CHASING THE HORIZON

BROOMS HEAD WEEKEND

Just got back from a weekend at Brooms Head on the NSW Nth Coast riding my 450 exc with the boys from Team Losers. Had a great weekend. Was a good opportunity to check my sleeping arrangements for the upcoming trip.

A slow leak in my sleeping mat allowed me to witness the sunrise you see above :-)

The riding was great fun. I had a small crash in which I damaged my shouder, but it will be fine in a few days.

I am looking forward to getting the 640 Back from Rusty, who is fitting the HID headlights, so I can do a test pack and ride this weekend.

VSTROM OWNERS WEEKEND COBAR JUNE LONG WEEKEND

THE FOLLOWING IS A RECOUNT OF A RIDE I DID TO THE VSTROM OWNERS MEETING AT COBAR ON THE JUNE LONG WEEKEND. IT WAS WRITTEN BY MY FRIEND DON MARSH.

 

Day 1

And so in what seemed the shortest time we were bidding farewell to the friends we had only just put faces and smiles and handshakes to ………..

That seems a strange way to start a ride report but for me it was the most telling part of the weekend, the one that stirred the strongest emotions, the fact that we had ridden all that way to share an unfairly short time with people we had waited so long to meet.

We, that is Iain, Guy  and I  had begun our journey on Friday morning, hooking up at the Mobil servo out on the Amberley flat. One of Guy’s mates was there too and had been a possible starter but had to withdraw at the last minute. So that left three, and off we headed over Cunningham’s Gap to Warwick down to the Granite Belt town of Stanthorpe, our first fuel stop, and then continuing down to the border town of Texas.

Once into NSW we went into double-demerits mode and strictly observed the posted speed limits at every little town and village we came to. Guy was up front, the better to take the hit of any trigger-happy highway cop or suicidal ’roo (which was damned decent of him I thought), then Iain, and I was the caboose, and with the width of my panniers that analogy is not far from the mark.

Crossing the border, we turned west onto the Bruxner Highway arriving at the little town of Yetman forty kilometres later. Here we turned south heading for Warialda. With Warialda safely despatched we pressed on to the delightful Bingara (truly it’s a great little town if you’re ever in the area) but it was here that things started to turn gnarly. I’d been cruising along at the back, letting Guy make all the directional decisions and not really knowing where we were. After refuelling we took a sudden right turn onto a road which you just knew was going to run out of bitumen in a very short time.

Sure enough, here comes the dirt! I’d avoided dirt like the plague since my stack on it last year and I wasn’t keen on having another one, at least not before Cobar. It was the loose gravel variety and Guy took to it like a caged lion being released. (Can you revel in dirt?) He did/does. Iain and I adopted a steady as she goes approach, with me being the more steady (or slow really) while the silver bullet disappeared off into the dust. To his credit he waited for us, again and again, while we slowly made ground, until eventually the summit of the road through the Mt Kaputar National Park was reached.

At the top of the Mt. Kaputar range.


While I moaned about the dirt, Iain took it all philosophically while Guy complained that last time he’d been through there’d been a sh$tload more dirt and that “they” had buggared it by laying so much tar. To his delight there was more dirt on the other side of the mountain and off he frolicked while Iain and I worked on staying upright and trying to pick up the pace a bit.

We eventually found bitumen and then Narrabri with Guy complaining that that was the end of the fun. He even thought the dirt had been like riding around Phillip Island, it was that smooth and firm. Personally I found it rough as guts and as loose as---well we won’t go into that—while the unflappable Iain said it got better toward the end.

All that remained for Day1was the run through Wee Waa to our overnight destination of Burren Junction. No, I hadn’t ever heard of it either, but Guy knew a guy who knew someone who had maybe stopped there once to “take the waters.” There is an evil looking artesian bore on the town’s outskirts that legend has it is a cure for all sorts of ailments, and is a source of great comfort and a veritable magnet to the Grey Nomads who flock there. They wallow in the algae lined pool while comparing caravan notes. On the way past, we saw the pool was surrounded by a variety of G.N. vehicles prompting Guy to announce that he would come back for a dip as soon as we’d checked in to the pub, obviously in an attempt to realign his spine after his dirt shenanigans earlier in the day, or more likely scrounge a gin and tonic off a kindly GN.

His plans changed when we had a drink or two, then had dinner which consisted of enormous servings of what we’d ordered, then had a few more drinks while watching the Broncos/Dragons game. The kicker came when the publican, whose wife lives in Tamworth some 250 kms away (???) suggested that we all go for a dip, although both Iain and I had the distinct impression he would have been happy if just Guy went!!! We all declined with thanks and Guy and Iain thought it more prudent if they went for a next morning dip instead.



Day 2


Next morning the two of them, Guy and Iain that is, went for their dip while I took some shots of early dawn in Burren Junction. They came back with Guy declaring the swim invigorated him, and that he felt like a new man, although in Burren Junction one might have been hard to find at that hour of the morning. Yeah I know. Boom boom!

Guy leaving for his date with the GNs.


No, Iain is not pinching Robbo's number-plate, it just looks that way.


Mmm, looks inviting. Iain having second thoughts?


Burren Junction in the morning light.


We did the obligatory photo shoot in front of the pub and then Guy did a wheelie down the main street missing second and pulling a gazillion revs and waking the entire town.

Outside the Burren Junction pub. If only I'd known what was in store ...




We found an old servo in a back street and had a quick brekky before heading off on what was for me to be the most daunting, and at the same time the most interesting, part of the trip.

Ever heard of Come by Chance? If you were at Cobar you’d have heard of it! Come by Chance worked its way into every conversation we had over the next three days. Someone who shall remain nameless had spotted it on a map and although it took us in the opposite direction we wanted to travel, he had to go there because of its quirky name. The first leg of our pilgrimage to CbC involved nearly forty kms to Piliga over treacherous blacksoil that had had three days of rain and was in the process of being graded to smooth out the four wheel drive ruts, or mini canyons. Robbo, the bloke whose number plate Iain wasn’t trying to steal, had told me while the boys were having their swim at Blue Rinse Springs that he had come through the night before in his four wheel drive, and that there were lots of soft slippery spots that would need care in a car. On bikes? Are you kidding? Lots of luck fellas! But if you do make it to Come by Chance say hello to Colleen for me. How will we know her? Well, he said, there are only five people that live there. You’ll find her.

So then, after the swim, after the wheelie, after brekky, after refuelling, we headed down the road to Piliga with not a little trepidation and soon there it was--- greasy glistening slippery rotten blacksoil with a grader mound right where would have been the best place to ride it. You beauty cried the mad one and tore off down it like it was dry bitumen. Iain and I began by travelling five metres forward and then one metre sideways. It was so slippery and the grader had created so much camber on both sides that it was hard not to keep sliding off the road on either side. After we’d limped a little way down the road, there was Guy, casually parked, waiting with camera out to record any misfortune we might come to. It’s a piece of cake he’d say. Grip the tank with your knees, look to the horizon, upper body loose, keep the power on slightly, let it move about a bit, press down on the outside peg if you feel it moving off the road…. and so on and on. You know something? It worked! But I have never concentrated so hard on a ride in my life, and it was with a sense of relief and elation that we had not fallen off that our convoy finally arrived at Piliga.

This is me on the gloop we rode through. Grader still at work.




The next forty kays to Come by Chance were over more blacksoil, dry this time, but severely rutted so that you had to drive in the deep ruts. I can’t tell you exactly what the country looked like because for the whole distance I was focussed on Iain’s rear tyre and where he went, I went. I've done a large shot here because the remoteness and the vastness of this country still catches us city dwellers by surprise when we get out amongst it.






Eventually we arrived at Come by Chance.


Main (and only) St, Come by Chance


Colleen is the licensee of the pub and the storekeeper and the post mistress and probably the local vet and marriage celebrant too. She’s a great old girl and had a beer out for us double quick although we weren’t supposed to drink it inside because she only has an off-licence. Like with forty kays of dirt back to Piliga and fifty kays of more dirt out to the highway, and with only three people in town because the other two had gone on holidays (true!), someone is going to notice??

Guy doing the right thing and drinking "outside."


Me with the only available garden furniture.


After chatting for a while with this real life bush character, we left Colleen and began the remaining fifty kays of dirt out through cattle country to the Castlereagh Highway. It’s such a vast country out there. We rode over many small bridges and cattle grids and passed through several large herds, the mooies looking quizzically at us as we sped (we were getting the hang of it) past. Once onto the highway it was a short sprint to Coonamble for fuel and coffee. Guy became depressed again at the prospect of no more dirt for the outward trip. We peeled off the highway at Combara and took the connecting road to the Mitchell Highway via the townships of Warren and Nevertire. I had a bit of a chuckle at that because I know a fellow called Warren who has chronic fatigue syndrome. Then I thought maybe all that dirt is interfering with my sanity!

Then it was an easy run (one of our party called it boring as batshit compared to the dirt. Any guesses?) up to Nyngan which I’ve heard has a really good French restaurant but I didn’t notice it, and then hang a left on to the Barrier Highway and we’re on the last leg to Cobar. 130 kays and then cold beers all round. Settle into a nice 140 kmh cruise along the straight but undulating road, put mind in cruise control and start thinking of the night’s festivities ….BIG mistake!!

Ten kays out from Cobar, and a mob of feral goats explodes from the scrub to our right. Holy shit!! About sixty of them I’d reckon running in all directions all over the road. Poor Iain is up the front and he plows in amongst them with everything locked up, clipping one but thankfully staying right side up. Guy is next in line but manages a safe passage through. The goats are on both sides of the road still milling about when I arrive but thankfully the road is clear and I have an easy time of it.

Our heart rates have just about returned to normal when we crest the last rise and see our destination, Cobar. The Great Western is a welcome sight and we quickly park our bikes, hit the bar, and start on the first of too many cold beers for the weekend.

That night was a memorable one and has been described elsewhere. For me though it was the chance to meet up with many people I had come to know via the forum, but the evening’s festivities were tempered by the fact that next morning we were setting off again, and it would not be wise to do so with a thumping hangover.

A few shots as the evening progressed:

Guy chatting up Becsta. I had the red-eye eliminator switched on. This is the way he looks in real life.


KIWI holding forth on some subject to an obviously enthralled audience. Iain has long since lapsed in to semi consciousness.


Emmjay's lower fairings by night. Beautiful.



