Peter Ross's Eildon to Jameison Ride 2/1/2010

Peter Ross Eildon 2/1/2010

I’m not a big fan of riding on really hot and dusty days but I do like a Peter Ross Eildon ride. So with the little DRZ250 covered in dust and spider webs I said to my self if the weather forecast Max temperature is below 28 I’ll go. Early in the week it was 27 and as the week went on it got lower. Two days to go and it was to be 22 the decision was made I’m going riding. The night before the ride a big storm went through the area and dumped at least 100mm of rain. I had the wipers on most of the way up and knew that dust wouldn’t be a problem.

Eight riders assembled at Eildon for a slightly delayed start due to flood waters at Yea slowing some of the guys. By 9.15 we were off. A couple of Km’s of sealed road and we were into the trails. Straight away I knew this would be a good day the tracks were wet enough to be really grippy and no chance of dust. At the first regroup it was smiles all round. We crossed the Jameison road at 15 mile track and did some of Peter’s usual stuff without the "narrow roads" he sometimes uses.

We made good progress and was at the intersection of Mt Terrible and Polities tracks by about 11.00am. We turned left because we were in the clouds and wouldn’t have seen much if we’d gone to the lookout anyway. Another regroup at the bottom of Polities where we met an AMTRA member and a mate doing a High Country tour on BMW GS’s. We then continued on and did a right turn just before Jameison up a track I’d never been on. I think just to fill a bit of time as it was a bit early to hit the pub for lunch at 11.30. This turned out to be the hardest riding of the day with 3 hills which were a little difficult. I got half way up the third and found the track blocked with guys turning around. Figuring we’d killed enough time it was full steam ahead to the pub for the usual counter meal.

The town was quite busy with tourists and locals. We ate, fuelled up and headed back into the bush. Again when we got near the top of Mt Terrible we were in the clouds and didn’t bother with the lookout. We were making good time when the map came out and between Peter and Phil they wanted to see weather a track Peter calls Leaf litter track had escaped the fires or not. After about ½ an hour we got to the start of this track and in we went. It was a really nice flowing over grown fun track . I think it went for about 15 minutes and then a long up hill to get us out of the gully we were in. The track had escaped the fires and was in perfect condition. We then travelled down and up to the next hill which had a look out at the top where we could see the back of Mt. Terrible.

At this point some one noticed that it was about 4.00pm and we were still a long way from Eildon I think Peter said that we were in the middle of nowhere. We made our way back to the Eildon – Jameison Rd turned left and rode up the road. We got to 15 Mile track and at this point I think the first bike went onto reserve. We decided to continue back to Eildon on the road and got back at about 5.30 with another bike on reserve but with no one running out.

This was one of the best rides I’ve done for a while. The weather was perfect, we had a good group of guys and the scenery was spectacular. A couple of times we just stopped on the side of track to take in the views.

We did 75 km’s to lunch and about 110 after lunch with a total of about 185 for the day.

Thanks to Peter for putting on and leading the day, Phil for tail man duties and the rest for their good company.

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