The AGM of the West Coast Procrastinators was held on 1st January 2013 at the Timboon Distillery, Vic. The minutes of last year’s meeting were not available, no office bearers were elected, nor were any resolutions proposed or passed – however, there was talk of a censure motion for the hasty and rash purchase of the westcoastprocrastinators domain name!

The NYD ride has become a regular event in recent times. We do some other rides together throughout the year, but this one is a bit special as it marks the beginning of a year of riding ahead. When we four ‘fellas get together, there is a lot of shared history and with that goes a certain amount of banter, story telling and laughter.

Marty and I left Geelong and met at Steve’s property near Colac. Andy had traveled from Ballarat on NYE and spent the evening drinking fine wine with Steve.

Here is our route. (Click on map to enlarge). The Geelong to Colac highway section is omitted. The circuit shown is around 210 kms, virtually all on back roads and through some beautiful farmland and bush. It also takes in the famed 12 Apostles.

Gathering at Steve’s place near Colac, Vic. The banter had started already!

Steve’s Commando ready to go.

Andy’s Commando ready to go.

The weather forecast had been for a sunny 25C day with a late changes, however, it was obvious at the start of the day that this was not to be the case, and so waterproof gear was packed – by some! The run down to the Distillery only took around an hour and we were actually a tad early. There was a little drizzle as we neared Timboon, but nothing to warrant donning wet weather gear.

As you can see – all were in good humor. 

I received this sticker with a T-shirt that I bought and it accurately encapsulates my mechanical abilities and knowledge. 

We had booked and were allocated a seat out on the deck. Unfortunately just as we started eating two families were allocated a table near us and the sound of poorly behaved squealing children was fairly intrusive.

Some had garlic prawn pizza

Some had grilled fish

I had the ‘cholesterol special’.

In a new feature for 2013, here is my score card for our meals. Your experience may vary! This proforma is not mine and I’d like to acknowledge its author, however, I can’t find the URL where I first saw it – so my apologies to someone in advance!

Category	Score	Comments
Seating	A	We had booked and were a bit early at 11:30 but there were plenty of open seats. In the summer on a busy weekend they could easily be full.
Atmosphere	A	Nice modern but rustic feel. Lots of produce as well as their whisky for sale. Sitting out on the deck was lovely until a couple of families with poorly behaved children screamed incessantly. There were plenty of sunny and shady spots.
Wait Staff	A	Very friendly and pleasant, didn’t seem contrived. Handled the full restaurant well.
Food	B	Garlic pizzas were tasty but rather spartan. Grilled flake OK but on wilted salad. Every aspect of my steak sandwich was tasty, EXCEPT the steak! It was so tough to chew that I left half. French fries were excellent and meals arrived hot.
Value	B	About par for what one would expect to pay at a modern, nice place in the country.
Overall	B+	I’d go back because of the overall venue and where it’s located, but the food didn’t really wow me.

I took a few pics around the building and in my absence my helmet mysteriously disappeared from my bike! Hmm, didn’t take the bate and lo and behold, it reappeared from Steve’s bag. The truth be known, I was in a drowsy post postprandial state and didn’t even notice its absence.

From Timboon we took a short run down to  the Great Ocean Road at a tiny place called Peterborough. The weather was really deteriorating and in the strong wind it was easy to appreciated why around 200 sailing ships sunk along a short 130 km section of coast- commonly known as “The Shipwreck Coast“.

Peterborough Vic on the “Shipwreck Coast”

Three procrastinators. Within 200 meters of the shore at this point, lie the wrecks of three ships; the Newfield (Aug 1889), the clipper Schomberg (Dec 1855 – skippered by the legendary ‘Bully Forbes’ and the Young Australian (May 1877). Actually the scandal of the Schomerg offers some interesting insights into Forbes’ captaincy.

The reason these guys still have their helmets on is because it started drizzling about this time, as it did until Port Campbell,where we stopped for gas. In the gas station the console operator had a secondary screen with a readout and wave forms tracking across it. I asked her about it and she told me it was real time wave height and interval between swells measured from a beacon 20 kms out to sea. It was typically reading 7 meters while I was talking to her, but she told me that waves of 17 meters can commonly occur during winter!

As we were leaving the gas station it started to rain a little and by the time we reached the 12 Apostles it was raining properly, so Marty & I donned wet weather gear over the leathers. The sightseeing  helicopters had stopped flying due to the poor conditions. We hung around for 15 mins and then headed off in light rain and gusty winds – so much for a sunny 25C! We headed inland via some bumpy back roads rather than continuing along the GOR.

As a consequence of the rain there are no more photos, nor did we stop at the Apostle Whey cheesery as we had originally planned. Despite the rain and drizzle, it was actually OK riding through the bush on virtually deserted roads. By the time we approached Colac the rain stopped and as we emerged from the bushland into the farming land the temp actually went up 4C from the 14C it had been.

Despite the weather, we had another great start to 2013. What could be better than riding motorcycles with your best and oldest mates? Well, there was a tinge of sadness in the background actually.

Our thoughts were occupied throughout this ride with the loss of an old mate (and flatmate for Andy) with the sad news that he had died on New Years Eve after a battle with cancer.

RIP Terry Stokes AKA “Mother”.