Day 3

The day began for one of our number being “interviewed” by a member of the local constabulary at 2 am. Guy was having trouble finding his way back into the pub ( no, don’t ask) as the front door had been locked, and was out on the footpath when a passing copper thought he was behaving strangely and stopped to investigate. Guy doesn’t remember too much of what was said, so this story ends here. Curiously also, when Iain awoke, the vacant bed in his room on which he had put his luggage had been slept in and his luggage was strewn all over the floor. Strange goings on in Cobar indeed.

When the rest of us sane people arose it was time for the Farkle Off and it was won in fine style by Travelling Strom who more than anyone else in my opinion embodies the true spirit of adventure touring, with a well set up bike which he has developed largely himself, and a seemingly insatiable appetite for just getting up and going to far flung remote and desolate places, usually alone. In another time he would have been one of this country’s great explorers, of that I have absolutely no doubt.

Getting ready for the Farkle Off


Everyone gathered for a photo shoot at the mine head and then in the blink of an eye the party was over and everyone was gone, fanning out across the great western plains heading for home.

Here are the riders.




I began running low on fuel about half way to Nyngan, courtesy of a strong headwind and my own slackness in not topping up before leaving Cobar. My bacon was saved by the publican at Hermidale.( See full story in Oceania forum.) Iain had come back looking for me, intending to top up at Hermidale himself, but with no fuel available he headed toward Nyngan with me at a much reduced pace and arrived there almost running on fumes.

Guy was waiting there for us and after refuelling we set off for Nevertire and then headed north off the highway to Warren where we saw TS having a tea break in a nice little park near the creek. He was heading straight up the Castlereagh for Walgett. We said our goodbyes as we turned east to Gilgandra where I had to fill up again (!) while Iain and Guy kept going. I was chewing more fuel than I should have been and made a note to re-programme the SFI at home. The boys took the scenic route over the magnificent Warrumbungles while I tried to make up time by whizzing along the wonderfully winding highway which passed through the foothills, but my attention was constantly being distracted by the sight of that amazing snaggle-toothed range of mountains towering overhead. It was a perfect riding day and I relished the opportunity of a brief stint alone through one of the trip’s highlight sections of road. We met up again in Coonabarabran and quickly headed off towards Gunnedah which we passed straight through. Thirty kays further we peeled off and passed through some magnificent cattle country, made even more spectacular by the late afternoon sun casting a golden glow over the vast brown grasslands. The green/brown range of hills in the background topped by fat purple rainclouds completed the amazing sight. Or as Banjo Patterson so beautifully put it in Clancy of the Overflow: “And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended, and by night the wond’rous glory of the never-ending stars.”

With night approaching, skippy time and still a hundred kays short of our target of Bingara because of my stuffing about at Hermidale, we decided to stop at Manilla.
Guy pulled up at a pub and we were halfway through our first beer when we noticed a procession of vintage tractors entering the old garage over the road. There had been a gathering of vintage farm machine enthusiasts in town that day. We walked over and saw a solid wheel Fordson and a lovely old Massey Harris among others. The woman we spoke to would be handy to have around. She is making a lot of the parts for a vintage Chevy truck she is restoring.

After tea at the local RSL club we hit the hay in our $20 a night rooms with the most comfortable beds I can remember and slept the sleep of the innocent –or maybe it was that we’d had a big night the night before, not enough sleep because of the excitement of the occasion, and we’d ridden over six hundred kays that day.



Day 4

A beautiful dawn greeted us as we got away to an early 6.30 start aiming to have breakfast in Bingara.

Dawn in Manilla


And where one of KIWI's mates has been practising his flying skills (?) right through the glass panel in the door of my room at the Manilla pub.


We rugged up as it was cool but great for riding and in no time we were at Bingara where we stopped outside the Imperial Hotel.



It was a public holiday and still early. The very pleasant young woman who managed the pub told us that the dining room was still closed and that the cook was still probably home in bed. In another example of country hospitality however, she said that although she couldn’t cook to save her life, if we were willing, she’d try to put something together for us. She then produced a terrific brekky of bacon sausages and eggs, thick buttered toast and mugs of delicious coffee. Champion!

Suitably fortified we thanked the lovely lady and set off across country bypassing Warialda and aiming for Delungra. Again I was just tailing the other two and I was prepared to turn east toward Inverell when they continued on north. Strange! And then it all became clear. More dirt!! What the heck! I’d had a great time in Cobar, Guy had proven to be a very good “tour leader” and this was his fun thing, so I resolved to have fun too. Remembering the lessons of the blacksoil back in Piliga, I tried to put into practice what Guy had said and I started to enjoy myself and pick up the pace. Admittedly it was good quality dirt and Guy was buzzing back and forth taking pictures of us.

Here's Iain at speed on this good dirt section.


We soon came to a little hamlet called Graman (me outside the pub)


and then it was on to more good dirt. I was really starting to enjoy this, and one time I looked down and was horrified to see 120 kmh on the clock. Then as I looked back up I was even more horrified to see what I’d thought was a tree stump was actually a mid size skippy standing at the side of the road. I was past it in a flash and it hopped across the road behind me. Phew!!

Guy explaining to KIWI that permission is required for his mates to travel past this point.


The dirt ended and Guy went into his customary blue funk while we rode up to the New England Highway and then turned east towards Tenterfield. Passing through Tenterfield we rode up into the mountains where we encountered a million four wheel drives that had had a meeting at Rover Park. They were towing trailers and caravans and were dropping clods of mud all over the narrow wet winding road (it had started to rain) so we had a pretty miserable trip of it until we reached the Drake pub on the other side. This pub has become a shrine to the legend of Peter Brock with memorabilia of the HDT and early photos of Brock, Colin Bond, John Harvey and Harry Firth adorning the walls. Also the publican has a huge collection of DVDs of the glory days of the HDT at Bathurst, and Bond and Brock in their rally cars. Worth a visit, but not on a wet Monday of a long weekend with feral 4WDs heading home.

To escape the 4WD hordes we turned off the highway and headed up the Bonalbo Woodenbong road into the border ranges where we would eventually cross back into Queensland. This has to be the worst sealed road in the country. It’s a narrow patched pot-holed abomination with corrugated blind corners, it was raining and there was still the odd stray 4WD to contend with. Finally we reached the top, crossed the border and began having fun again on the incredible down-hill switchbacks leading to Rathdowney.

As the road levelled out and straightened out and the sun tried to shine, I barrelled around a curve to see flashing lights, and a copper is having a nice heart to heart with Guy! After over 2000 kays of pretty responsible riding, we get ten kays back into Queensland and cop this! While I’m having a mental flash of Guy doing the scene from the Blues Brothers where John Belushi is pleading with Carrie Fisher in the tunnel not to shoot him, Iain adopted a more pragmatic approach and convinced Mr Highway Patrol that Guy should be let off with a stern warning.

Guy being spoken to by a four-legged traffic cop. In Guy's world, that's OK.


No it was only Iain, now suggesting we all be on our way with no more unpleasantness.


We pulled up at the coffee shop at Rathdowney but Guy elected to press on for home while Iain and I had our last coffee of the trip. The sun was out a bit now so Iain took his wet weather gear off and we headed for Beaudesert. Sure enough it started to pelt down, and we parted company at the Greenbank turn-off. At least the rain cleaned the bike up a bit and sluiced some of the insect spatter off the screen so that when I rode into our driveway I looked presentable—sort of.

What a truly unbelievable weekend.
What a truly unbelievable ride.
What truly unbelievable riding partners.

WINTER WEEKEND WINERY RIDE

So the missus reckons that I had been far too focused on me of late, so with Jared over in NZ playing in the snow we had a weekend available to go for a ride on the Strom. We had been talking about a weekend in Stanthorpe visiting a couple of winery's for quite a while and thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to get a few people together and have a bit of a ride to get there. Would also be a good chance to test the Givi luggage we had received with the bike but haven't had a chance to use.

I sent out an email to quite a few of our regular riding friends and waited for the responses to come back. I must need to change my deodorant or something as I all got was lame excuses. Too far....Too cold...have to polish my toe nails....Need to clean my tooth....etc etc, so as it turned out it was just me and Sam.

It was an early start and the short burst down the M1 was a bit chilly, but no where near as cold as it was going to get. Beenliegh is the launch point to the hills and spectacular scenery of the Gold Coast hinterland.

We headed up the Tamborine road then through Cunungra and Beechmont, then down into the Numinbah valley before crossing the NSW border.

The local wildlife was out in force. This goose wouldn't move out of the way.

Just before Chillingham we took the Tyaglum turn off and headed up through the Mebbin state forest. This probably isn't the quickest way, but it is more scenic and the dirt roads are good fun.

Our first stop for the Day was Nimbin, the self proclaimed Hemp & Wicked camper capital of Australia. It never ceases to amaze me how brazen some of the locals are with their offers of "smoke' or "cookies". We resisted their temptations and settled for a coffee and donut instead. Mmmmm Donuts. :-)

After a a very enjoyable half hour of Weirdo watching, we were off again, this time bound for the thriving outpost of Ettrick. Not the end of the world, but you can see it from here. :-), but on the way decided to call into where round 1 of the QLD pony express series was being held, but unfortunately we were a day earlier, and there was no one there, but the slippery track in was interesting.

 We soon reached the Bruxner highway and decided to call in to the lookout at the top of the Richmond ranges.

It was here that we discovered that the panniers make a huge difference to fuel consumption and with just 300klm's showing on the odo, the engine gave a cough & stalled. Luckily it was all downhill into Mallangallee and we were able to coast into the main street only to discover that the only servo is closed on weekends. The pub however was open and we were lucky to meet a friendly farmer who just happened to have a 10 litre jerry in the back of his ute, which he sold to us for a reasonable price and we were quickly back on way to Drake.

The Drake hotel is a great place to stop for lunch if your passing through. The meals are excellant and very well priced. The publican also has a heap of Peter Brock memorabilia hanging on the wall to pass the time while you wait for you meal. He also has an immaculate Honda CB1100R on display, which was my dream bike when I was a young fella.

Interestingly it was also here that we came across Dom, a friend of ours. I say interestingly because Dom  was the one that said he had to brush his tooth this weekend, ;-) yet here he was out with John & Michael on the adventure bikes. Perhaps I really do need to change deodorant. :-) We had a great lunch with the boys then they headed off into the bush, while we hit the awesome twisty's on the road to teneterfield.

