I had fun.

Awesome 3 days i had a ball.It did nothing for my fear of heights though.And who said 200 plus kg bikes cant go offroad.Thanks so much for organizing and leading the ride Pat, great job.Thanks also to Mick for eating dust for 3 days and too everybody else who came for being such good company.

Dirtpilot wrote:
Hey sugar lips, you need to hire an editor, that sentence is way to long and descriptive, gave me an headache trying to wade thru it.

This ride was fully sick

Ok, great weather, saw some amazing scenery, lots of dirt and some good twistys on the asphalt. Checked the bike last night and back tyre is completely flat so must have only just made it home, thanks Pat and all who attended.

Patsy had decided to capitalize on the new trend of AMTRA 'Adventure' riders and combine it with a desire to tour the majestic 'Snowies' region, so the Snowy 1500 DILLIGAF ride was born.

Given that the ride was to start at Bruthen, it was suggested/recommended that those attending should head to Bruthen  as early as possible on the Thursday before the Grand Final public holiday on Friday.  Consequently, Pat and I arranged to meet at Yarra Junction at 4:00.  Running a little late, I pulled in at 10 past, a mere 2 minutes before Richard, making him the reason for our late departure!  After a few quick hellos, we headed out towards Three Bridges and Noojee, on our way to South Face Road and the twisties up to Mount Baw Baw.  Thursday had been a pretty warm day, so I was lightly dressed but as we got closer to the summit, things started to cool down.  At the turn off to the Baw Baw car park, we stopped for a stretch and I took the advantage to put on another layer and change to some warmer gloves.



The down hill stretch of South Face Road turns to gravel and the top kilometer was horrible!  Not sure if it was a result of snow traffic or just wear and tear, but it was lumpy and rocky and not fun.  Soon enough though, it smoothed out and the final 20 odd k's were great.  We got down to Rawson then headed towards Tyers and picked up the Cowwarr - Wallhalla Road, thinking we'd save a bit of time and distance.  The theory was good, however in the failing light the route was not great.  The gravel started wide enough, but as it wound it's way down the valley, it started to get narrower and more overgrown and more rutted.  It was quite a challenge at that time of night, on those bikes and with those headlights.  But soon enough we hit the blacktop again and headed to Heyfield for a feed at the pub.

After dinner, we headed onto Maffra, Stratford and hightailed it onto Bruthen, to meet up with the rest of the crew at the pub at around 9:00



Several beers were consumed and plans made for an early start (Pat wanted us up at 6:00), so we all headed to bed around 10:30.  The three of us had done around 350 k's.  Others had done a shorter trip straight down the hwy, while Geoff, Mick and Steve had trailered their respective mounts to the start point.

Day 1:

Morning dawned to a bright, sunny and cool day.  Up at 6 and into the dining room for breakfast, before loading up and heading out at 7:00

First stop was the bakery to get some lunch and other supplies.









Everyone was keen to get going as we headed towards Buchan for fuel.  Recent fires in the area attracted a lot of fire service vehicles, parked in the main street.





And as Buchan is a little higher than Bruthen, we rode into some heavy cloud that made the conditions a little cooler than when we started.  But we soon climbed out of the cloud to glorious sunshine and spectacular views.

We pushed onto our first re-group, at the beginning of the Snowy River Road.









The run along here was brilliant.  Fantastic scenery, good fun roads with plenty of places to stop and take it all in.







Over the border and onto the Barry Way, heading towards Jindabyne.  A poorly placed marker bike saw me cruise past the ride leader (with others in hot pursuit), but I emerged solo as those others stopped to check out some other view.  I stopped at the first sign of snow on the hills and took some pics while I waited for others to catch up.





With no sigh of anyone, I continued on into Jindabyne to find no-one!  I rode further into town, no one.  went to the petrol station, no one.  Went back to the round-a-bout, still no one. So went back and re-fueled and by the time I got back to the round-a-bout Pat and Richard were there.  We played the WTF game for a little while while the rest of the crew arrived and then had lunch and planned the rest of the day.

