A later start than I had wanted found me stuck in traffic on the Pacific Highway after an hour. Only 360k’s to go!
However, I eventually hit the freeway and started to run the k’s down. The Tiger cruised effortlessly onward, I was leaving Sydney behind, heading for another Old Bulls Nav ride. There was adventure to be had, beers to be drunk and good company to share. God was in his heaven and all was right with the world.
Then it got cold, dark and boring. My arse started to ache and I still had 150 to go.
But the night was enlivened by Pete The Wulf cruising past in air conditioned comfort , with his Tenere in tow. He pulled in beside me at a servo and we hatched the cunning plan of picking up grog at the pub at Kew and him carrying it to Breckenridge for me. Good on you Pete!
At Breckenridge the usual lunatics were there. This was my fourth nav ride and am starting to put names to faces. Ace and I this time did not try to drink our age in schooners the night before a big ride like we did at Mittagong. A pizza, a few Coopers and a yarn around the fire before the riders briefing where we found out that TB and His Majesty were going for a ride and we could tag along if we wanted.
Well, we did want. Also, coincidentally he had some mates on a 4WD week end that just might be following him and some other blokes that were going to swee…I mean ride just in front of the 4WD.
Amazing coincidence when you think about it.
Anyway, with Shirl’s full monty breakfast on board in the early morning to keep the cholesterol levels up (a vital aspect of adventure riding it seems) I departed Breckenridge in a haze of methane and testosterone. Bring it on!
I was in Flying Fish’s group with Greg, Usi and Trailraider. I very nearly fell straight off the bike on the first left hand turn on to the dirt. The testosterone quickly evaporated (leaving only the methane). The last dirt I had done was the last Nav ride and it took me a while to get in to rhythm of it all. A face plant on the first 10 metres of dirt was not really the start I was looking for.
But it was a great section of trails around the forest and I was soon in to it, sweating out last nights Coopers and severely testing the breathability of my new Klim jacket.
Soon enough we were at the ferry and across to other side where Blommers Rd (I think it was called) and it’s deep sand had me wrestling the Tiger around like a WWF bout. I was ok on the not so deep stuff but when I saw the really deep rutted sandy sections I knew I wasn’t going to successfully traverse that standing on the pegs, so it was outriggers out. At one stage I was paddling so hard I would have easily won the final of the Men’s K1 at the London Olympics, had the British Olympic Committee had the forsight to select me. A couple of guys came roaring past, doing their Cyril Despres impressions showing me how to do it properly. It looked very cool I must admit, but beyond me. I must get some sand practise in, but where in Sydney? Bondi?
Later on Ace confessed he had paddled his German canoe through the deep bits, so I felt a bit better about being a total sand novice. Any other canoeist’s out there?
At the fuel stop we met an interesting local who’s morbid fear of dehydration was clearly evident.
But it was onwards to Nambucca, and this is where it got interesting. I was too busy cleaning my glasses to see the direction Flying Fish and the group took off on. Trailraider waited for me and we were off, no later than 30 seconds behind. However the GPS showed us we should be going the other way, so we stopped and turned around to follow the purple line, thinking that the group must have looped around behind the servo to do a short cut to the start of the section.
The next three hours were the best bit of riding I have ever done. The trail was brilliant, switching around, up and down, some boggy holes, drop offs, steepish downhills, rocky dry creek beds. Sometimes it appeared to disappear in to the undergrowth. Trailrader and I were getting a bit of pace on, swapping leads to inhale an equal share of the dust. The horrors of Blompers Rd were forgotten as I found my bike mojo. We were having a ball!
Then a log sticking out in to the track clipped me on the right foot. It stung a bit and I looked down to see it had ripped a big hole in my boot. I could see my sock! Ouch! Anyway there was no blood and I could still press the brake lever gingerly, so full of adrenaline from the great riding I didn’t even stop. I didn’t realize then that it would rule me out of the next days ride.
We couldn’t work out why we hadn’t caught the group. Normally I wouldn’t stand a snowball in hell’s chance of catching Flying Fish but I knew she was taking it a bit easier on this ride after her recent concussion. The mystery was solved by Trailraider getting a call from TB on the mobile. “Where are you”. “e’rm, were just following the purple line”. “Turn round and go back to the servo”. Well that was two and a half hours back. In fact we were not too far away from the end of the section. On TB’s advise we punched in Macksville in to my GPS, keeping the original route on Trailraiders and soon found ourselves in really pretty farming country with sweeping fast trails. Tiger country! Seems that this bit of the ride our group were not doing, except we hadn’t heard that bit! It was all good though and it was the best three hours I have had on the bike thus far, and that is saying something.
Soon enough we were in Nambucca at the motel, where instead of icing my ankle, staying off the grog and having an early night, I imbibed half a dozen beers. a couple of rum’s several kilo’s of chinese smorgasboard.
The beer and the banter were too good to miss and half a packet of panadol was the only concession I gave my by now , throbbing ankle.
I paid the price the next morning when I woke up to find I couldn’t put hardly any weight on my foot. I had an interesting five minutes hopping about an unfamiliar bedroom, barking my shins on every bit of furniture, trying to find the light switch.
After break fast I thought I give it a lap of the car park to see if I could ride, but I soon found out I couldn’t press the rear brake and all my weight when on the pegs was on my left foot. I am a judicious dabber at the best of times and I knew if I had to dab with my right foot it would be “‘Hello Nurse, Good afternoon Puddles” for me, so it was perhaps the only sensible thing I did all week end and I pulled the pin on the day.
Gutted I only did half the ride, but I had a fantastic time as usual on an Old Bulls ride. Bring on the next one!
Thanks to the guys who swee… I mean ride behind TB’s mates, his Majesty the King and the guy tooling around in the ute (Wolfy). And of course to the TB. The amount of effort and research that goes in to making these rides so special is amazing. Well done that man!
Hope you can make the next one Trailraider!
Wigster