The road from Drake to Tenterfield is 70Klms of some of the best twisty's in Nth NSW & QLD, We had a great time chasing and catching a heap of Ulysses riders on their cruisers, before we hit the dirt of the Mt Lindsay highway on our way to the Bald Rock bush retreat, which would be our accommodation for the night.

The retreat is an Authentic Spanish hacienda, with a variety of accom types ranging from a Bunk House, Apartments, Bush cabins and a Lake house. It was built by an eccentric German couple Buca & Helga, who run the place. We spent the afternoon having a bit of a look around the 650 acre property, before enjoying an awesome meal that Helga whipped up for us, before an early night.

We even made a couple of new friends. Perhaps they might be interested in coming for a ride :-)

We woke early the next morning and looked outside to see a thick frost had settled overnight. Luckily we had the fire going flat out.

 Did I mention that it was cold.

After a leisurely breakfast, the temperature got to a point where it was safe to get on the bike and we headed off to check out a few winery's, via Storm King Dam.

We also checked out a n Olive farm, and tasted some of the different varieties.

We also took the time to check out the house that my family lived ion when I was born, which just happened to be on an amazing back road that featured some fun corners.

The day was getting away on us so we reluctantly turned the bike for home, but not before calling in to the Morgan park raceway, just outside of Warwick to check on a couple of friends who were racing.

Big Brad here races this CBR900 in the new era class and does alright as well.

 Sorry about the crap photo's I really gotta get a good camera

It was getting late and I still wanted to do the Queen Mary falls road on the way home, so we left after a couple of races and headed off towards Killarney. The Spring Creek cafe sits right at the top of the range and since we hadn't had any lunch we decided to call in for a couple of low fat scones and a coffee.

I know they were low fat cause the the cows that produce the cream are extremely fit, check out how steep this embankment is. :-)

From there it was a slow ride home in the dark avoiding the roos and other nocturnal wildlife.

We had a great weekend and cant wait to do it again, but not sure when as Sam has  started a new weekend job. Maybe some of my so called friends might make the effort next time. :-)






 

CRUISE TO CRACOW

So considering the response I got to my last weekend ride, I was quite surprised with the turn out for the Cruise to Cracow ride. Must be the change of deodorant. :-)

Cracow is an old Gold mining town about 500klm's Nth West of Brisbane. The town is basically deserted with the pub being the main attraction. The Gold mine has recently recommenced production and that has brought about 600 men to the town, but they are housed in Dongas at the mine, and the town itself remains deserted.

Me and Sam met Buss, Suze and Chris and Susie at the BP Herston and headed up to Mt Glorious via the Samford road, where we met Glenn, Leanne, Danial, Nicole and Andrew & Julie. The night before had seen huge wind gusts around Sth East QLD and the road up the mountain was covered in Debris. It was quite cold at the top, so the decision was made to head down to Kilcoy for breakfast.

After devouring a couple of pies and sausage rolls, we kitted up for the blast up the Jimna-Murgon road. At this point Andrew and Julie decided that the big FJR would be better suited to the bitchy of the Kingaroy road, so we decided to meet them Murgon. The rest of us headed off and were soon finding our feet on the slippery gravel.

We had a quick stop at the entrance to Landcruiser park, so the BMW riders could synchronise the BMW assist numbers into their GPS units and adjust the heated grips. :-)

Glen & Leanne were quite comfortable on the gravel road, although Glen copped a slight case of concussion after being belted across the head by Leanne for an unannouced wheelie. :-). Inconsiderate bastard, I would never do that to Sam. ;-)

Buzz was an old hand at this and was being very well behaved, having been well trained by Suze :-)

Danial & Nicole were a little nervous at first, but had recently completed a BMW off road riding course and soon settled in and were doing a great job.

Meanwhile Chris & Susie were making it look easy at the rear of the field, happy to just cruise along.

Before too long we were at Murgon for our reunion with Andrew & Julie and the BMW riders resorted to the low tech technique of looking at a map to see where we were. :-)

From there it was a relativly short run to Hivesville for our lunch stop. We can highly reccomend this pub as a great place to stop for lunch. Awesome steak sandwiches.

The run from Hivesville to Mundubberra features some reasonably good qulaity back roads through some rolling country side.

After refuelling in Mudubberra it was back onto the dirt for the run into Cracow. Getting stuck behind this cattle truck for a bout 10 klms was no fun. Apparently mirrors are only a new invention in these parts and the locals havnt quite got around to working out how they work.

The local livestock also seemed intent on taking us out.

Despite all these obsticles, we soon arrived at the famous Cracow hotel. The pub is owned by Fred Brouphy of boxing tent fame and the walls are full of memorabillia from the years he has spent touring the country with his boxing truope. The walls are also covered with thousands and thousands of items of meaningless dribble from the backpackers that pass through and heaps of pictures from many a huge night in the public bar. It makes for an interesting couple of hours reading and some of it is very entertaining, although, most of it is just drunken dribble. ( i happily added my own piece of dribble :-)

 

Crap quality pics unfortunatly. I really have to get me a decent camera.

We soon settled in on the veradah of the pub fro a few refreshing beers, While the girls got our gear sorted in the luxuroius digs that are the rooms of the Cracow pub. Sandy (wife of Fred) has decorated each room of the pub in its own theme. Sam and I were lucky enough to score the honeymoon suite, but other themes include the Australiana room, the floral room and the African room. 

I said we were lucky to score the honeymoon suite, but a smoke detector with a flat battery that beeped every 30 seconds throughout the night, sort of changed our mind a bit.

We had a great steak that night prepared by Sandi and her team of friendly backpackers, that they recruit from hostels in Brisbane and drag them out for a minimum 1 month stay of working at the pub. Cracow is a nice place, but not sure that I could stay out there for a month. I spoke to a couple of the girls and they were definetly looking forward to getting out and continuing there journeys up the QLD coast.

After dinner we went for a bit of a walk around the town and had a night game of bowls at the deserted bowls club, then retired to the outdoor fire and had a few more beers and laughs. Sam & I retired reasonably early to our luxury beeping room, while the others kicked on for a few hours.

I have no idea what transpired and how this rabbit met its fate, but do know it involved a wierd truck driver ,a small dog and Glen.

Sam and I rose early on the Sunday morning (due in no small part to that bloody smoke detector. Lucky for it that the ceilings were too high for me to be able to rip it off.) and had breakfast while the others were still sleeping. After they rose we all posed for the mandatory piccie at te front of the pub, then we set off in search of a loacal tourist spot the Cracow beach.

 The beach actually proved quite elusive to find and in fact Buzz and Andrew never did quite find it. The rest of us only found it thanks to some dodgy directions from the caretaker at the mine site, but it was well worth it, with a pretty little creek running through a huge stand of some rare palm trees. I forget what they were called, but they looked quite spectacular.

At this point we lost Andrew and Julie as they headed off for Gin Gin. The rest of had planned to take some back roads south to Kingaroy, but due to the mucking around trying to find the beach, we had to make a beeline for Eidsvold as we were getting low on fuel. After refueling I checked out my map and found a a little back road that would bring us out at Jimbour. This proved to a much more interesting route that droning down the bitchy, however I was unsure if everyone else would be as happy as me on the dirt, but at a stop at nice little creek, not far from the end, everyone seemed happy enough, so we continued on for Ban Ban springs, where we had lunch.

 

From Ban Ban springs we headed for Kingaroy for a refuel and this is also where we said goodbye to Glen. Leanne & Danial & Nicole. It was getting late and they needed to get home, but for the rest of us a blast over the Bunya mountains was in order. The roads over the montain ere great fun, even though we had to keep the speed down and dodge the day trippers coming back down our way and mostly on the wrong side of the road. The veiw from the top over the Draling Downs was spectacular and the run down the mountain was fun as well, even though I took a wrong turn and sent us about 40klms out of our way. Oh well it was good fun anyway. Out final stop was at a coffee shop in Crows nest, before a quick blast down the Hampton/Esk road 

 

 

 Buy this time the shadows were defineatly getting longer and it was time to head for home. It was a great weekend and a huge thanks to those that came along. We did over 1200klm's over the weekend and I hope you had a good a time as Sam and I did. cant wait to do another one soon.

 

SAM'S BIRTHDAY RIDE TO URUNGA

How lucky am I? When I asked Sam what she would like  for her birthday, she replied that all she wanted was to go for a weekend ride. Cool I say. The only decision to be made was where to go. Glen & I had previously discussed a weekend at Urunga on the NSW Nth Coast. A quick look at the gday pubs website http://www.gdaypubs.com.au/ showed that there was a cool looking pub on the beach, so Urunga it was.

The call went out for participants and the usual crew responded.

Glen, Leanne, Warby & Jacquie would leave on the friday afternoon  and camp on the lions road. Johnny S had a few days off work, so headed down on the Thursday. Myself, Sam, Buzz, Suze, and Chris & Sue met at the BP at Yatala early on Saturday morning, with the plan to try and meet the others along the way somewhere. Buzz & Sue being the attention seekers they are managed to create a scene in the servo, by dropping their bike on the driveway...how embarresment.!! :-) Luckily the only damage was pride and we were soon away via the familiar roads of the Tamborine mountains and Numinbah Valley.

The ride over the NSW border was a great start to the day and apart from a wallowing domestic pig on the side of the road, that frightened crap out of me, it was all pretty uneventful. First stop was the village of Chillingham, before we took the road to Tyalgum and the slippery dirt through Mebbin state forest.

We had a quick stop in Nimbin for brekky and to check out the wierdo's, then into Lismore then Grafton via Whiporie, then pretty farmlands & villages along the banks of the huge Clarence river.

Our planned lunch stop was to be the Coaching Station Inn on the banks of the Nymboydia River, but unfortunatly we forgot about daylight saving and all that was available was smith crisps and beer. As you can see from the pic below, this didnt please Chris & Suze at all. Oh well at least the veiw of the river was nice and the beer was cold. :-)

From there it was a high speed blast over some awesome winding mountain road through Clouds Creek to Tyringham and then down the dorrigo range past some waterfalls to Urunga. Our digs for the night.

The pub was awesome and we soon settled in to a few drinks on the patio over looking the beautiful Bellinger river with veiws ot to the ocean. We were joined by the rest of the crew who had arrived a few hours earlier and set up camp. They had decided to camp and use trip as an opportunity to do a systems check for our upcoming trip to Tassie in Christmas time.

