Ride Report
Neerim South—Woods Point
4/3/2007
Report by David Smith

It was a last minuet decision to go on the ride, so late Thursday night I put the ride in the last minuet ride section of the web site
And thought id see if anyone was keen to come, in the end there were 4 of us..
There was the KTM’s and the DRZ’s the 2 guys on the drz’s are just getting back into riding after about a 4 year break.
We decided to have a 8:00 meeting time at the Bp servo in Pakenham witch is only 40 min to the Neerim south motorbike unloading spot.
When we pulled up to the servo every bouser had a car there with at least 3 bikes on it, in the time we had breaky and waited for the others we counted about 30 bikes go threw the servo so we thought it might be a good day for head ons..

We were all geared up and on the bikes by about 9:10 then the 2 DRZ’s had flat batteries. Lol
For those of you who don't know drz's of there model don't have kick starters
So we got to have a good laugh at them push starting them, after a while we give them a hand and off we went
To the first track where Dave on the dry stalled it going up the hill, and of course the battery hadn't recovered yet
So it was back to push starting for him.  By that time I had run out of corner men and started going back cause I thought something had happened.
We were on the tracks again, We did a bit of exploring to find some new loops to hawthorn bridge
Found a nice track that has just been graded it was almost like riding in the desert nice soft loose sandy soil
Out in front there were nice clear views but the guys behind didn't like the dust too much (bonus of leading the ride)

We got to Haughton bridge to find that there has been a access path made threw the river, so there was no challenge there anymore, probly for the best I don't think the drz's batteries were up to starting yet.
So we had a regroup and I took Daves tube bag because it wouldn't stop coming off the front guard (you'll find out why later)
I tipped my fuel into the bike and repacked my bag and we where off..
The next section was pretty straight forward from transport sections to narrow 4x4 tracks.
We found a lot of tracks that had been graded very recently but I was very impressed with the grader driver
They put some nice berms in the corners and made some nice jumps me and Rowen we getting right into the racing each other in some of the bits, good fun till you start thinking whats coming the other way..??

Just before we come into Tanjle breen the Daves drz's front guard 3/4 fell off so he put some spare bolts in and spaced it with some washers and we as good as new.  
We kept on going and went up the west side of the Thompson dam area to Jericho then up to mattock and down the hill to woods point.
(118km on the way there)

A quick run into the pub and order some food then we went to the servo and filled up
Back to the pub for a nice meal and a beer, We all decided it was bad it was Sunday because we all wonted to stay..

After about a hour we got back on the bikes and headed off, we  went out the river track to find a lot of bushfire damage
And a lot of clearing, This track was really good it had jumps rocky but fast good riding..
It will take quite a while till its back to its old state again, In some of the spots you can see the regroth already
Not much but its starting to come threw.

We went down the road a bit then went down the start of spud spur track to find tree after tree had fallen down
After going over a few the hill was getting steeper, For those of you who don't know the track this hill gets to the point if you stop on it you rear wheel will lift off the ground just from the weight of your hands on the handle bars!!
So we made the decision to turn around and go another way we didn't feel like getting stuck down the bottom.

We pretty much went back the same way we come, The drz's boys were in pretty bad shape by this stage so they opted for the quickest way back to the cars.

Once back and the bikes on the trailer had a bit of a look at the new rear tyre I just put on before the ride and was quite happy to see that the AC10 had held up nicely.
Return trip 118km we got back to the cars at about 6:00

KTM 250 David Smith Ride Leader
KTM 300 Rowen Smith Tail man
DRZ 400  David M
DRZ 400  Nick R