The day of the race was as overcast and windy as the previous two. Rather than heading up to my seat at Lukey Heights I decided to walk around the track during practice. There really isn’t a bad part of the circuit, every corner has a fantastic view.

My personal favourite part of the track was probably Siberia, watching the bikes power up the hill before dropping back into the Hayshed. At this part of the circuit you can really appreciate the power of the MotoGP bikes. Even with incredibly sophisticated traction control trying to improve their behaviour the bikes buck and squirm around on the track, almost as if they are trying to throw the riders into the gravel.

Casey Stoner had a customised paint job featuring the Australian flag on his bike and a new set of matching leathers, which was a nice touch for his home GP. Despite the fact that he led from very early in the race Stoner was rarely far from Valentino Rossi. Each lap we’d see them coming over the hill from Siberia and try to judge the gap between them, then a few seconds later they’d blast past us on the hill at Lukey Heights giving us another glimpse of how close they were.

After Stoner clinched the win I took the opportunity to wander across the track and infield before leaving. One of the things that shocked me was the construction of the ripple strips, there was a step down of about an inch at the outside edge between each section, with the step becoming less pronounced towards the inside of the strip. Riding over this on a normal bike, while cornering would be fairly disconcerting, to do so on a MotoGP bike at over 200km/h is simply a frightening thought.

The following morning we left Phillip Island around 6am, and finally saw some sunlight. After stopping for breakfast at Healesville my riding companions headed towards the Hume Freeway, while I continued back the way we had come. It was a beautiful day, and one of those rides where everything just seemed to click, smooth and fast. The roads were filled with bikes returning from the GP, I’d follow along at the back of a group for a while before going my own way again. The ride was mostly uneventful, the only thing upsetting my trip was my luggage rack working its way out of the brackets that hold it onto the bike when I was about 70km from home. Thankfully, apart from a few scrapes on the outside of my bag, there wasn’t anything damaged.

A 900km round trip, my first visit to Philip Island and the MotoGP, it was all intensely satisfying. There is something very special about being out on a bike, even more so when you have the chance to travel with others. My Ducati is by no means a touring bike, no windscreen, an uncomfortable seat and no paniers are good clues to figuring that out, but that’s partly what makes it so much fun to take it on this sort of trip. Sadly Mrsdave doesn’t share my enthusiasm for discomfort and no luggage, so there will need to be a change or addition to the garage before she agrees to come along with me, I’m hoping for the latter.

I know that I’ve abandoned this blog for long stretches before, but that was usually because I didn’t want to write. This time it’s because I’ve been doing all of my wordy type stuff over at Pure Poison.

It’s been a real challenge trying to write regular content for Pure Poison, having fairly well defined subject matter is a double edged sword. What is gratifying is building a rapport with so many commenters on the blog, especially when something I’ve written completely surprises them. It’s nice to be unpredictable.

The down side to contributing to Pure Poison is that this little blog has become a quiet place. Hopefully I’ll get the balance a bit better soon.

Apart from the fact that it was home to an amazing race track and fairy penguins I had no idea what to expect when I reached Phillip Island. Therefore I was completely unprepared for the sight of cattle everywhere, and the fact that most of the buildings on the island seemed to have been slapped together out of fibro without much concern for aesthetics or building codes.

The house we stayed in was an interesting exercise in seeing how many rooms could be shoved into an incredibly small space, outdone only by the bonus round where an attempt was made to fit as many beds as possible into the afore mentioned small rooms. The only consolation for me was that as the Dave from Albury Compound has the smallest bathroom outside of a Collins class submarine, I had no trouble with the tiny bathroom in the rental house. The most important thing about the house was its proximity to the track, and on that detail it scored quite well, but I did wonder why on earth anyone would stay there during the 49 weeks a year that there’s no big motorsport events on.

Friday morning gave me my first chance to see the track, and my first taste of Phillip Island weather. We got to the track a little after nine and the support classes were already buzzing around the track. The ground was sodden from the previous day’s downpour and I’d barely gone fifty metres beyond the main gate when I found that the walkway I was on wasn’t as solid as it looked, as it unhelpfully bowed underfoot leaving me and everyone else with wet shoes from the unseen puddle beneath. We walked along the main straight, where a familiar string of catering and merchandising tents were assembled, and on to the exhibition hall.

The exhibition hall, unlike the one at the Formula One, was jam packed full of stuff you’d like to buy. All of the major manufacturers had bikes on display and merchandise, and every other nook was stuffed with accessory manufacturers, tour operators and promo girls wearing leathers. Only the limited space in my bag and the fear of Mrsdave’s wrath stopped me from collecting a host of extra bits for my bike. I eventually settled for a GP stubbie holder, a Casey Stoner one and a Casey Stoner beanie. As it turned out, the beanie was an essential piece of gear over the weekend.

After looking over the varied bikes in the show and shine, and making a brief stop at the XXXX gold bar, we made our way around turns 12 and 11 and up the hill to Lukey Heights. The view was fantastic. One of the most appealing things about Phillip Island is that because of the way the track is laid out you can see half of the track from almost any point. From the Lukey Heights stand you could see the bikes coming out of Siberia and towards the Hayshed, where you lose them momentarily until they roar past you and down into MG. The bikes are visible again once they’re in turn 12 and then you can see them all the way through Southern Loop until they drop down hill towards turn 4. This is all against the backdrop of Bass Straight, a prettier race track you could not ask for.