The drinks were flowing well, in fact a bit too well and the rest of the night is a bit hazy for me apart from remembering that we had an awesome dinner and later Glen & I gatecrashed a double 21st birthday party that was being held at the pub.

I do remember  scoring some birthday cake and a kiss from the  birthday girl, but thats about it. I had enough brains cells left to decide that enough was enough, but Glen was apparently upset over a lost cat, and was last heard wandering though the upstairs hallways of the pub calling out to his lost pussy. :-)))))))

Surprisingly Warby was very well behaved, but John looked all of his years and then some on Sunday Morning. :-)

The next morning at sunrise,I was abruptly awoken by the birthday girl and told we were going for a walk along the beach.

 

We obviously werent the only ones that had a big night. Usually its the wheels stolen off the car. In this case the car was stolen off the wheels and the theif forgot his thongs. ????

Urunga features a a 500metre boardwalk thats takes you out to the beach. From their you can see the Junction of the Bellinger and Kalang rivers. Its a very nice walk and at the beach you can see the whales frolicking in the water.....(no smart ass comments from the gallery please. :-)

The excercise was making me hungry, so we headed back to the hotel for brekky then packed the bikes for the ride home, via our friends Brian & Janelle at Woolgoolga. We then headed up the Orara way to Lanitza to see if our old friend Al had done any work on his shed. From there it was into Grafton and as the others had enjoyed the run down through the farmlands, we decided to head up to Ulmarra and catch the ferry across the river.

It was while exiting the ferry that Chris almost matched Buzz's effort of attention seeking in the servo, by performing a almost perfect 180 degree piroette on the slippery exit ramp.

The next picture was taken just moments before near catastrophe, but fortunatly Chris was able to hold on to the big BM. Unfortunatly though Sam was unable to relaod the camera quick enough to get the shot.

After that little bit of excitement we headed for the Lawrence tavern, for a nice lunch and a cold beer. Chris & Sue Looked like they needed a Bex and a good lie down. :-)

While I consulted the maps, Sammy the birthday girl, wasted no time in hooking into the burger from Hell. She reckoned as it was her birthday, she could eat whatever she wanted...can't ague with that. We will be in tassie for my birthday and I am looking forward to sticking my nose into the trough down there.....Can everyone say Mmmmm crayfish :-)))))

It was soon time to leave behind the great veiws of the mighty Clarence and head North for home. Chris and I had plotted what looked like an interesting route through the back blocks of Nth NSW. Little did we know how interesting it was going to get. It started out nice enough with some nice dirt roads through some pretty farmland.

 
The road at the start was in great condition and at this point the girls were in high spirits, but this was all about to change.

The road soon turned into twin track that thread its way through the scenic rainforest.

Then it narrowed to single track with deep sand and ruts. Riding a fully loaded 300kg Vstrom or BMW, 2 up through this sort of stuff is hard work. Both Buzz & Chris had little lie downs and the girls had to walk part of the track which was only 12 klms long, but seemed like a lot lot more. I was not a popular fella. :-(

Everyone was feeling tired. I was feeling sheepish

  

The track continued to deteriote as we went on. It reminded me a lot of the overland telegraph track at Cape York, which incedently Steve & Jaquie reckon they are going to ride in the same configuration as we were. Good luck is all I can say.These tracks are made for bikes like my 450 or even the 640, not these behemoths.

 

And then just when we thought it would never end

We popped out at the end of the trail. I could feel the daggers being aimed at  my back. :-)

From here it was an awesome run through the magnificent macadamia and coffee plantations in the Byron hinterland.

 By the time we reached Mullumbimby the light was fading and numbbum was setting in. Chris & Buzz received their orders and decided to head home via the M1. Sam & I on the other hand decided to continue up the main range Rd dodging all sorts of wierdass critters, until we reached Uki, then back roads over the hills into Burliegh, where we also joined the M1 for the drone home.

We arrived home after 1200klms, totally exhausted and with bums that would ache for days, but it was an awesome weekend. Sam even said she had a great time and after all, the weekend was all about Sam. Glad you had a great birthday weekend Sammy xxxx

 

TABULAM RACES RIDE

Been a while since I have posted anything up, so I thought I would share with you all a report of a ride we did last weekend to the Tabulam Picnic races in Nth NSW. Tabulam is situated half way along the Bruxner highway between Casino and Tenterfield. The fact that the area just east of here had just received the largest rainfall recorded in 64 years wasn't enough to put us off so with the clouds looming we all arranged to meet at the BP servo at Nth Maclean.

I was up early and loaded the 640, but I was quite tempted to take the Hurricane.

Punters for this trip included Daniele (650 x challenge) Nicole (drz250) Cameron (dr650) Buzz (dr650) JB (dr650) and Paul (BMW 650 gs) who unfortunately would only make it it 10 minutes into the ride before suffering terminal fuel pump issues and had to be unceremoniously taken home on the back of an RACQ truck. Bad luck mate, sorry we didn't get to ride with you.

We would also meet Glen & Leanne (dl1000), Andrew (fjr1300 adventure), Oscar (Dr650) and another Paul (dl1000) in Tabulam.

After Paul #1's misadventure we regrouped in Boonah. It was here that Buzz discovered that he had somehow lost his spot satellite tracker somewhere along the road.He had no idea where it had fallen off, so we decided that it was a lost cause and headed off.

From there we headed off in the light showers through Carney's Ck and White Swamp and made quite good time to Old Koreelah. It was a high speed blast down through Paddy's Flat with the surprise being Nicole who was setting the pace for us all on her trusty DRZ250 , before a stop on the clarence river, where we had a McGUYver moment when Nicole dropped a lens form her sunnies through the cracks in the bridge to the sand below. Fortunately we were able to fabricate a recovery tool using some Bone & sinew from a nearby dead cow and fish guts  which we speared in the river. (actually it was a stick and some duct tape, but those of you that know me know that I never let the truth get in the way of a good story). :-)

It was then just a short trip into the Tabulam race course where we were greeted with the very sad sight of a nearly  empty pannier esky and a very drunk Glen & Andrew.

 

Oscar wasn't in much better shape and was getting friendly with the locals.

The girls were shocked and apparently through all of this, there was a horse race going on....Who knew?

The local girls were all frocked up and looking their breast....I mean best.

JB was wandering around making friends everywhere he went especially with the local police, who had a nice little chat with him. I thought we were going to have to bail his sorry ass out of Jail again. :-)

Glen was having to apolagise to Leanne for his actions

Any way as I said, apparently there was a horse race going on.

There was also a donkey race. Check out the stallion in barrier 6 that needs gelding

With the races over it was time to sit back and relax with a cold beer and a hot smoke.

The evening went all down hill from there. Not sure what Oscar said here but Daniel and Nicole look impressed.

Daniele looks even more impressed here...or is that just pissed. :-)

Once again it was left to me to put everyone to bed and go and apologize to the neighbors which i did till all hours of the morning. I am sure they enjoyed my tales of travels on the road and my witty banter. So after they went to bed and left me sitting on my own in their camp, I finally decided it was time to hit the swag.

It was a bit of a slow start to the next day, with many sore heads, but we slowly packed up and headed to the local servo where, we all had some breakfast before saying our good byes to Glen, Leanne, Andrew & Oscar who were heading home in a different direction to the rest of us.

Us Gnarly adventure riders would head up the Mallangalee range to the Richmond ranges forest road, where reports came filtering through to the front of outrageous passing manouvers and highly dangerous speeds being recorded by someone on a DRZ250.  The  blokes on the ride should be ashamed of themselves.

A DRZ250 hahahahahahahahahaha, so much for hardcore adventure riders on their very manly DR650's.

I also managed to decimate most of the wildlife in the forest with 2 birds and a mini Kanagaroo thingy currently nursing very sore heads.

We soon arrived at Toonumbar Dam where we had a very civilized morning tea.

 

Then it was through the magnificent world heritage listed rainforest's until we emerged at the base of Mt Lindsay.

It was at this point that a certain sweep rider looped hi DR and tried to keep it a secret, but a broken rear guard and number plate at the Rathdowney pub where we had lunch, gave the game a way. That and the fact that he was seen by someone else. :-)

It was a fantastic weekend and one that may well be a permanent fixture on the calender every year. Thanks to all those that came along and made it a great time. Sam & I are now starting to gear up for our New Zealand tour in February, so stay tuned for that one.

Oh and you remember that Buzz lost his spot messenger on the way out. When we got home we  looked at its position on the computer and this morning, I was able to to drive to the exact place it fell off his bike. Spot was injured but still alive and sending out position reports. Buzz if you want to see Spot again you know what you have to do. Thats right new $100 bills, brown paper bag   :-)

IMBIL RALLY

Went to the Imbil rally last weekend to meet up with a mate of mine Thommo from Bouldercomb. Thats him on the FJR1300 roadtrain. (yes he really does tow his postie around)

One of the strippers tried to steal my bike. 
 
Another friend JJ was chasing the Schlarpers. He really is Hooligan and horny as well.

Thommo & Mick getting very very drunk
 

Thommo surfaces from the love shack. I think he must have had a possum in there, cause there was strange noises coming from inside there all night. ;-)

 

It was good. That is all I can remember.

 

NO SLEEP TILL BUXTON!

(story by Jb, pics by Guy & Wayne)

I’ve just returned from a little overnighter. 1100kms. I’ve rolled into the drive. The sun is setting and there’s no lights on, no noise in the house, no nothing.

Its Sunday night. Where is my loving family? Shouldn’t my adoring four year old be running down the backstairs into my open arms telling me how much he missed me? Shouldn’t the aroma from a home cooked roast be permeating the floorboards and down into the garage? Surely any time now my missus will be greeting me with a wicked smile and a freshly chilled beer?

Nope. The exact opposite. Solitude!

This is the reward of the Recon Rider (though I’m sure I was supposed to find this out on the road less travelled than upon my return home). Proving once again that if you ignore a relationship long enough it will eventually leave you.

While weighing up the pros and cons of this recent development and starting to feel quite comfortable about the new arrangement I noticed a note out of the corner of my eye “please pick up your child from Buzz’s, I’ve gone to dinner”:

Now let’s put this request in perspective. Today (after the ‘night before’ which in itself is another story) I’ve just ridden 600kms through 2 storms, 4 State Forests, one road block and a bog hole or two. I’m wet, no I’m soaked, my toes have turned to prunes, my fingers are black where the dye from the gloves has leached, I ache, I’m stiff and I’m tired.

