Moto_OXLEY Revisited 11/09/2004 Written by Don Gunn RIP 05/03/1962 - 11/04/2005

At three o'clock on Sunday morning, staggering across farmland, rediscovering electric fences I escaped from in my youth, I look for Walcha. I mean, I am actually trying to find the town, on foot. I begin to realise that my mindhasanincredibleabilitytoprotectmyconsciousnessfromunderstandinghowdeeplystupidIcanget.
Earlier, much earlier, before MC Alan started teaching local patrons of the New England Hotel the mongrel child of rap and line dancing, before Scott's invitation to find a date for a local's sister (I'm leaving out the other details to protect the guilty), before Andrew's suggestion that another beer would be just great for me, before Fleur and I started discussing the history of modern English music, before the unique Australian variant of Chinese food we had for dinner and even before Tamsin's return from the longest reconnaissance in history - we were talking about motorcycles, I think.

I can't actually remember but its a safe guess because its impossible to escape the zone that flying three feet above the ground to Long Flat and back puts you in. Focussing on that vanishing point for so long the rest of the mind not required for riding a motorcycle is jettisoned in the slipstream!

Its like a Matrix special effect, all the green ones and zeros emanate from the point above a white line somewhere in the distance, as they flash past they momentarily resolve into cars or trees and then they are behind you, to a place left behind, no longer existing, never existing again, the past.

Some of the Matrix film takes the premise that you can create your own reality playing with the dreams that disguise your life. So - is cornering technique one of those tools motorcyclists use to tip into reality? Are those moments in the corner where physical force holds you out at impossible angles like a tear in the Matrix? Is that moment an opportunity to engage reality, to truly own destiny.

Accumulated experience - like how you pay bills, apply for an extension of credit, pick which politician is lying the least, stay a step away from redundancy at work - all that vanishes, flutters past as straw from a hay truck, disassembles as useless ones and zeros that no longer have a form other than incomprehensible binary garbage.

And sometimes the point, the source of all harmony and balance is so close, so close you turn your head hard to see it, so close you lean with your whole body toward it, so close you can lift your arms to grasp it and at that moment balance has become innate, its the only thing you are, gravity has been beaten. The epiphanous moment in the corner when you grasp the oracle and it leads you down the road of this moments destiny, riding through the point to... what is real?

At Ginger's Café, the sun finally warming the leathers and the riders in them, we stand about, reconnecting with each other, rediscovering the language we need to describe the speed down those smooth straights or the angle through twisty corners. But language is a public mask for an experience which is so personal, so self made that chatting about tyres is as deep as you can go with words.

I know I was speechless when I woke up at Wards River on Saturday morning in the big room... well, maybe it was the bottle of red I had the night before (please God, let me not have snored, oh please, please, please...) but I was ready to saturate myself in riding and Dionysus was coming along for some entertainment at my expense. It was a moment engineered by hard working hosts who were one of us.

Because profound experiences change your perception of everything, including I believe, your own past, it is impossible to remember exactly what we were really thinking when we rode up the Putty or sat down to Spag Bol on Friday night. We can assume we had anticipation, that nervous feeling where what you want is waiting to be taken, can see it, are waiting for its first words back to you as you ask it the question - are you real. Well, I do remember those bumps were awfully real and I'm just not going to mention the gravel patch again (mental note - pack more underwear).

The staging post, McGrath's Hill, is the perfect place to leave for any country journey. It seems to be situated on one of those nodes where you cross over from city traffic to country speed. Its the stargate, the place where the scenery slowly picks up speed, moving away from the point that will become the only connection with reality that matters. The window into the real that we constantly ride towards, the one we share as a mob.

I meant to ask Chris and Tamsin, who came a different way, if it was the same they way they came. Is there something universal about that moment at the beginning of a journey where you know you are crossing over, leaving the everyday things we create behind, the moment where you are reminded of your own potential freedom, the reminder sliding past you, itself becoming the past, whispering that freedom is the only thing that can always stay in the future?

I have walked backwards from where I started. Where I fell through a corner into dew logged farmland, its tough going and I don't really know how I got here - but its so clear. Even I can tell its so clear and peaceful - well, apart from the living accident that is thrashing through the ditches and across the fences. How the fuck did I get here... I do eventually see lights in the distance but I am really going to have to give breakfast a miss. Shame, I could really go another bowl of fried rice.

I don't remember crashing into the room and sliding into bed on Saturday night but it seems instantly Phil is calling in that we are going in an hour. How come it suddenly became daylight? The map of time folded over and we are going back home.

The map of time is still folding over into smaller and smaller parts - its Tuesday and the brilliant shining riders on the roaring wave of time machines has receded... for the moment. Thanks for making it real.

By Don Gunn.