The trip to Phillip Island commenced under grey skies and the threat of rain. While I had envisaged a leisurely departure my travelling companions wanted to be on the road by 7am, so that is when I found them, bikes mounted and engines started, ready to hit the road. As everyone else in the party was from Queensland I was informed that it would be my job to find our way to Phillip Island, so eschewing the freeway and the boredom of its long straights we headed for the back roads and the hills that they traversed.

It’d been over twelve months since I’d covered any serious distance on the bike, which, along with the damp roads we were riding on, led to a little bit of trepidation on my part. However, as we covered the familiar road to Beechworth, then Miliwa and Whitfield, my confidence returned, cornering felt more natural and I began to relax and enjoy myself. We stopped in Whitfield for breakfast and what had been drizzle turned into rain, so we broke out the wet weather gear and headed off for Mansfield.

The road between Whitfield and Mansfield is a wonderful mix of tight and fast corners through some beautiful scenery. We weren’t lucky enough to see that scenery because in addition to the rain, we had to contend with fog, or low cloud, that meant visibility rarely stretched to the next corner. There is something especially unnerving about seeing high voltage power lines appear right in front of you, at what appears to be head height, with no armco barrier between you, just a significant drop.

At Mansfield we stopped briefly for fuel, then headed to Alexandra and Healesville through country that had been hit hard by the bushfires last February. Riding through Taggerty and Buxton it was incredible to note how the smell of charcoal still lingered in the air, while behind the regrowth, the blackened tree trunks provided a stark reminder of just how much of this area had been affected.

As we approached the Black Spur the rain became heavier again, not letting up until we reached Healesville for another fuel stop. It was at this point that I realised how drenched I really was. My gloves and glove liners were completely sodden, as were my boots and socks. I wrung the excess water out of the gloves, tossed the liners in my bag and we hit the road again, hoping that the rain would hold off.

The rain held off until the exact moment that we turned off the Bass Highway and onto Phillip Island Road. This was rain like I’d never experienced while riding before, accompanied by gusts of wind that pushed the bikes around in their lane. At the bridge to the island at San Remo the rain was so heavy we couldn’t see across it, but just as we entered Cowes we were bathed in sunlight which remained just long enough for us to get to our house in Ventnor, put the bikes in the garage and drag our gear inside.

We’d covered four hundred and fifty kilometres through appalling weather, without a single patch of dry road the entire time, we were wet and so was a lot of our gear, but the day was intensely satisfying. Hot showers and cold beer fixed most of the niggles, while our wet gear ended up near the heater. I wouldn’t have swapped the day for anything.

I spent the weekend washing and shining the Ducati. Today she had a service to ensure all was well. Tomorrow I’ll be packing and repacking to ensure I have my bag exactly right. Thursday I’ll be hitting the twisty bits all the way from here to Phillip Island. Friday, the real bikes and their riders will begin to attack one of the best motorcycle race tracks in the world. Sunday, we’ll see who masters the island this year.

Although I’ve gone to the Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne semi-regularly since 1999 this will be my first trip to the MotoGP. It was an impromptu arrangement as a spare slot became available in someone else’s party, so I’ve never actually met any of my travelling companions. The good thing is that there is a type of bond that instantly forms between people who own motorbikes, a shared experience that sets us a little bit apart from most people, so I have no doubt this’ll be a chance to make some new friends.

The other thing that I’m excited about is that compared to the Formula One, where unless you’re a V8 Supercar fan there’s very little worth watching other than the F1 sessions, at the MotoGP there are enough classes racing to ensure that there are almost constantly bikes on the circuit.

On the down side, the weather is looking particularly nasty this weekend. Unsurprisingly, southerly winds at Phillip Island are notorious for chilling you to the bone. This makes the challenge of packing one small bag even more difficult.

I’m hoping to see Casey Stoner take out his third Australian Grand Prix in a row, it would be a fantastic way to silence the doubters who claimed that his mid season hiatus spelt the end of his career. Most of all though, I’m just excited to be going, to share the camaraderie and to finally hear those MotoGP bikes with my own ears.

Caption comp time. What is the brains trust of the Federal Liberal Party saying here?

“For the last time Chris, you’re not the only one here who can wear a lilac tie”

Some friends of ours are moving to Sydney and we have inherited their backyard swing-set. I bought it home and re-assembled it today under the watchful eyes of Buster Boy and the Troll Princess. On the first test run of the two seat swing Buster Boy noticed a squeak coming from the pivot point where the swing meets the crossbar, without missing a beat he turned to Mrsdave and said

There’s a squeak there Mum. You better get some WD-40 to fix it.

All that time in the shed is beginning to pay off.

Those of us who live in the premier state know that the rest of you are insanely jealous of us, and that you talk about us behind our back, but do you really need to be so petty?

We are still the most populous state you know.

One of the things I love about twitter is the instant feedback that you can get when you send a tweet, whether it’s seeing people like it enough to re-tweet it to their own followers, or having someone respond to it. Last night I got both types from a single tweet.

I wasn’t watching the Hey Hey reunion last night, but the regular appearance of the #heyhey tag in my feed alerted me to the fact that quite a few people I follow were. I felt compelled to comment

I was happy to see my tweet re-tweeted, but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as seeing the following reply.

There’s nothing as wonderful as constructive criticism.

I know that many of you have been slavishly waiting for more of Mrsdave’s insights to be dripped across the pages of this blog. Sadly for me she knows that her star power far outshines mine and has decided to bypass me on the way to her own blog. Check out mrsdave.tumbler.com for snippets of stuff from the Dave from Albury compound that have grabbed Mrsdave’s attention.