But there is no rest for Recon Riders. So I get out of the boots, throw on some scuffs, leave the riding gear on and drive over to Buzz’s in Marni’s cage. I look like shyte, I smell like shyte and I feel like I’ve got about 15 minutes left in me pretending that I’m holding it together. I do recall telling Buzz that it was a krappe ride and he didn’t miss a thing but I don’t think he believed me. I couldn’t think properly and I don’t think I was speaking too well either. I grabbed Mr T and hiked for home where he didn’t care if I made sense or not as long as it came with cheesy pasta.

2 hours later I’ve got the kid into bed and asleep. Time to start attending to myself. I reheat some leftovers throw down a few beers and crawl off to bed. I don’t know when Marni came home. Such is the life of as Recon Rider. Lonely, alone, the loner.

Alternatively, if you take the self pity out of the above it could alternatively read: ‘JB you forgot Marni was booked to go out and got home irresponsibly late – deal with the consequences’. But being a Recon Rider there’s no room for self-doubt! The split second decisions we are required to make to ensure our survival out on that black and brown rubber road to freedom demands it. So I’m sticking with the original version.

So where did this sorry trail begin? Two days ago. Though strangely, even on reflection the day after, it still seems more like a week. Like one of our 6 day Long Way Rounds compressed. Recon Riding does that. It squeezes life. At least it does if McGUYver is leading.

We set off from the BP at Herston, down the road from the RBH around 7.30am. Thommo, Wayne, Guy (recon 1), myself and Chris P. Thommo was the bloke we met up at Birdsville – the mad muther who rode across the Adventure Way on a Postie Bike. You’ll like this bloke. An original.

Chris and I were the last to arrive but everyone was ahead of the planned rendezvous hour. A good sign that this might prove to be a reliable crew.

As I throw the sidestand down to refuel, the footpad Buzz and I fitted the other day falls off. For anyone other than a Recon Rider this might be a warning omen but for us it signalled adventure and drama to be overcome ahead … all the hallmarks of a doomed mission.

Thommo hadn’t been on a dirtbike in about a thousand years (though to be fair he looks a bit younger than that) and was chomping at the bit. Guy being Guy decides we better find out early if Thommo is made of the ‘right stuff’. If he isn’t we want to know this early so we don’t have to waste 2 days babysitting his arse around. So the first State Forest he chucks us into is Mt Mee. Yep small bore country and to top it off A Break hill. I suppose it could have been worse - Butcher’s Shop. Thommo passes his baptism of fire and we’re off.

 

 
I’m not sure where we went or indeed what direction we were heading. We were under cloud cover most of the day so navving by the sun was out of the question. Guy was making it up as he went but rode to a rough plan. To his credit we only backtracked once at a new locked gate in Mt Mee. If you’re thinking about continuing to ride your small bores in there in future please register this: it’s a National Park now and all those great single tracks are systematically being locked down and shut out and all the big tracks are being graded into something that resembles Southbank. Give me convenience or give me death. All the fun is being scraped and levelled out of the place. It is transitioning to a park of respectability and safety. The writing is on the wall folks.

Where to next. Buggaed if I know . To be fair it was all a bit of a blur to me. Though I do recall a very nice pie and peas at Kilcoy where I adjusted handlebars and gear lever and there was beer & chips at Goomeri  There was also 2 arse wipe farmers who turned us back and some dust. Different coloured dust – white, red and brown. Eating that made up for missing afternoon tea but we did wash it down with another beer at Biggenden. Chris was having a great time as you can see.

 

The local real estate was interesting,There was definteatly a "gap" in my recolections, The Thompsen twins will remember it, but I was more concerned about where the beer at the end of the day was going to come from.

The answer to this question was Childers. After a nice half hour soaking in what the heavens had to offer, we rolled in through about 15kms of beautiful twisties which my GSXR would have eaten for breakfast – except of course that it was closer to dinnertime. The local pub was a caged shack but that didn’t stop me breaking in and annoying the shit out of every person in the pub by tapeing up a carton.

 

Wayne very cleverly strapped carton onto the back of Guy's bike while he wasn't looking.

  
15 minutes later with a carton of New strapped to my lap we’re on our way into Buxton and our lodgings on the Isis River – a beautiful place … to get eaten alive by midgies. A very quiet little backwater. I suspect most of its residents are actually dead but none of their relatives visit often enough to discover the remains. Probably explains the big blocks as well – keeps the smell away.

 
Our host Andy was a great bloke as was Froggy and then there was Matt who conveniently arrived lost and late just in time for us to slang shyte on him (all Matts are useful for this – thank you Mr Lukan). What could he expect – he rode in on a tired, seen better days Viragra 250, all the way from the Gold Coast. We all wished him luck getting home but can’t confirm he actually made it.

As we threw on our jackets to ride out next morning the rain again made an appearance. This was also the most challenging part of the ride navigation wise – getting out of Buxton. It’s a labyrinth and drinking till 1:30am had nothing to do with it. But Guy was keen to hit the road.

 

My personal ride highlight was running the bike path beside the main road heading out. I was having a ball throwing the big girl around this single track until I realised we were on the footpath outside the locals’ actual houses and barely shielded by some brigalow like tundra weed trees. My guilt got the better of me and I pulled out about 3/4s of the way along ... then my evil side got the upper hand and a little further up I jumped in again. I have to say these DRs can move and shake if you’ve got the confidence to be a bit aggressive with them. The trick is to not overload them, a valuable lesson that Wayne learnt when the Kelvinator came off the back of his bike.

 
Then it was onto the gasline. Chris found that DR's are'nt as easy to extract from quicksand as the little bikes. You will notice in the following pics that I beat a hasty retreat. While Wayne leaped to Chris's assistance. Its all about helpin your mates.......and good Management.

 
It was along this stretch that I learnt rule Number 324 from the Recon riders handbook. Never ride with the fuel tap in the reserve position. Didn't take long to drain some fuel from wayne's bike though.Must Remeber that recon riders rule....mates and management Mmmm.

The next thing I know we’re at Hervey Bay. Nice place … apparently. All a bit fishyob and promenade pounding for senior citizens for my liking but the bacon and egg burger was to die for. Wayne reckoned we was there for the pickins.

We also had to wait at an intersection, where we thought he had gone missing.

Recon 1 also tried to coax us up this nasty little hill, but I was the only one to blindly follow our fearless leader....prick he is.

Scenic routed it down to this massive State Forest full of pine plantation before hunting down Harry’s Hut on the Noosa River. This is an apparent must do and I can recall a few photos of Rusty in TBam, fishing here. Fired up the billy and went for a swim in the tea-tree stained water while we waited for another storm to pass. The scene was reminiscant of wild hogs with 3 grown men frollicking in their underware. Just needed the local copper to turn up. I of course am far too cool for this type of behavior and settled down to a nice cup of tea

We caught up with it again at Pomona, so a quick rehydrate was called at the Kin Kin hotel and we rode the storm home arriving just as mild hypothermia began to have a look in.

Ride highlights:

• Thommo’s mad grin riding out along Lutwyche Rd – he was like a kid in a candy store upon his new steed;

• Wayne’s ‘adventure giggle’ every time he had a moment - particularly the headshake up the sandy hill behind Harry’s

• The ignorance and lies farmers are willing to tell to perpetuate an advantage they’ve enjoyed for far too long at the exclusion of every other Australian who is entitled to ride the roads we have paid for;

• Chris P’s bog hole adventure;

• Throwing caution to the wind in the ‘sometimes sand’ coming out of Harry’s by upping the ante and finding the bike could handle the deeper stuff if you powered on and attacked it (yes I know this is something I learnt in the desert – sometimes relearning is a confidence thing);

• Andy’s hospitality to complete strangers

• The amount of luggage lost (vibration);

• The amount of luggage recovered (all of it);

• Racking Wayne’s gearsack rack – it bent and bent but didn’t break;

• JB running out of fuel half a km before the saviour servo as he limped into ?

• JB’s Microsystems (proving once again I can do maxi and micro but simply can’t do anything in the middle - moderation is a dirty word - full on or not at all);

• The lukewarm humidity over 2 days;

• The dirtbikers unlocking the locked gate for us up on Postmans’ Track behind Maleny – this has to be a first in land / route closure that I know about – they’d fitted a gate to a public road and the locals were irate – not sure what the politics were behind it but the gate had already been rammed by a local during the night – the local copper had just left as we rolled up – I’m sure there was a bit of blood on the tar this morning as frustrated locals found themselves shutdown on their way to work Monday morning surprise;

• Froggy’s knee on the ground everywhere on his R6 – I simply didn’t think this was possible.

We live in a big country. And some of us are running out of time. And things aren’t getting any better, they’re getting worse and there is a population squeeze ahead of us. My best advice to anyone out there who hasn’t seen Australia, doesn’t have a lot of time on their hands nor a lot of the folding stuff – get out there now on whatever you can scrape together with fuel range of 300kms plus.

X jb Recon Rider 2 (with the emphasis on CON)

BOGGED IN BALLENDEAN

Normally couldn't be bothered to post up details of day rides, but went out with Dom on Saturday for what was supposed to be a gentle run.

Ended up covering over 700 klm through the granite belt region near my home town is Stanthorpe. Day started bright and early at 5:30 am to try and escape the heat. Need'nt of bothered as it has been raining for what seems like 150 years and the temp was very agreeable. Had a great lunch at the Ballendean tavern then headed of down the brilliant Haligans lane which is where the attached pics were taken.
A spring had formed due to the recent rains and had begun bubbling up through the road. Looked just like a bit of wet sand but as as soon as I entered it, I literally sunk in the quicksand.
Dom & I couldn't budge the bike. We tried to dig it out but it would refill as quick as we could dig. We tried hooking up Dom's bike with a tow strap but it just snapped. Fortunately a group of local boys turned up and it took the six of us over an hour to dig it out.

Didn't get home till after 9:30 pm.

So much for a cruisy ride.

 

Thinking about heading of next week for a 4 or 5 day ride around Nth NSW. If anything exciting happens I'll post it up.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas.

THE TRACKCUTTERS ADVENTURE

Have you ever wondered who cuts that primo single track in your favourite riding spot? Who in their right mind would put in so much effort, just so you can have some trail blasting fun? It must takes days, weeks or even years to link up some of those trails right?

