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Exploring the Midwest
Col , Myself and some bloke called Acid gloves Eddy ,who Col seemed to know, loaded the bikes and headed out of town about half an hour to find some decent hard pack trails after last weeks sandy slog. At the last minute Merv rang to say he was stuck working still and could not make it.After Cols story on the drive out about driving with a dead body strapped in the passenger seat once, I made sure I kept the conversation flowing to avoid any comparisons.
After finding a quite spot to park the car we geared up and headed off down a dirt track for a quick warm up blast. A few k's down we came to a major river. The track came to an end on the other side so we shot off for a scenic river cruise down the sandy ,mostly dry bed. Around 2-3 K's down we came across a pool blocking the way so backtracked and headed upstream. It was a fairly good blast along in 5th gear in places ,about 100m wide and quite twisty through big gum trees and washouts too keep us on our toes. We were hoping for a break from sand on this ride but this was bloody nice country and you could keep on top of the stuff without much effort , so all in all not bad fun. About 10K's? along we came to another patch of water blocking the way. With the banks on either side too steep to climb I thought I could maybe sneak around the side where it looked a "little" soft! A few feet in and the DRZ started to spin like a buzz saw into a brown goo. Lucky it was solid underneath and with a quick hand from Colin we dragged her back out. Off back again in the direction whence we came with me shooting mud clumps all over the shop. Back at the track we decided to head back towards the car and what a sweet decision that proved to be.When we reached the car we headed up the track in the opposite direction for a great blast along some winding fast sections with a few blind crests and turns to keep it interesting. About 10K's? along the track suddenly came back onto the main road which was a bit of a pisser as we were starting to really get into a groove ( or at least I was). As we were heading back we noticed a partly hidden track off to the right and rode till we found a way through the scrub across to it. A kilometer or so down this track and the country changed markedly!!! We found ourselves in a hilly wooded area of fire trails ,winding two wheel tracks and fast powerline runs. After congratulating ourselves on finding such a good spot on the first attempt we blasted around linking the various tracks into loops for a couple of hours having a hoot. Plenty of wildlife about with me dodging between a group of three kangaroos at one point reminding me to stay focused. After a few breaks col suggested we head into the trees for a bit of cross country stuff.Col was loving this stuff saying it reminded him of down south enduro type sections , although I am sure the trees were a tad smaller here! I found the big old DRZ harder to push fast through the really tight stuff as Col was zipping up and down through the tree line and along creek lines loving life on the WRF.It was interesting as well because you could not see the ground at all for the thick green grass and wildflowers so logs and stumps came as a surprise. At one stage he chased a group of roo's through the trees for quite a way. I was following Colin when I thought we were finally going to have SOTD when he dropped it as he slowly crept a long a rocky wet creek bed. No damage done and we were away again and I was confident at least we would have something interesting for the ride report. We decided to call it a day around 5 and headed back to the car.It was good to finish with a fast blast down the first track again before reaching the vehicle.Upon reaching the car I noticed Col was not behind and had taken a sandy fire trail 200m back before the car for a shortcut. I fanged back up the road and onto the sandy track following his tracks along for a while before he showed coming the other way. I turned around and flew back after him only to reach the intended short cut track and hit the anchors a little to enthusiastically and caught the front wheel and went down in a big spray of sand. No damage and Col was quick to call SOTD. Bugger. ( I put it down to tiredness............. yea that's it tiredness).  Brownie  Midwest at its best.  Col smelling the wild flowers. |
