Fumina Ride June 07

Fumina June 07

Wade Evans

Fumina is a small settlement 10km’s east of Noojee just off the Mt Baw Baw road, and north east of where Ron Darby starts his rides from.
Arriving at the normally quite car park on Duggan North road we were surprised at 8.30 on a Saturday morning to find it full of four wheel drive utes with dogs in the back. Phil diplomatically convinced the deer shooters to rearrange their vehicles to accommodate ours, they were quite happy to share the warmth of their fire too!

Ever noticed how it seems to take a long time to get an amtra ride underway. Well this one was no exception with normally reliable bikes refusing to start, last minute additions to backpacks and tyre pressure adjustments. At last with thumbs up from everybody Alan took off without hesitation.

The tracks were in great condition after a few days rain during the week with Ed and John having a moment or two in slippery clay down hill section on Kenny Spur Track, after this came The Staircase (every area has one) sliding down to bottom of this track brought to first river crossing of day, the east branch of the Tanjil River. Now I don’t know about you but I am always a little suspicious of people standing on opposite bank pointing as to where I should cross the river. If they have their boots off and ringing out socks as well, better to ignore them totally. The real art of any water crossing by motorcycle is to watch others go first if they make it, that’s the way to go.
It was Johns first ride with AMTRA maybe I should have imparted this little bit of wisdom to him before he started this river crossing.

John, just before it all went horribly wrong.

After drying out the KTM’s internals, John was ecstatic to hear we had cross the river at the same point on the way back. Practice makes perfect.
After a short loop of bog holes and a tricky sharp uphill Alan had us back at the river crossing as promised. This time it was Pete and Eds turn to go for a paddle. While the boys were de-watering their Yamahas, a group of riders from Warragul rode through the river and stopped to talk. After a mars bar good chin wag about other tracks worth a look in area they continued on their way to points north of our position.
From there we followed Alan along a host of different tracks that I cant name but did we cross over the Hawthorn creek on a very rough bush bridge that was ok for bikes but had been repaired too many times to take a 4 x 4 across.
I hope DSE don’t decommission this bridge as they have done with several other bridges in the area. By decommission I mean ripped to pieces by an excavator and piled up on the bank so you had no hope of crossing!
The remaining water crossings with out bridges on the ride were tackled aggressively probably because everyone had cold, wet feet already. Next a challenge hill to tackle would warm us up, this hill is very steep, although traction was good no one made the top. Mark and I made it closest to the top and just to make sure it stayed that way parked our bikes accordingly.

After not conquering the hill we returned to some more flowing trails where Mark and Matt took turns for cornerman duties and rest of us enjoying the moist loamy track conditions. Returning to the cars via Ballantynes road with 95km on the clock, most of us agreeing we had a great ride and had
had enough for the day, Alan and Matt still keen to keep going, but alas 2 ain’t enough.
Thanks for great ride in new area Alan.
Even the deer shooters had good day taking home something they killed.
Alan Mason WRF250 (ride leader)
Andy Parker KTM200
Phil Randall CRM250
Peter Levell WRF450
John Poke KTM250
Ed Szymanshi WRF250
Mark Clark SM400
Sam Patterson WRF426
Matt Randall CRF450 (no relation to phil)
Wade Evans KTM450 (tail man)

As a result from this ride Peter, Ed, Sam & Matt came to the amtra,s next general meeting all joined on the night. Peter is putting on a ride on the
14.07.07 at Murrindiindi. Again, well done Alan.

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