Well if you've ever ridden the spectacular trails of the Coffs Harbour hinterland, then I can just about guarantee you that you have have ridden on track that has been hand cut by a 70 year old absolute legend  known as Al Gillard. Al is a bit of an institution in the area and while many claim to know him, not many have had the privilege of riding with him on his amazing collection of some of the best single track this country has to offer. The guy is literally a human GPS.

I along with my loser mates have been fortunate enough to have known and ridden with Al for the past 12 or 13 years or so and over that period of time we have become very close to the old bugger. So when Al mentioned that he would love to do an adventure ride with us sometime. A plan was put into place.

As it happens Al turned 70 Just before Easter so apart from having a massive surprise birthday party for him on  Good Friday  a couple of us set about  working out the details of getting Al out for a 4 day Adventure ride that would be our gift to him as a way fo saying thanks for all the rides he has taken us on over the years.

Our mate Chris very kindly offered up his well set up DR650 and Al's wife Gerry (whos birthday it also was) was briefed as to what he would require in the way of gear and food.

 

Apparently the party was a huge success (there were a lot of empty bottles and a few very sore heads around the next morning)  and a massive surprise to Al who had no idea what we had in store for him over the coming days.

 

Al & Gerry

 

 

The girls doing what girls are good at.

Easter Saturday morning and after trying to clear our heads,we  set off from Chris's beautiful country retreat near Nana Glen in NTH NSW. (not far from Russell Crows retreat actually)

 

There was me (the sensible one) on my trusty 640, Christian the chef on his Team moto, Dri rider, scala teamset, Acropovic,  Elastoplast, Yamaha SuperTen, DR Tim the barefoot doctor on his APC Rally prepped KTM 690, 62 year old Dave on his DR650 super choofer, Al the Trackcutter on Chris's DR and of course JB the DR hater on his newly acquired Husquvarna TE610.

Originally our destination was to be Barrington Tops, but what was to follow over the next few days meant that was never going to happen.

We set off through familiar territory up the Dorrigo plateu, through some of the almost deserted little villages that once thrived when the Glenreagh to Dorrigo rail line was in use. Sadly the train no longer runs, but you can check out the sorry remains in Dorrigo, if you ever get the chance.

A quick cuppa to help try and clear the head then back down the range and into the New England national park and the appropiately named Die Happy state forest. The way I was feeling I would have been very happy to just lie down and die.

 
We had a ball blasting along the infamous Horseshoe trail but the conditions were a bit too much for Christian on the huge super Ten. He had a couple of  falls and unfortunately on one particularly nasty downhill section he chucked the big girl away big time and in the process ended up with all 300kg+ resting on his foot. JB being the caring soul he ISN'T thought it was all quite amusing, but it was soon evident that Christian was in a fair amount of pain and we would have to detour to the closest pub in order to administer the appropriate medication.

 

Thats it Johhny smile for the camera, dont worry bout picking the bike up.

 

Only problem was that the closest pub apparently has no beer. Lucky for us they had sambucca.

 

We set up camp under a picnic shelter at the Town common and had a great meal before some of the boys hit the bar. Not me though...I know my limits.

 

It was a very dewy (and doughy) start to the next morning and Dave had a hangover that not even Chinese acupuncture could cure.

 

Christian decided that his foot was too sore to continue and sadly he decided to bail out to the highway and head home to get his foot checked out. Turns out he has broken a bone in his foot and will spend the next 6 weeks in plaster. Shame really as I really wanted a ride on his bike....Just kidding mate, hope you heal quickly.

 

The rest of us geared up and headed through some spectacular country side to Willarwarrin , where we fueled up the bikes and our bodies.  

JB understands the importance of eating well on the road.

 

The Macleay river was our next challenge, and although no one fell  in, there were defineatly a few pairs of wet boots around....Not Tims though. Perhaps we should call him the Dryfoot doctor, instead of the barefoot doctor.

 

JB just didnt give a shit and plowed through, obviously concerned that the Husky could stop running at any moment without notice.

 

The blast along the aptly named racecourse trail was great fun and there were huge grins on everyones faces as we pulled into a small picnic area for a cuppa and a panadol.

 

 

 

 

Then it was out onto the road bikers paradise that is the Oxley highway. We had a great time scratching on the chookies, then pulled into the Gingers Creek cafe, cause the big tough recon riders wanted more coffee. As you can see by the pic, I wasnt party to their pissy caffe latte  drinking games, settling instead on a 6 pack of Bourbon.

 
From there it was into the Tapin Tops national park, and a slight diversion to the hilariosly named Blue Knob lookout. Yes we did keep ourselves entertained  with that  for quite a few minutes. I am sure the other people at the lookout thought we were the knobs instead of the mature aged respectable citizens that we arn't.

 

 
Our accomadation for the night would be the luxurious picnic shelter at the Dingo Tops camping area. There was a mad rush to select the softest picnic table with Dave missing out while Al decided to set up camp out on the lawn, muttering something about not being able to put up with all the animal noises that emminated from the swags.

 

 

We had a great night having a few drinks and listening to JB babble on about what shit boxes DR650's are and how he would never lower himself to that level ever again. As far as he was concerned Husquvarna's now make the best and most reliable bikes in the world, and he wouldn't have a bar of anyone offering a differnet opinion. Blah Blah Blah

We all drifted off to sleep wishing we each had a Husky in our stable as they are obviously the best motorcycle ever made, Well according to JB anyway.

 

And Al had a little chat to dave at bedtime assuring him that there were no wild animals around only a couple of very friendly goats and perhaps a gerbil or 2..
 

I dreamt the dream of Huskies all night.
 
So anyway after JB's preaching of last night it was ironic that the only bike that needed a spanner put it on it the next morning was.........you guessed it the Husky!!!

Dave  nearly wet his  pants laughing so hard, while we set about tightening all the bolts that had vibrated out of the shitbox. Every sprocket bolt and rear spoke needed attention as did the barkbusters.

 Reliable indeed, but more was to come.

 
Anyone wanna caption these pics?????

How about this for starters

Me to Johnny

"So these Huskies are the shit eh Johnny?"

Or perhaps Dave to Al

"Don't buy one of these DR's Al...Apparently they are all shit tips"

 

BWAHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Next ride I go on with Johnny, Im taking incontinence pads. In fact i wouldnt be surprised if JB has some packed, he carries enough other shit.

BWAAAHHHHAAAAAAAA

Anyway, when we were able to stand up again, Tim and I set out about working out where the hell we were, and where we needed to be.

 

While Al explained to Dave the theory of how the front wheel of life turns.

 

The Ellenborough falls are the 2nd highest falls in Australia. Bit of a lame claim really, but they are pretty spectacular.

 

In Bellangry state forest we had a quiet naval gazing moment at a picnic area on the very pretty Wilson river.

 
 

While Al swore black and Blue that he had spotted a naked mermaid.

I reckon Dr Tim just put an extra dose of herbs in his tea.

 

The road out was really  Rocky and Dusty. It was hard going and we were deep deep into the forest and a long long way from anywhere. Perfect time for JB mate Karma to strike yet again.

Without notice the big Italian stallion quit running. We were stumped. All the high tech gadgetry had us beat. We tried everything we could think of, but no go. The big girl was dead.

 

There was no option, but for the big Husky to be towed out by .........wait for it.......... yep you guessed it......... A SHIT BOX DR!!!!!

BWAAHHHHAAAAAAAAA

 Yes my friends you could have heard a pin drop. JB was devastated. I just wanted to throw a match on it.  Dave was ecstatic and couldn't wait to get the big girl hooked up.  And this despite the fact he had never towed a bike in his life. Dave didn't care. He was beside himself. Make sure you get a photo he beamed. I'm gonna tell the grandkids about this he bellowed.

 

And just to rub insult into injury, we decided that Al should ride the towed bike as he was a bit lighter than JB. (not withstanding the 500 million kg of crap that JB carries) and JB was unceremoniously ordered to ride the other DR into to town. It was the ultimate ride of shame.

Initially our plan was to tow the bike to the closest farm house.

Bullshit yelled Dave, I want as many people as possible to see this, I'll take him into Kempsey. I'll stop at the first pub he screamed as he took off into the setting sun. And what an awesome job he and Al did did, reaching speeds of 90klm/h, there were several times I thought we were going to need to call in the helicopter to scrape them up off the road.  

But eventually we made it to the salubrious West Kempsey hotel. Apparently the gem of all the pubs in the area.

 

JB was duly informed of his duty to supply beer, pizza and also the need  to spring for a room for the night. Fortunately the rooms were cheap. (as they should have been with possibly the worst bed I have ever slept in).

In the mean time Husqvarna assist in the form of Chris P and a trailer were on the way. There was nothing left for us to do, but enjoy the local company and get pissed.....so we did.

And it was a sad sight to see the Big Husky leaving town on the back of the trailer......Not. I was so beside myself with greif I forgot to take a piccy.

The bikes were safely tucked away in the store room and we settled in for the night of fun and laughter with the locals, Including the publican who came and shared a few bevvies on the patio.

 

And then the rain started. Poured all night. We were all feeling a bit cactus from the night before and the thought of going out in the pouring rain wasn't all that attractive. Especially with us all suffering from curvature of the spine from the mattresses we had endured. Give me a picnic table and a swag any time.

 

 But head out we did and as there was no way we going to just drone home up the highway, we decided to head up the Kempsey-Armidale rd.

Had a quick stop at the Willarwarrin takeaway/butcher shop, we met Ian on one of those pesky shit box DR650's, who decided to tag along with us for a while. Lovely bloke and he knew of a couple of nice camping areas he wanted to show us for future reference, which was great and much appreciated. I can see a bike/fishing/kayaking trip down this way  in the near future.

 

 

Ian, being the gentleman he is also very kindly threw his bike down the road  on a particularly slippery corner, just so we all knew how treacherous it was. Went down like a sack of shit he did, but fortunatly ni injuries or damage. Thanks mate talk about going above and beyond. Was nice meeting you. we will definatly look you up, next time we are down that way.

From there we headed up the national trail and into the forest way, which is an extremely scenic run through the bush. It was certainly treacherous conditions, the road was literally like riding on ice and there were several spincter tightening moments for all of us but we all had a ball.

 

 

 

 In Ebor Dave and Al did a great job of scareing all the kiddies by stripping off on the footpath to put on more thermal underware, but quite a few of the old ladies were obviously impressed.

