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But in a good way. We did a tour of Melbourne by Harley Davidson.

The chauffeurs from Harley Rides pick you up at your hotel and take you around Melbourne on their monster bikes. You sit behind the driver, or if there are more of you, you can be in the sidecar. Helmets, leather jackets, and sunglasses (if you don’t have your own) come with the tour package.

I warned them that I would need the biggest helmet they could find. Of course they did not believe me. “It just looks that way because of the hair,” they scoffed. Nope. My head could not get in their puny helmet, which sat on top of my head and nearly got blown off. On the other hand I did not get helmet hair. The leather jacket weighed around ten pounds. “Did I leave the guns in there?” the chauffeur said. Haha.

We zoomed around the city at the maximum legal speed, while our highly knowledgeable chauffeurs/tour guides explained what we were looking at. Yes, you can hear each other easily. We discussed motorcycle movies: Easy Rider, The Great Escape, and the Ewan MacGregor-Charlie Boorman documentary. The zooming Harley perspective is amazing; there are no barriers between you and the view. Taking pictures, though, can be a challenge: you need the high shutter speeds and motion stabilizers of the larger cameras, but you need to have one hand free to hang on the rail. The photos I took with my little camera look like this:

That’s their well-known amusement park, Luna Park. The one-hour Harley tour covered the inner city, the lovely old architecture, perfectly preserved

the grand prix circuit where Formula One is held, the marina

and up the Westgate Bridge to Williamstown. HD Chauffeur Ride Pty Ltd also offers two-hour, three-hour, half-day, and full day (8-10 hours) tour packages. You may feel trapped when traveling in a car after this. Their website: www.harleyrides.com.au.