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Windy Harbour Ride of the Wretched
Dennis had the bright idea to have a weekend ride down on the south coast at the most windiest and wettest of places - Windy Harbour....and so it was that 6 guys, DRZDennis, DRZRoss, DRZGreg, SteveG, TTR Richard, and 660Stuie rode out of Albany Friday morning and headed out west thru all manner of gravel roads past Denmark, Bow bridge to Northcliffe. Braving the driving rain & occasional hail these hardy troopers finally arrived at the campsite at Windy Harbour drenched and hypothermic to find GasgasLex was already there having driven out in the comfort of his car.
The night was spent huddling around the camp kitchens wood fired bbq trying to avoid the hail and fierce wind. As dawn broke to shine on a sodden waterlogged camp ground along came Frogger with his DR650 in tow. Unpacking his trailer and suiting up took no time and soon the 8 of us headed up to Northcliffe to meet another bunch of riders, the tracks were inundated with water and many tracks were impassable which helped us cut some time off our trip to Northcliffe. In Northcliffe we met up with the XR 400 boys, still revelling in the 1990's real pre electric button iron horses. Dennis led us off but after awhile his waterproof Voyager GPS stopped working so Gasgas took the lead and with a few missed turns and backtracking found the way to Pemberton. At one point we found a familiar bit of ground that Husky Mike had led us through last December, the foliage may have grown but the bog at the bottom of the field was just as filled with cow excretia as ever. Lunch was had a the Pemby bakery where the ladies at the shop seemed concerned about having 11 smelly trailbikers in their shop but after we mollified them with by showing them our wives permission slips letting us out for the weekend they offered us free bread rolls for our camp that night... How nice..! Dennis's GPS by now had dried out and started functioning so he led us to the Yeagarup dunes, After filing in the rangers dockets and giving the govt our $5 bucks each at the tyre deflating point we headed off. The track in to the beach was a sweet windy mx track that excited the 3 XR400 lads. They took off each wanting to prove better than the other . A few slips and slides was had by all on the way to the beach but no major stacks of note. Coming out of the track and onto the sand dunes excited the loins of Gasgas and he took off straight to the largest dune around giving the CRF the berries and riding to the top only to be blasted by the worst sand storm this side of Bagdad. Nuts to this we took off towards the beach. Our timing was impeccable, the heavy rain clouds were either side of us with flashes of lightning andthe beach all eroded to any vehicle access so we hightailed it back towards Pemby. At the tyre pump station a fierce hail down pour came without warning, Dennis who was busy inflating his tyres was the only one to take no notice as the rest of us cowered under the paystation shelter....Thankyou local govt for erecting this structure... By now with time getting late Gasgas decided to ride straight back to Windy with the others all following Dennis along more sodden back tracks to Windy Harbour.. Back at camp the fire was stoked and after a few hours the other wet bedraggled rats appeared, a few had the tell tale signs of brown mud up the sides of their gear.. Obviously a few slips on the porridge like tracks on the way home.. A great weekend, Saturdays ride was around 200kms whilst those who rode out and back from Albany travelled around 700kms in total. Rider of the day simply for doing it the toughest is TTR Richard who rode all the way with camping gear on a old Yammi TTR250. Thankfully no stack of the day  Windy Harbour - Ride of the Wretched Water Crossing  Windy Harbour - Ride of the Wretched Its Hailing Dennis!! |
