Day 13: Around Sydney
25 March 2017
Click on the image for a detailed map.
I stumbled downstairs to find Pterodactyl dressed and hobbling around. It was clear Mrs Pterodactyl was not completely satisfied with his state of repair; nonetheless she went out to run some errands and to see whether she could find him a Moon Boot. He, meanwhile, forced his swollen foot back into his riding boot which continued to provide great support to his injured ankle.
We adjourned to the garage where there were three filthy bikes and, having placed a supervisory stool and footrest for Pterodactyl I set about cleaning my bike. Supervisory stool? Footrest? Be blowed to that. Pterodactyl was up and down like a Jack-in-a-box continuing to refuse to rest his clearly painful foot. He seemed to find it more entertaining to clean my chain.
Having cleaned my CB and checked and lubed the chain, I moved on to Inhouse Bob’s bike which had to be cleaned before being returned. It almost persuaded me to get rid of the CB in favour of a plastic fantastic. The whole cleaning business is a great deal less painful!
Shortly before I finished, Mrs Pterodactyl returned and even though I managed to have her husband on his stool looking like he’d been there all the time, she announced that he was off to the hospital to have his foot looked at. Given his previous intransigence, he offered surprisingly little resistance and I was left with a set of keys for a car and instructions to collect Inhouse Bob from his hotel should he call before they returned.
I got the worst of the grime off Pterodactyl’s CB and made it look kind of presentable again. Then Inhouse Bob rang and I set off to collect him. Of course people were digging up the middle of Sydney just to inconvenience me and I had to do laps of various blocks to find a way into his hotel, but I got there in the end and we made our way back to Chez Pterodactyl and, under instruction, helped ourselves to lunch.
Inhouse Bob had decided he was unlikely to ride the bike in Sydney over the weekend and that he’d like to take it back that afternoon given that the shop would be open briefly at 4 pm. He agreed that I would lead him there and he would climb on the back of my bike for the ride back. We also lashed his large suitcase to the rack. I should have taken a photo! Inhouse Bob, Cormanus and a large green suitcase doing duty as a top box.
He confessed after the event that it was the first time in his life he’d ridden pillion. Choosing to try it in a strange city where they drive on the wrong side of the road behind a bloke who didn’t know where he was or where he was going or how to get there in notoriously crappy traffic was an act of considerable courage.
The news late afternoon was that Pterodactyl required surgery on his foot to pin it in place while his torn tendons healed. That was to occur the following day and he would be staying in hospital until then.
The plan for the day had Inhouse Bob taking us out to dinner as a generous thank you gesture. Mrs Pterodactyl had booked a table at the Coogee Pavillion. But Bob and I went alone We were a bit early and stood for a while looking at the beach, the ocean and the many beautiful people. Appropriately, it drizzled lightly on us.
The Pavilion is a great barn of a place full of young, beautiful people. It had a great menu and we both had trout and a couple of beers.
Trout for dinner. Bob had changed his T-shirt a couple of times between getting off the plane and now
