DAY 176: Hitting the Hey Man wall with a quad bike

Here’s a picture of a riderless quad bike. I refused to pose on my one.

THE downside of trying something new every day is that whatever you try you’re going to be shit at it. So basically, every day, you’re shit.

This ignites an impotent rage after a while; the sort of rage serial killers develop when women laugh at them in bed.

For four days now I’ve been doing the most ace, fun missions in ridiculously good-looking company, but I’ve been floundering about like a panda trying to play a ukulele while wearing water wings. You can only laugh gamely for so long.

Throughout my trip to the Otways I’ve been raring to have a go on the quad bike on the property I’m staying at, and there’s a good hilly terrain to take it out on. I’m told how to start it up, brake, change gear, yada yada yada… but somehow the bit about reversing fails to sink in.

I believe we only have so much space in our heads for instructions. The rest is taken up with thinking about amusing comebacks, rooting, what to eat next, and admiring scenery.

Over the past few days I’ve been taught how to operate a manual, a four-wheel drive, a bulldozer, a milking machine and a chainsaw, but rerouting my neural pathways has produced more of a series of pissling streams than a mighty Shenandoah. I’m starting to lose confidence in myself before I even crank up the quad bike.

I manage to fang around the property with a few near misses (have you tried steering one of these things?), before I wedge one wheel into a bush and then can’t figure out how to reverse back out again. I’ll be buggered if I’m going to trek off for half an hour to ask for help; I’m all out of sheepish grins.

Getting off the bike, I try to manually heave it free, but it won’t budge and just deposits a few more leeches on my legs. There comes an ominous thunderclap – that’s me officially cracking the shits.

I won’t describe in full the following scene, as it is a scene, but needless to say it involves leaving the quad bike in the bush for someone else to deal with and stomping off back to the house – which is quite a long stomp, as I’ve crashed it right at the top of a hill.

Keeper? I’ll be back. Just as soon as I find my smokes.