about 1 km from the lookout Geoff came along riding the other way. I decided that I was going to the lookout regardless so continued on, Geoff turned around and came back just in time to laugh at me for getting lost.

Lookout at Nattai Ridge

The rain was coming up the other end of the valley. Time to get going before it gets here. Neither of us had any wet weather gear with us today. If it was light showers it would be ok but not heavy rain.

As we came down the curves from Nattai it started to shower on and off lightly. It wasn't really a problem as it stopped not long after it started. We headed back to Wallacia Hotel for some lunch. They have done up the beer garden at the pub and they now have about 15 motorcycle parking spots right by the back door. The steak sandwiches was fantastic.

We then dropped in through to Eastern Creek as the Post classic racing was on today and Geoffs mate Stewie was going to be there. It didn't cost anything to get in and about 2 minutes after arriving it bucketed down with rain so we hid inside the pit garage with Stewie who was handing out the trophies today. He didn't want to race in the rain today.

It stopped raining and Geoff and I made a dash for home which wasn't far from the creek. Another day of riding done and dusted, we spent the afternoon dodging the rain.

Sunday Ride

 Sunday was to good to be sitting inside watching some cars race around the mountain at Bathurst so Bushpig suggested a ride followed by beers. Of course I didn't need any encouragement so we set off up to the upper catchment area of Warragamba Dam. These pics are from the Nattai Look out. Every time I have come up here I have seen other bikers and today was no exception.

 

After this stop we decided to get lunch at the Wallacia Hotel. We swapped R1's for the trip to get lunch. I won't forget the little boy with his dad on the way out of the car park, as Bushpig road past him on my R1 he put his hands up over his ears. Looks like my bike must have been to loud for him.

The first difference I noticed was that I could hear the engine noise rather than the exhaust noise. Bushpigs R1 has the standard pipe where I've got a noisy carbon slip on. The other difference I noticed was that his suspension seems to cope with the rough roads a hell of a lot better then mine did, Yep I reckon the rear shock needs to be rebuilt on my bike. His R1 still has the vibration through the throttle side handlebar that numbs your hand after awhile. Handling wise it felt very similar but was initially harder to tip in but this is probably due to the difference in the tyres profile.