Tuesday, May 25, 2010

A day with a bit of everything - varied scenery, varied roads, varied weather...

We left Umatilla under a heavy layer of high cloud, but the threat of rain seemed low, so we didn't wear our wet weather gear. We soon passed through Hermiston on our way to Heppner. Our GPS took us off route 207 (it's set to take the shortest route), and we wound up on Sand Hollow Road, a narrow strip of hot mix that clung tenuously to the side of the steep hills it wound along. At the edge of the bitumen there was no guard rail and no verge – just the drop. If you wandered off the bitumen it would be a long way down before you would stop. This was one road that would not forgive any indiscretion and was really quite scary. The low bushes and grassland meant that you could see where you would be going. There have been no trees except in the odd oasis of a river valley.
We stopped there to fill our bike with petrol and ourselves with coffee before tackling road 206 to Condon, which is a biker's dream – fast in most places, lots of bends, few blind corners, well maintained surface and minimal traffic. At first the bare low rolling hills reminded us of the Monaro plains in Australia, before the landscape changed and we climbed hills and plunged into valleys.

We stopped in Condon to take a walk and stretch our legs, but we only got a few steps from our bike before a couple of locals started talking to us. One of them was the barber, but his shop seemed not to have much patronage. It was full of interesting relics (including two barber's chairs that were over 100 years old) and photos, and he was irrepressible in telling us about them. We saw rattle snake skins, a picture of 160 lb mountain lion and an old book full of local history. We finally got away and back on the road heading for Fossil.

The landscape changed dramatically as we wound down a gorge with cliffs on either side...

From Fossil our next stop was Antelope where we planned to have lunch at the Antelope Cafe. Antelope was a tiny, run down place with several huge poplars, an odd sight when there were no other trees on the surrounding hills. The only cafe is closed on Tuesdays. We decided to continue through endless, rolling wheat fields to Shaniko for lunch. This is an interesting place with lots of old buildings that have an 1800's look and feel. We stopped at the store where we met a bloke who was travelling on a Gold Wing. We talked for a while about where we each had come from and each was going. He had lots of ideas about where we should be going and roads we should be travelling, and was most disappointed when I tried to explain our itinerary didn't have a lot of flexibility. We headed back to the centre of town to find a cafe for lunch. We stopped at the ice cream parlour, as it suddenly turned dark and cold and rain started falling. Fortunately the shop sold coffee and soup and not just ice cream, although they were doing a good trade in the latter in spite of the weather. The place was like a Tardis, small on the outside but quite spacious within. Three friendly folk sat in a time warp near the window, playing cards.

While we were there another rider came in, wearing BMW apparel. We invited him to sit with us but he went to head off. I followed him out to get our GPS and maps to plan the next stage of our trip. He was riding a BMW R1200RT, a few years older than ours. We started talking so I introduced myself. Trevor lives in Vancouver Canada, and also had lots of ideas as to where the best rides were. He suggested that we take Highway 99 from Vancouver to Cache Creek rather than Highway 1 when we get to Canada, an idea we will give some serious thought.

After this the road gradually changed. We gradually descended into valleys with interesting cliff faces although the vegetation was still sparse.

Further along the road we headed down the Tygh Valley into Maupin where (this morning) we thought we would stay the night. It was still reasonably early, so we decided to press on to The Dalles (pronounced “Dalls”). Eight miles short of there, it started drizzling but we decided against getting into our wet weather gear. About 5 miles out, it started raining seriously, but again we decided just to press on. The rain stopped as we got to The Dalles, an oasis on the Columbia River. We quickly found a motel and went inside our room to get a change of clothes and dry what we had been wearing. We were surprised at how dry we had remained – clearly the full fairing and windscreen are very effective in protecting the riders during light showers. We took a walk around town. Wanda found an interesting old Catholic church, now preserved as a community “hall” for weddings and other functions. It still has all of it's paintings and statues. Dinner was Chinese. The serves were so big, we have enough for tomorrow night.

No comments:

Post a Comment