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Moose and I set of from his place at 8am with a route sheet I had prepared using Google Earth. The main idea was to prerun the dual sport ride I have planned for the Friday of my Birthday bash ride.
WE rode the first 12kms on the tar to get to the turn off into Cairncross SF, where Moose took the lead and run us through some awesome single trail that he rode as a young fella, leafy and loamy was the theme.
Half way through the forest I took the lead again as I knew a little trail that runs down into a creek and is great fun. There was one rutty up hill section that gives you a little test but nothing extreme.15 km of trails saw us emerge onto Rollands Plains road. Another run on the tar through some sweet twisty sections saw us heading up Red Hill behind Telegraph point. Once at the top we had a stop and a rest for a minute or two. They call it Red Hill because of the red oxide dirt up there, as the sign says, the red dirt gets real greasy at times.
We motored along at a cracking pace for a while until we came to Gregs rd Turn off and we dropped back down into a valley looking for a dubiously named “Hell’s Creek Trail”.
It appears that Hells creek trail hasn’t seen much traffic for a while as the first bridge we came to, had a whopping big bike swallowing hole in it. We cruised along having a ball all the while thinking to ourselves “how good is this, we lucked out finding this trail”.
After several little creek crossings we came across this bridge.
How is it that I can ride down the skinny strips of concrete that make my driveway, but there was no way I was able to force myself to ride across one of those logs at speed with my feet on the pegs??
After we climbed back up out of the valley, we made our way north towards Kempsey, up until then, my route sheet was right on the money, but things went to the dogs quickly as the roads weren’t sign posted like they where in the Hastings section of the ride.
Not wanting to let Moose know I was a bit lost, I kept heading north east,knowing that we would eventually come across either the Macleay river or the Pacific Highway. We had already done 90km’s and the XR is lucky to get 100kms before hitting reserve so I was starting to get a bit concerned when we still hadn’t found a way out of the bush. At the 98km mark I got a glimpse of a tar road through the bush and as it turns out we had hit The Pacific Highway just South of the 80km zone at Kempsey. A quick dash up the highway saw the XR splutter and cough as she was gasping for fuel right on the 100km mark of the ride.
A top up of fuel and a drink at Kempsey and we were away again, down the Crescent Head road. We turned up the Belmore river road and cruised along, checking out the farm land that has a few freshwater lakes ,that are home to flocks of Black Swans and didn’t they make a picture I should have stopped and photographed.
We found a trail that lead to the beach so we followed it for a bit and came across some great sand dunes that the Fiddy couldn’t help but roar up to the top.
After a few happy snaps we were gone again, headed for Krams place near Maria River road. We stopped and said a quick gday to Kram and hit the bush again near his front gate. Into the coastal heath that is great to ride as the loamy sand offers great grip and no dust. We came across a couple of swamps that we needed to get through to get to where we wanted to be. These turned out to be deeper than we bargained for and the rear guard of my XR went under water at one stage in the first of the three swamps we had to negotiate. Moose took a different line to me on the first one and made it look easy.
The third one it was Mooses turn to go first and set the line, the arse end of his XR was blowing bubbles at one stage as the hole gotter deeper than it looked but the XR kept on tractoring and emerged from the other side still running. I took a different line to Moose’s submarine effort and found it nearly as deep but made it OK.
With wet boots we continued on and hit Plommer road, then it was ON!! Moose was right up my clacker and I could hear old Burple there on my back wheel so the pace picked up a bit and we were flying along. The road was up to it usual challenging best, which included the occasional weekend warriors in their bogged 4×4’s. It is probably one of the quickest runs I had done down the Plommer road and when I pulled up in the shade of a tree at the end to laugh about it with Moose, there was no Moose. I waited for a minute or two and when he didn’t appear I thought I best back track and look for my mate.
About 3km back I spots Moose coming in the distance, it turns out Moose had gotten right out of shape just prior to one of the numerous sand drifts and as soon as he hit the drift Old Burple threw him over the hangers and Moose managed to get sand in every orifice.
We stopped to talk to Jacqui Jones of ISDE fame, who was there on Plommer road with her boy friend Tom Leach who was training for Finke. Plommer road makes a good training road for Finke and all the local lads that are planning to do Finke train there.
We watched Tom Head off up the road at a pace we will never do that road at, holly hell the bugger can ride!! Just after we left them, I had a snake moment and nearly run over a big black bastard who by the time Moose got to him was some what stirred up and Moose all but had his feet over the bars, like a freestyler !!! A trip across the ferry saw us on our way back to Wauchope. I arrived back in my shed at 1pm after doing a fun 200.3km.
The guys coming on the Friday ride are gunna love it!!!
Great report Mick cant wait!! I bet Moose was still laughing even with a head full of sand
Looks like we will get to see some great country once again!!
Awesome day out folks. :laugh: Shame about my tyre selection and inflation issues though. I still had the Michy T63s that had been put on for our Gingers crk run, inflated to 25 lbs.If only a bloke wasn’t so lazy….
The dual sport ride should be a winner though. Can’t wait to ride with you all
Might go to the shed and do some tyre changing.
Cheers, Moose.:laugh: What else would you & your trusty sidekick rather be doin` hey Mick???
Good little report,, where`s the pics of the Moose with the Sandy Orifices? :laugh:
Never let an opportunity go by is the motto of photographers,,, it wpould have made a great Caption Comp
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