up with him at Farrells on Thurday morning. His name is Mike Atkins
and he is riding an 880 the same as yours. I had not met him before.
We had to wait around for my fuel bladder to arrive and didn't get
away until 1100. We had a great ride up through Cadoux to Paynes Find,
where there was no unleaded, but the cook there let us siphon some out
of her car, to get us to Sandstone. That road is a freeway. From there
up to Wiluna via the Gidgee mine road, which no-one could tell us the
condition of. It was far more interesting than the PF-S/Stone road and
I nearly came unstuck a couple of times. We went to stay at the
Gunbarrel Laager and then had a feed at the Jundee mine camp, after
negotiating the road in the dark in the rain, with a dark visor. Not
much fun. Coming back to the Laager, the driveway was just slop so
those on trail tyres had an interesting time and I had trouble even on
the TKCs.
The ride out to Carnegie the next morning was a beauty, except for one
corner, about 150km from Wiluna, which was deep, soft sand. I got
completely out of shape with the bike going in all directions, but
somehow stayed upright. I know it got some people though.
Carnegie was good fun, meeting all sorts from all over the place.
Robin and the other organisers had got 50 souvenier(?) stickers made
up, but there were 71 people turned up. Not bad at all, although there
were a few gripes about the timing as it conflicted with other club
runs.
We decided to come back via Laverton, though Prenti Downs Station,
which in hindsight might not have been the best idea. A lady
travelling on a little 223 Yamaha came unstuck and put a serious cut
in her knee, which John (I think) did some masterful first aid with. Mike and I turned up with the sat phone and managed to
get help from Prenti Downs. The manager arrived with a ute then left
Jon Mandelt, Mike and I to get to the homestead.The entire road is about 130km and is pretty much
all deep sloppy sand. We all finally made it, in the dark, though Mike
was so exhausted that we had to get the managers wife to drive out 25
km to pick him up. Those folks at Prenti Downs went out of their way for us and I can't thank them enough for their hospitality. They fed us all, looked after the wounded and even gave us a couple of cold beers.
We went out the following morning to bring his bike in on a trailer,
so we didn't leave PD until 1330. Mike and I went like hell and
managed to get to Laverton and John turned up a bit over an hour
later, in the dark, once again.
On Tuesday morning, John took off early to slab it home and Mike and I
decided to do the same, in the rain, and it was cold too. We got to
Perth around 1900.
So, come Farrells on Sunday to get the all the details ?
Here is a link to the snaps I took and I am sure there will be plenty of others.
http://s602.photobucket.com/albums/tt104/gjo247/
Gav
