She’s very adept at riding offroad, to the point where I struggle to keep up in muddy conditions.

Now that she’s got her learner licence to ride on the road, we have been doing some short trips around the place on quiet roads.

Today, we did a big long ride out into the countryside to a cafe out in the middle of nowhere. She’s always been very cautious, so it’s rare for her to get into top gear, which means riding along at about 50km/hr (30 miles/hr) with a trail of cars patiently sitting behind her. We did the polite thing every now and then and let them all pass. It took us over an hour of negotiating some very windy roads before we got to our destination.

We had a hot chocolate and a pie at a cafe, but then she decided she wanted to humiliate me in a few games of ‘connect 4’. This turned out to be a bit of a blessing, because it started drizzling outside. As we headed back home, the drizzle turned into some decent rain.

This is part of motorcycling that she needed to learn about firsthand, so I was secretly glad this had happened. We didn’t have any raingear, so we just plodded along at 50km/hr (she went even slower).

She took it all in her stride though, and we rode home. As per usual, my jacket leaked in all the usual places and I got soaked everywhere else. My daughter faired better because she has a newer jacket.

We got the fireplace going, cooked a meal on it, and then started drying out all our wet motorcycle gear.

All up, she learned some good lessons. I think she will do alright in life.