With Will being out with injuries, I was asked if I could lead the ride.
Arrived at Cheynes Bridge around 12, I had only started putting up the tent when Ted turned up, & later in the day Gary arrived, from past experience, sitting around a camp fire you always get a cold back, so I decided to bring some wooden stakes & a roll off insulation paper with me to build a wall 1200 heigh around the fire, this keeps out the wind & the heat reflecting off the insulation paper kept our back warm, while we were sitting there enjoying the fire & having a coldy,A bloke stuck his head over the wall & asked if we were with AMTRA,1st time riding with us, his name is Justin Fulton he came all the way from Charlton,now I call that bloody keen, hat off to you mate, we were joined later that night by Paul Pedley, anyway the 5 of us had a very enjoyable night.
Next morning the rest of the group rolled in, geared up & were on the bikes at a little after 9am, headed over the bridge on the black stuff for one & half km & then through a camp area to the start of our ride, hickey track was a bit rougher the last time I came down it, this time the dozer had done it's best to wreck our track
At the top of this track we came to MT Margaret tk,turned right & followed it till we hit the Avon road, while we were having a small break, Bill needed some more air in his front
tyre, using a few different pumps, he was set to go, we then went down Avon road until we got to Ben Cruachan tk, This was a bit of fun getting around the bog holes & tyre ruts in the slippery black dirt.
A few river crossings on the way nothing to deep, there was a couple of tight left hand climbs that if you went on the right side you were faced with a few rock step ups, I heard it caught some of us out, at the end of this track we hit Huggetts road a short ride to the left we were at Huggetts, it was now 11 o'clock, Dennis asked me if we were having lunch now, I said it's a bit early,but as Dennis pointed out it's about half way, so everyone agreed to have lunch.
Choppa had no clutch on his Berg, he knows the area a made his way back be road, sorry you had to bale out mate, we then headed across the Avon river & onto MT Angus tk to the highest point of our ride, the visibility was pore in the fog & light rain, going down the Avon road, I don't know why they call it a road, it's more like a track then road I reckon,
on the way down it stopped raining & the fog disappeared, we had to do a few river crossings, none of them were hard except one small crossing, it had some big boulders where the small rappers were & thats where I went, caught me off balance & couldn't get a footing & laid my bike down, those KTMs have a crap air box, in the old days KTMs used to have a proper air box & could go through deep river crossings.
A big thanks to Gary, Mat,Simon,sorry if I missed anyone, it's always good to get help in my now old age, yeah it really great to know that help is there when needed, thanks again fellas.
After losing a bit of time there,we headed to the Dolodrook tk & then back on to MT Margaret tk, to Burgoyne tk to the main road,taking a short tk that runs next to the main road back to the camp area where we started from, & then back to our camp site, the first thing I did was knocked the top of a stubby before taking off any gear
I had a bloody great weekend, I hope you all did as well, thanks for coming fellas. the last night was only Ted & my self sitting around the fire, it was a great night reminiscing about the old days
it would have been good if more of you had of camped.
Thanks Gary doing the morning sweep, & Mat doing the shared afternoon sweep with Zeb.
PS almost forgot, we got back at 3 o'clock, 124.8km covered.
