My Adventure Story
Jay, Bruce and I started our rally in Charleville along with seven other riders. All of the others were on much larger bikes than us, with one BMW HP2, one KTM 990 Adventure, one KTM 640 Adventure and four KTM 690 Super Enduros. Jay (DRZ400), Bruce (KTM625) and I (XR400) were feeling a little outgunned...
We set off right on 08:00 and straight away noticed it was cold! We stopped a few kilometres outside town to put on a couple of extra layers, then kept pushing on. We covered a few ks on tar then swung onto some fast open dirt roads.
We turned onto some tighter dirt roads and caught up with a couple of the other Charleville starters, who had got separated from one of their group. They weren't sure if he was in front or behind and were waiting at a gate to see if he turned up. We all set off together and they got back together at Bollon at lunch time.
We stopped at Bollon for lunch then headed off. We got 10km down the road when I realised that I'd left my back pack at the cafe so the boys waited while I raced back to get it. First shout at the pub for me!
Not long after, Bruce shot past a corner while in the lead. Jay and I waited for about twenty minutes then set off after him and found him on his way back. Second shout for Bruce.
We made it the rest of the way to Nindigully without any major problems. We passed through quite a bit of fast, open terrain and some awesome farm tracks. The pub at Nindigully was booked out with some road bike guys from Grafton so we spent the first night in the tents
Second day started with some more fast, open dirt roads. There were heaps of stupid kangaroos to keep us on our toes but thankfully no crashes. Jay had a few electrical issues during the morning but managed to trace them to a broken power wire.
When we came into Goondiwindi we came across the boys from Maryborough with their KTM690s. One of them had broken down the previous afternoon and they were working on it in an effort to keep him in the rally. Unfortunately he had to pull out as they couldn't get him going.
We stopped for lunch at Goondiwindi then headed off into some more fast, open dirt roads. This was starting to get a little old but before long the tracks entered the hills and the last half day coming into Tenterfield was through some really spectacular country. The roos started coming out late in the day but again we managed to avoid any trouble.
We arrived in Tenterfield about 4:30 pm and looked around for a place to stay. The first pub we tried had been trashed by a travelling football team on Saturday night so we kept looking and found a pub down the road. The temperature got down to minus four in Tenterfield on Saturday night so we're rugging up tonight.
We have to start early in the morning as we're not making as much progress as we'd like. Not really looking forward to the cold but we'll just have to put on some extra layers.
That's the first two days of the rally down. I'll update again when I can.
Jim
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