Mid-Life Crisis came early

My Partner and I met online early 2006, I'd tried online dating sites on and off for a few years and after having a few dates and nothing coming out of them, having other dates that left you wondering how you misinterpreted their profile so badly... things that you realise with online dating is that you have to trawl through the profiles and read between the lines and find those legitimate 'maybe' profiles. After awhile it seems to get easier but then now and again you'd get caught again with some dishonesty! ie: non-smoker, you get to the date and he's puffing away on a cigarette, 180cm tall and you get to the date and he is shorter than you and your only 166cm, they talk about the ex all through the date and even tell you they are looking to find a girlfriend before she gets a new man! At times throughout my online dating I'd give it up and get very despondent about the whole concept. Mind you I had met friends that had sucessfully met and lived happy ever after.... so I held out hope in the back of my mind it just might lead me to meet somebody special that I would never of crossed paths with and met otherwise. That is the beauty of this type of dating really - you are both middle aged, you have been in previous relationships, you know what you "don't want" and you have a better idea of what you "do want" , you also know what page your on and are looking for somebody that is at that same stage and page as yourself, you can narrow it down pretty simply with good profiles.

So back to the mid-life crisis - it started when he decided to get a dirt bike WR450 and that revealed I had always wanted a bike, way back when I was a teenager finishing Yr12 at school and waiting to turn 17 & join the Airforce I daydreamed of a posting to the new base in the NT and how I'd get a on/off road bike to trip around the TopEnd, camping and seeing the beautiful country in all it's seasons.. well ok I'd skip the wet season camping expeditions! Fasttrack that daydream to 2007 and to ride on forest trails in NSW you are required to have a registered motorbike and a licence to boot, things sure change in 20 years, so there you go - at 37 only 20 years later I finally got the trailbike and obligatory licence to go with it.

At what age is the Mid-Life crisis supposed to be, was it 40 ? well that's looming I'll be 40 in 28 days time. So if it is 40, then yup it came just a few years early. The other thing that has eluded me is my heavy vehicle licence --(another goal from RAAF days that didn't quite come to pass)

Daisy was to be her name. We headed out for some trail rides albeit in my latter 30's I sure had lost the dare devil in me.. but I enjoyed it just the same and really enjoyed the freedom that motor bike riding brings - the XT was also used for short commutes in suburbia. The Barkbusters were a christmas present and very helpful in preserving levers and also smaller tail lights replaced standard lights again to offset the cost of a drop here and there!

This is a sample of quite the opposite of my Trail rides - onboard his WR450 my Partner is seriously having his MLC that may never end and he's 40 next year!

So that was the taste, my Partner's brother then got a WR too and well my trail riding was few and far, nobody to play with as I just wasn't fast or fun enuff! But it wasn't a shortlived MLC it progressed from there to Daisy2 my very much loved Road Bike that was finally decided upon after test riding and trying out and taking into consideration the specs of the many mid sized "naked" bikes out there... I thought that the ER6 suited me the most and I found a great 'barely used' one down south at Khancoban in 2008.

All loaded up in a turnaround 24hr quick trip!

The town next door was Corryong which is where my father was born and grew up and where his late sister and family lived so I did manage a catchup with my cousin Pam whom I hadn't seen for ALOT of years and Uncle Bruce as well.