...and not to be discouraged, back into the snow, this time on a TT500F......

simonj wrote:
That'd suck.

I used to ride at Licola a fair bit. We did the "Great Dividing Trail Ride" there a couple of times as well, can't remember the yr.  But, we'd done the frst loop, on the Mt Margret side. Had a bite to eat and took off on the other side to do the 2nd loop.
We were riding on trails I knew. I also assumed I knew where the loop was going. Took a right hand turn down a track we used to take almost every time we rode that side.
There were 3 blokes with me. We're hooting doown this track, I'm thinking, "Hmmmm, haven't seen an arrow marker for a while". I decided to stop and turn around.
As we pulled over I could hear another group coming behind us, they'd obviously followed us. I moved toward the centre of the track to wave them down but they just belw on by. About 3 or 4 of them.
We finished the loop. It'd been snowing, normally it snows on the Mt Margret side first. Didn't see an over there.

After a cold, and long loop, we arrived back at the car park. Time for me to get to Macca's ASAP. Had a nice warm feed, I'm watching TV at home, the news comes on, breaking news about a group of riders they've lost up at Licola in the snow. Oops. Better them than me though lol. 

EDIT.  The stubby holder's telling me it was 2004. How time flys.

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Good one Simon, gee you were good looking back then  I spose being that good looking you would have canned the 1/2 star hut and headed off for the 3/4 star hut     

Ha ha, wave them on through.! At least if there's 2 or 3 guys together and they don't panic they'll survive ok. My father used to say you can choose two of "cold, lost and hungry" and you'll be ok, but if you are all three it's serious. After that I would carry a little extra clothing, a map and some food!! Cheers, Simon J.

Ken thanks but it's just the stylish Belstaff waxed cotton gear - the height of fashion now with price tags to match... 

www.belstaff.co.uk/home

As for the huts, we didn't want to make any mistakes, so we headed back the way we'd come aiming for the Terrible hut for the second night... we knew even if it took a couple of days we would eventually get back to Jamieson. If we'd had a map we could have saved time and made for Woods Point, but I remember we were very worried about getting even more lost. Would have been getting a bit hungry after another day in the bush without food...!

It's a shame so many huts have disappeared, they could save someone's life... even a 1/2 star!!
 
 

I've got lots of stories to tell, I don't think I've got enough time left to tell them all  I will share this one with ya's.

My brothers & I & some members from the MCRCV & also a few from the Dandenong club used to camp at Paddy Lee's crossing over the xmas holidays, my brothers & I with our family's did that for many years, spending that much time there we got to know that area very well.

We had a nice little loop that started from our camp site up the road a little bit to Stan's track, Stan's track is closed now & has been moved 2 km further up, anyway because of the dust at that time of year we decided to run a timed run around  our loop, leaving at 5 min intervals, I like doing the chasing better then trying to hold them off  so I was last away, if memory serves me right I think there was 5 of us, I never  saw any of them until I got back.

The loop took in Huggetts crossing, when I got to the crossing I always look up stream & down before I cross the crossing, you never know what you might miss if ya don't, well I was rewarded, down stream was 3 couples skinny dipping, they were far enough away from the crossing not to be able to see anything clear enough, but one bloke was very proud of what he had, he stood there legs spread hands on his hips facing me, not sure if he was inviting me to join them or not, but I never had time to find out because the clock was still ticking

When I got back to camp I asked if anyone had see the skinny dippers, no one had seen them & they didn't believe me, I just said you can believe what ya want, now give me a beer.

Oh yeah, while I think of it, we used to camp past Licola before we stayed at Paddy Lee's, one morning we decided to ride up the road to the top & take the road to the left, the road turned into a 4x4 track with a lot of switch back going down, some where going down there, my brother John said that he spoke to a bloke there, but the bloke wasn't to interested in talking he was listening to the footy on his tranny, my brother was a bit surprised to see him there all by him self no 4x4 to be seen, in the middle of no where, he asked us if we had seen him as well, we all said no what man, my brother then said, he was listening to the footy, we never saw him, you must seeing things, he said no bullshit he was there, we never talked about it for a long time, it did come up again a few years later, & he still reckons that that bloke was there  after about 10 years we thought it was about time to let him know that we had also seen him, we  had a good old laugh about it .  

Great stuff Frankie, keep 'em coming! I read your stories on the Bert Flood thread, fantastic...! As a young fellow in the 1970's I found Bert was a bit of scary character, but it didn't stop me spending lots of money at the shop ... The Bultaco Frontera in the photo in this thread came from Flood's, it was on consignment from one of the Vandenbergs, Ray I think... was still almost new and a brilliant bike for the day.... It was such a great shop, they knew the bikes backwards and there wasn't an issue or problem or spare part that they couldn't help with...Cheers, Simon J.

simonj wrote:
Yes you are right, Bert made it a point to check out any new bikes he imported from top to bottom, so if anyone came & had a problem, he would have a pretty good idea on where to start looking, I'm a bit surprised that you thought of him as a scary character, I always looked to him as my 2nd father, he always greeted me with a smile & made me feel welcome, The frontera would have been  Rays father bike, if it was a 370cc then I had a ride on that bike as well, I really liked to it a lot & if I had the money at that time I would have bought one in a heart beet, did you end up buying it ?

I wanted a 370 Frontera. Bert Flood could not of cared less when I went in to the shop to talk about them. I promptly went down to Sport and Road in South Melbourne and bought an Ossa Super Pioneer. I was not unhappy as the Ossa was a great bike. !00kg fully fueled, great torque and over 80 mph top speed. Only downsides were the Motoplat ignition and drum brakes which stopped working if it rained 100 kms away, far less ride through a river.