 

From there to home, the weather really closed in. It was pouring rain, thick fog and really strong crosswinds, so it was just head down and get home as quickly as we could. I was grateful for the small fairing on the 640 and we  arrived back at the Chateau cold, wet and hungry, but having had an awesome weekend.

It was great to see Al and dave so excited about what we had just put them through.

These two boys would put blokes half their age to shame and in fact Al does so quite regularly on the small bore bikes and I can only hope to be riding as good as he does when I am his age.

I am sure Dave had a great time and I am looking forward to going riding with him more often in the future.

 

Al I hope you had a great 70 birthday and just remember its your shout when its time for my 70th Birthday ride.

For me its now time to get organised for our IOM TT and European tour which starts the end of next month. Stay tuned its bound to be epic.

 

Cop yas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Urbenville Dakar party Recon Ride.

Didn't get a lot of pics. Was focused on not getting us all hopelessly lost and as is always the case forgot to take pics. If I get any more pics from the other guys I will post them up.

I arrived at the assigned meeting point early and had a quiet coffee while I waited for the others to arrive. I was a little apprehensive as I was unsure of exactly how many would turn up. I am always nervous leading a ride with guys I don't know, but I need'nt have worried.

Before long the boys started to arrive. Mostly a bunch of my motly loser dirtbike riding mates, but was good to have Steve C and Petes mate mark on his Tenere. Was also good to see Howard again after his early exit from the xmas ride.

Whats his name was there as well.


We split into 2 groups as per the post above and us knarly off road warriors set off, via cannon ck and maroon dam to the popular Condamine gorge, road being careful to not add to the state government coffers.


I had been talking Steve C up to all my mates about what a legend water crossing machine this guy on the Strom was, but he seemed a little reserved at the start of the road, wandering around kicking stones like a lost schoolboy.


And I can understand why he felt that way. He was surrounded by some of my looniest bike riding mates, who dont know the meaning of taking it steady. I actually pressed the shutter button on the below pic of Lard, while he was mid stream, but he was goinng so quick I almost missed him. (but stay tuned to see what happens to him later)



And you remember the old adage slow and steady????

Yeah right. Glen the Loxsmith wouldnt know slow and steady if it smacked him the face...dickhead he is.



And then it was Steves turn. First couple of crossings, he was his consumate self....however due to a storm the previous night the crossings were a bit deeper than the last time we came through and much to my surprise Steve came unstuck. Not once but twice. (Unfortunaly I don't have a pic, but there is some video floating around That I will share with everyone as soon as I get me hands on it. Don't thank me Steve, Its what i do )

The end result at the refuel in Killarnery was this.



We all got a good laugh out of Steve's lilly white legs but fortunately the bike wasn't drowned, although I believe the water spout that came out of the exhaust when he restarted, would have taken someone's head off if they were standing behind it.


From there we followed the border to Marylands National Park (or Marylands race track as I like to call it)

The pace was on, with all sorts of silly passing manourves taking place and more than one of the loonies ended up playing bush bandit. (including me) Steve thought we were most irresponsible. I didnt even have a flouro vest on. 



We stopped at a favourite spot of mine the spectacular crossing at Cataract River, but not before our legend Vstrommer had another little lie down. Again no damage thankfully.

Big Sinkers was loving it, but he was to end his weekend in a bit of Pain after coming off and cracking 3 ribs the next day.



We had an awesome run over the Bruxner range and into Drake for a steak sanger and a a cold beer, then up Paddys flat road (where Mark picked up a flat tyre on the tenere) to our destination for the night. The very bike friendly Crown hotel at Urbenville.

Note to Mark: mate if someone fixes your flat tyre for you, and someone else gives you a tube the accepted method of thanks is to at least the buy them a beer. Next time eh?

The purpose of this together was supposed to be to attend the Dakar party. Problem was noone told Darryl the publican, but despite this we had a great night the highlights of which are a bit sketchy but in no particular order.

A chicken parma that 2 of us couldn't get through.

The puppies behind the bar.

Lyn the 98 year old local trying to chat up one of the guys and slipping her tongue in his ear.

Me getting into a fight with Lyn after she blew smoke in my face. I would have had her too if Harold and Pete were'nt there.

The puppies behind the bar.

Darryl the publicans awesome hospitality.

Getting stitched up by what's his names wife for 20 bucks worth of raffle tickets.
Harold winning the raffle and putting 50 bucks back on the bar. Kept me in pale ale for quite a while. Thanks mate.

The puppies behind the bar.


The bench racing in the camp at 1am with the background symphony of twenty fat old bike riders snoring their heads off.

And the ...........................................................

Fortunately for me and Harold they wouldn't sell us a bottle of red at 1.30am, so into the bivvy bags we poured ourselves.

 

DAY ONE VIDEO  (Thanks Wayne)

 

We awoke just 4 hours later to the soothing sounds of roosters crowing, birds squauking and everyone else farting and after a slow start made our way out front for the mandatory pic in front of the pub.



Fortuanly the servo didnt open up till 9am and suitably refreshed we said our goodbyes to Gary, Huey, Harold and Pete and set off for what would be an epic day.
The pretty Tooloom falls was the first stop.


Then it was a high speed blast along Sth Yabbra rd to a long forgotten lookout that I had visited years earlier. It was only then I remembered that it was a dead end and that Steve would have to monster Strom back up a very nasty rock covered steep hill, but true to form he did it easily and without complaint.

It was then that sinkers hit the deck. The clay was so slippery it was hard  to just stand on it.He was in a bit of pain and once we got to old Bonalbo, he decided that the slab was looking pretty good and headed home.....straight into a waiting ambulance and off to hospital where he was diagnosed with 3 cracked ribs. Tough old bastard is Sinkers.

Probably just as well he went home as what was to follow turned out to be some of the nastiest snottiest single track that ordinarily, I would only attempt on my 450 KTM let alone on the 640. Bikes were dragged under fallen logs. Bridges were made to jump over logs. Steep climbs and brutal downhills. Was great fun (especially as the temp wasa sultry 38 degrees) and eventually after coming a cross a few locked gates that needed to be umm negotiated, we ended up at toonunbar dam, where the hardy souls amongst us stripped off and dipped into the freezing waters. Sorry no pics here as the kiddies might be watching.

By this Stage Steve had had enough and we said our goodbyes and he set off only to end up on the back of an RACQ truck, with a still undiagnosed issue.

Could this be the end Of Steve on a Strom. Were murmurs of DR650's and DRZ400's heard. Could Mal at Gold coast suzuki be selling a new bike soon? All will be revealed shortly.

Steve impressed all my mates with his determination and awesome riding skills....and always with a huge grin on his face, was brilliant to see. Well done mate. I promise I will wear a flouro vest next time. :-)

The rest of us set off up Cox's road which is where the finally bit of carnage occurred with my dumb ass mate Lard, who instead of watching the road, was taking in the awesome view of Mt Lindsay when suddenly the road started to disappear and he found himself heading straight for a 15 metre drop off. Fortunately he had the presence of mind to jump off and the bike ended up dangling over what surely would have been a bike destroying drop. Not to mention himself, but we wer'nt too concerned about him.

The pics of course dont do it justice, but check out the view in the background.


It took six guys to drag the 200kg bike back upright.





Was a very lucky escape. The rest of the ride home was taken at a much subdued pace (except for the bit over the Mt Lindsay twisties)and the knarly hardcore recon riders were all happy to stop at laravale for a nice ice-cream before heading our separate ways.

Day 2 vid

 
An awesome weekend. Thanks to all those that came along. Especially all the stromtroopers that came to the Pub, Buzz for sweeping  And wayne for putting the vid together. Make sure you stop in at the Crown and say gday to Daryl & Helen and check out the puppies, if you ever get the chance. You wont be disappointed.

Cant wait to do it all again. Hopefully before next years Dakar

Last Man Standing

If you have seen the movie " the Worlds Fastest Indian" you would be familiar with the Bonneville Salt Flats. Australia has its own version known as "speed week" held every March on the salt flat known as Lake Gardiner in outback South Australia. I have wanted to attend this event ever since I saw this story on 60 minutes a couple of years ago.

 

 

Unfortunatly the past 2 years have seen the southern parts of the country hit with unseasonal rains that caused records flooding throughtout Victoria, NSW and SA. Who would have thought a salt lake would hold water eh?

The weeks leading up to the event were spent checking road conditions and weather charts, but with a week to go it was obvious that it wasnt going to happen. Sadly the organising commitee had no option to cancel the event yet again. To say we were dissapointed is an understatement. We had booked our holidays, prepped our bikes and we were literally all dressed up with no where to go. At the last minute my old Mate Dom decided that a trip through the forest of Central NSW was in order and a rough plan was hastily put together.

The following is JB's account of what happened on that ride.  

… And then there were 2

 Our original Lake Gairdener plan was washed out at the 11^th hour with the Land Speed Trials event being cancelled due to flooding in the South Australian desert. That’s the second or third one in a row. If anybody has Tim Flannery’s email you might want to pop off a message to him that contrary to his doomsday global warming prediction, our great sunburnt country isn’t quite the total desert he foretold a few years back.

 Guy and I had our pass cards sorted and neither of us were going to be cashing them in on what would literally have been a raincheck. With downfalls in the west and more predicted from the north our only option was South … but where?

“Why don’t you guys come on my ride” sprukes Dom. Deepwater to Long Flat off the Oxley then down to Moonan Flats and Barrington Tops. Seemed like a lot of kilometres to pull off in a long weekend but what did we care – Dom was leading.

 Except when he wasn’t.

 Guy and I set off from Vegas midmorning on the Friday and cruise the backtracks to the Deepwater pub arriving in good time mid arvo.

Over a few brews we await Dom and Mic on their ‘his and hers’ WR250Rs. And wait. And wait some more. So then we phone and get the reply: “yep we’ve arrived …we’re at the burnt down pub not the one you guys are at”. This should have set off my ‘weird detector’ but didn’t. Dom knows everything there is to know about ‘glamping’ (glorified camping staying at pubs) and I wasn’t about to question his authority on the matter. But still the wisdom of staying at a pub that has burnt down but more significantly has no beer, did echo in my subconscious long into the night. Which itself was rudely cut short by the arrival of the dawn. Pesky stuff that new day thing, especially after a few beers the night before. And it didn’t help matters that Dom sets his body clock by whenever his GPS tells him the sun is rising, as opposed to when it actually rises didn’t help matters.

