Drove up straight from work & saw Mark & Dora at the Shell at Wakefield as well as old member Adrian Watson & wife Val. Had a quick catch up with them & headed on to camp.
Arrived to the usual well lit oasis on the farm with the welcoming fire attended by our hosts Ben & Katie with a few friends & fellow campers already in residence. Set up camp on the lawn, plugged the extension lead for the electric blanket in & headed to the fire to catch up with all & sundry as others arrived during the evening.
8 riders headed off on time at 10am, after a late night, lead by the new 510 Husky. A short run down the dirt road to the single track by the bitumen. Very tight, dodging rocks & branches keeping us warm on the fine & cool winter’s day. An excellent ride on the usual great tracks & beach stints with nothing exceptional to report apart from the fact that Russell was back with us after 100 days away on secret war business.
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Lunch & fuelled at Balgowan, then more of the same & back for more fuel 2 hours later (those Huskys have a small tank!). Then the reverse of the morning loop got us to a regroup near the farm. Uh oh, only 7 riders. Where’s Pooley? Who’s gonna look after Dora & the pending baby? After 10 minutes he arrived having missed a sort of corner off to one side man, worked out he was temporarily geographically embarrassed, backtracked, found himself & then us.
Good thing we were in the tight stuff while he was careening down roads doing all that so we weren’t a million miles away. He can look after Dora & the baby himself after all.
Back to the farm & 7 dogs (some live there, some visiting), for bbq tea, fire, grog, goodbye to Robbo who foolishly brought XR650 instead of new Gas Gas, hello to 4 more arrivals & catch up with the fun the 5 girls had during the day. They took the Zephyr (an old pommy car for you young ones) to the pub.
After a not so late night Becky arrived to make it 12starters today. Ken was a bit worse for wear after a relatively sleepless night due to barking dogs.
Off on time at 9am with the new Husky having had its second oil change the night before. After a good warm up on more mostly single track the thirsty bikes had a quick morning fuel up in Kadina before the longer stint to lunch. A great morning ride through green bush, green paddocks & blue skies.
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Lunch at Pt Broughton with MG visiting his dad, ME & DS sharing a honey log cake with some of us so DS had room for an ice cream & off we went again. After a few k’s along the beach MG ran out of rear wheel bearing.
He sloped off slowly to a mate’s farm to await pickup after the ride. At one corner man DS went in the direction that the bike was pointing & got lost because he didn’t see Simon pointing to the single track straight ahead. He soon realised that he was alone & back tracked as I went to retrieve him.
A scenic tour of Wallaroo then to the whoops. Good thing we warmed up there because as Russell was fixing a percussion flat in the front the threatening rain clouds which had been wetting Adelaide all day started to drizzle on us.
Fast ride in the pending gloom to get back just before dusk.
A top riding weekend as usual with about 200k’s per day.
Thanks to Ben & Katie for the usual great hospitality.