The real excitement started at 12.30 am when the wheel came off the trailer at 100kph & sparks flew out its arsehole (with apologies to Mary – if you haven’t heard the rhyme, ask me around the campfire some time). It seems that the new bearing which I put in 500k’s ago exploded. Let me know if you find a wheel & hub (buggered if we could find it, despite an extensive search). I guarded the load while Tom drove the remaining 20k’s to camp, borrowed Bob’s trailer & came back to rescue me. Of course, it rained while I was passing the time searching. We hid the trailer in the bushes & finally got to bed at 4am!
7 riders hit the trails next morning in perfect conditions after the night showers laid the dust & made for good traction (after a little wait for new member Dale with XR650 who arrived as we were about to take off). Mark E strung together lots of good tracks with very little road (as he did all weekend) including lots of huge rutted & boulder strewn hills for our enjoyment. Of particular note was a HUUUUge hill which saw Tom & Dave S competing after all were baulked by a Nissan clawing its way up. They pushed past each other a few times & finally made it about the same time that the rest of us got there around the easy way. After a top morning’s riding we returned to camp for lunch, then did more of the same in the arvo. Dale is very strong & fit, which is a good thing because he was able to help us out on big mean hills a few times, especially his fellow 650 rider Mark R who ran out of legs a lot. Also we had lots of trees across the tracks to contend with – must have been a hell of a storm some time – some which we had to help each other over to varying degrees. Particular excitement occurred when we went down a rugged snig track & had to come back up – much physical exertion was required. Finally headed back to camp in the cool of the evening for a good campfire after a wood patrol with Gordon’s combo which had arrived by then.
Next day was a whole day ride “over the other side