 

We set off into the dark and a heavy mist and within minutes were confronted with a flooded Deepwater river, None o us were keen to get our feet wet at this early stage, so adetour was quickly found and we set off with  our wet weather plastic overs keeping up our thermostats. Big open fire trails begin eating up the Ks and before we know it we’re on the old Grafton Glenn Innes Road shadowing the Mann River. I was down this way about a month ago and we didn’t make it past the Baccarumbi Bridge. Actually we couldn’t see the Buccarumbi Bridge. Either someone had stolen it or it was under a lot of water.

 But this time before we even get to Dalmorton, Mick drops a clanger on us. He’s pulling out and going home. A stun gun goes off in my head. For fucks sake its only 9.30, effectively day 1 and we have our first casualty. My weird detector is in alarm mode. But what do you say … “ummm okay Mic, you right to get back? … thanks for the ride”. I struggled with the goodbye. I’d simply never had this happen to me. The musketeer thing is our first cornerstone isn’t: ‘all in or noone in’ something like that. No I’d obviously mirsread the fine print: ‘one for all and every man for himself’. Something had panicked Mic that was for sure. He was riding fine, very competently and his bike hadn’t missed a beat. Things happen. We accept his departure and the 3 of us ride on.

 

Until we get 40 kms down the dirt and Dom decides to pull out as well. It’s a good decision. But one probably made better half an hour ago. One rider alone is not a safe option and Mic is carrying no comms. Dom goes back to make sure Mic gets out clean.

 

…. And then there were 2.

 

And this is where the story actually begins. Guy and I are sitting there on the track, helmets still on, both of us possums in the headlights. Its not even morning tea and we’ve halved our numbers, lost our leader and have no plan going forward. It wasn’t so much confronting as it was unexpected. We simply hadn’t seen this coming. In an instant and after all the planning, the ride had unravelled and degenerated so quickly and without warning that it had left us both reeling.

 

What to do. We consult the few maps, that being an overpacker, I had brought along. There’s not enough of them but they are all we’ve got. I appoint Guy leader and I agree to sweep …. or to put it in lay terms - follow the leader.

 

Our new plan is brilliant in its simplicity: first bridge we come to that isn’t underwater we cross and come what may. This proves to be the Dalmorton causeway that miraculously doesn’t have water flowing over it.

 We truck on through the Challundi national park until we eventually come out at Eor for a refuel, only to discover that the only servo in town hadnt paid the bill and as result had no fuel. Its just as well Dom & Mick had pulled out because this would have been a major issue for them with their tiny 14 litre fuel tanks, We have a quick bite to eat and push on through the spectacular New England National park and down the old Kempsie Armidale Rd. Its a good run if a little slippery in the drizzly conditions.. Low on fuel we run down the tar into Willawarrin to find the general store and its petrol bowser closes at 3pm, an hour and a half ago. So we decide to bolthole up until tomorrow morning and make enquiries at the local hotel across the road. Full house. Impossible but true. Our options are the Pub With No Beer at Taylor’s Arm 25 kms away or 20 kms back to Bellbrook. Neither of our fuel lights have come on. We can make the 20 x 2. The locals recommend the Bellbrook cabins. We make a phone call from the pub (no mobile service) and book a cabin for $60. A bargain. The cabins are touted as a rainforest retreat and we’re expecting some hippy treechanger to greet us. Jen however is as real as they come and tells us to get the bikes up on the verandah and out of the rain. Guy conveniently runs out of fuel right outside the pubs front door. Good planner is Guy.

 

 We retreat to the pub and amuse ourselves talking with the locals who are getting progressively smashed before they all jump in their cars and drive around to old mate’s place for a spontaneous barby.

Leaving us alone. Until down the street walks a family of 11. How do I know they are the one family. They all have red hair.Thommos cousins perhaps? It’s an army of coppertops and they’ve emerged from the ranga ridden hills for the Saturday night $7 meal special. They might be inbred or they might not but they sure know where to get value for their money. The chef recommends the beef and reef and it was superb.

 

The next day sees us refueled and a brilliant brekky at Willawarrin,

Then out on Hickeys Ck Rd which twists and turns and is oh so good, until it drops down into a moist overgrown gully with random letterboxes jumping out to greet us from concealed driveways. It’s a lost colony of bushticks and we’re wondering if the locals are friendly but are reluctant to have that question answered. We keep moving.

 As we go deeper the track becomes more eroded, the ruts deeper, the vegetation more overgrown, our destination less certain. We come to our first road closed / bridge out and go around it. It looks like it will hold a bike and rider and it does. The second one less so. Its wide enough to get a bike across but there’s no place to get a foot down.  This is about the time any sane rider would turn around. Not Recon 1. Turning back is not McGuyver’s way and with Guy in front walking the bars backwards and me tentatively stepping behind we gently gently roll the big girls across. This photo is deceving. Underneath that undergrowth is 20 foot of nothing.

.The trail opens up at a ‘track closed’ sign (our second warning that we ignore at out peril / promise) and onto Kil(our third warning – hints in the name)potay Kilpotay Rd. 

 Road is a generous term. Its a ‘dry weather track only’ which would have been fine had it been fine but it wasn’t was it? No it was wet. About 7kms along we ignore the southern option to head out on Cockatiel and stay on the now narrowing and progressively steepening Kilpotay. We round the corner and we spy the first one. It’s a mountain. 4WD access only. Guy feels right at home and doesn’t hesitate. Once again the pics dont do justice as to how steep and slippery some of these hills were. And in the heat of the moment we didnt get any shots of the bikes upside down. It was llieterally like ice.

And I don’t get a vote in the matter. Up and down up and down. Until we come to the first of 2 hills we have trouble with. The first one’s base is on a hard right hander and no room for run up. Guy has three cracks at it before we decide to let our tyres down. I get up relatively clean and walk back for Guy but he’s charged it and is off up the next few step ups ahead of me. Then down and down and now sliding down under full brakes. The point of no return. And then we stop. We stop because we’re in 8 inches of mud under full canopy facing a red hill clay hill that will never dry out and we can literally not stand up on. We are not in a good place. I’m not panicking I am stating the truth. I have three solid cracks at it and some amazing high scoring pirouettesque offs that threaten to snap my leg off at the knee and probably would have had I been running pannier bags, before we stop and consider our options. We let ALL the air out of our tyres, take off the luggage and run at it at full noise in second. I get up. I give up a silent prayer and go back for Guy. Things have gone from bad to worse. His battery is flat and his bike is flooded from two previous attempts and crashes. He gets it started on the kicker after many goes at it together. She fires into life. Guy has one last run left in him. I look into his eyes. He hauls the 640 around and runs at it like never before. He literally wills it up the hill. Its one of the bravest things I’ve seen a man do. While he keeps her idling I grab his gear and run it up to him. I send him off ahead lest he overheat and go back for my gear. Hill after hill and then we peak the crescent. We’re in the clouds. We’ve run the last few kilometres on literally flat tyres being thrown all over our bikes, legs and arms flailing, knowing that backing off the gas will lose us precious momentum. We decide to put air back into our tyres. We believe we have conquered the hill.

 

We are wrong. While we have secured the hilltop it’s a steep ridge line we’re running with more of the same in front of us. We let the air out again and spend the last 10 kms smashing each hill in second with no psi in the rears. We pop out 50 metres from a locked gate. Can’t imagine why its locked.

 

We run this for a few kms until we’re satisfied this is open and staying open and I crack the gas canisters and we reinflate front and back. Now on the tried and tested and great fun , we run down Orama onto Darkwood and into Die Happy (I kid you not) and Thora into Dorrigo. Guy discloses that he has cooked his rear brake. No wonder I couldnt catch.

 We park up at the ‘World’s Smallest Motorcycle Museum Café and chat to Juan and 3 Harley bikers dressed in their immaculate leathers with bikes in show room condition. In contrast we are covered in mud and smell and look like hell. The juxtaposition was as real as it was understated.

 We had got lucky. Hitting the epirb button was a very real option and help would have been days away. We were very thankful to be out and safe. We were also behind the plan. We were never going to make Urbenville tonight. We settle for Grafton and the renowned biker friendly Crown Hotel.

 Which, consistent with our luck doesn’t trade Sunday arvos. But Pam has heard our bikes and comes out, takes pity on us, gives us a room for the night, a carton and a bucket of ice.

She leaves at 6.30pm and with our bikes locked up in the beer garden we have the run of the pub, watching the sun go down on the mighty Clarence.

 

I wake up hurting and a bit bruised. Its rained again overnight and the roads are wet. We run the back way up to Baryulgil then up a very slippery treacherous Murray Scrub and Forest Trail down to Summerland Way and onto the Lions Rd. Its unlucky country for me having popped my mate’s shoulder out here a few months ago. I don’t trust it and I’m beginning to not trust myself.

My body is locking up, I’m riding to survive, I’m watching myself now for poor decisions. We’re on the home stretch and apart from a nice wakeup call on a wet grid I’m not leaving late room for error.

We get down to Rathdowney where Guy wants to stop for his flat white and I push on to the best part of going away – coming home. ( Edit it was a beer mate I aint  no southern latte drinkin poofta GB)

 

Was it a good run? No it was a great run and I thank Guy for it. Previous limits were lifted and some fine hunting was had. If adventure riding is just a modern version of mammoth slaying then that’s what we did and we did it with our bare hands.

 

Would I do it again? No. Its up there with Bandar Trail and Corner Camp for me. We got lucky and unlucky in equal measure, luck being what you get when you don’t plan.

And if you don’t plan, you plan to fail.

 

JB 

 

So there you have it. Apoligies for the lack of pictures, I was having too much fun and basically forgot to pull the camera out. Luckily JB got a couple. Thanks to JB for a great weekend. Also thanks to Dom for arranging it. Pity he and Mick had to pull out and I really hope everything is ok..

Cheers

Guy (last man standing)

GRANITE BELT RECON APRIL 2012

Went for a recon ride with a few of the boys over the weekend. Had a crack at putting togther a couple of vids using Buzz's helmet cam footage.

 

 

Was Plenty of water in the Condamine river.

And the crossings kept everyone on their toes.

Granite hills were amazing.

Buzz gave himself a fright when he got into high speed tankslapper after getting a flat front tyre.

And I gave myself a fright after hitting a patch of slippery black soil.

Luckily a Sprained wrist was the only damage

Was Another great weekend.