As it turned out, we were way ahead of Patsy's schedule,  we we decided to take a side trip up to Thredbo Village.  We questioned the kid at the ski shop about permits and passes and he assured us that we could ride past the ticket box and just head up.  So we did!  But Geoff stopped and asked the ranger if that was the correct thing to do.  He gave Geoff an earful!  Anyhoo, at the village we got a warming cup of coffee and headed out onto the snow for photos and snowballs.









After a while we headed back down the windy road, past the ticket box (again) and back into Jindabyne, before heading to our overnight stop at Dalgety.  Because of our early start and good flowing group, we got to the pub mid afternoon, with plenty of time to enjoy the afternoon sun, whist reposing in the horizontal, refreshment position.  Only problem was, some of us (read me), peaked a little early and started to get a little snoozy.  We were all hungry though and opted for a 6:00 dinner, but the pub wasn't particularly welcoming though and although it was quite busy, there was no fire burning and no real place to sit, drink and chat so we drifted off to an early bed around 8:30.  There were no real complaints though, we were all pretty knackered.  I'm not sure how far we traveled, I didn't take note.  I'm guessing it was around 450k's, but happy for someone to correct me.

More to follow.

Day 2:

We woke to another clear, sunny morning and given our pace from the previous day, Patsy decided we didn't need to rise at sparrows, although we were all still up by 8:00.  We headed to the dining room for a continental breakfast, only to find that the power was out!  Seems Richard had tried to soften a foil-wrapped packet of butter by sitting it on top of the toaster.  Well, the foil fell INTO the toaster and shorted it, causing a fuse to blow and rendering the room powerless!  We went in search of another active power point (which we found) and finished breakfast and then scarpered before anyone realized what we'd done!

Now, a bit of background on the crew.  There was Willie and Richard on their respective 1200's, Patsy on his 1150, Rob and Phil on their F800's and me on my Fun-size 650, rounding off team Bavaria.  Then there was Mick and his Tasweigen mate 'Other' Steve on a couple of Doctor 650's, Geoff on his Bergenstein and Steve on his Orange thing.  All of the love that Geoff had for his Berg had oozed out of him early on day 1, leaving him with a seething hatred for the bike, but he wanted to do this ride and he gave it a red-hot crack.  Pity it eventually turned around a bit him on the arse!  More about that later.

Leaving Dalgety, we headed back onto some more gravel roads on our way towards Bukalong Rail Siding.  Bukalong Station was originally owned by John Boucher. In 1874 the sons of George Garnock, who owned the adjacent area of Mount Pleasant, formed a partnership, Garnock Brothers (Charles; John; David Matthew; and Andrew William), and bought Bukalong from the Boucher Estate. In 1903 the partnership dissolved and Bukalong became the property of the youngest brother, Andrew William Garnock. After his death in 1943, Bukalong station was inherited by Charles Tony Garnock and is still owned by his descendents.  (there's some history for ya).  As far as we were concerned, it was a good spot to stop!

















The Bergenstien, looking like a lion on the prowl!



Endless gravel roads with wide open plains.



There was a fair variety of road surfaces though, changing from gravel to sandy clay, blue metal and powdery white dust.  All of which were more forgiving on the life of our tyres.

We headed to Bomballa for lunch, and onto Cathcart and then into a pine forest, following through a labyrinth of forest roads, with names such as Pat's track and Wog Way (I wish I took some pics of that!) 







Somewhere along the way, we turned down a track. 




Now, I'm not sure if it was intended as a through road, or just a foray into foolishness, but to say it was overgrown would be an understatement.  It was NOT the type of track I would normally punt the Big Girl down, but it seemed to handle it OK.  Steve, on the other hand, squealed with delight as he piloted his Orange thing down it.  Geoff was put on a corner and someone noted an ominous note coming from his engine, signs of things to come!  We all collected at a clearing where we found Patsy shaking his head.  He'd gone further down the track and it continued to get tighter, steeper and more overgrown and with a feeling of rain in the air, he decided to pull the pin on this little adventure and we turned around and headed back out to the 'main' road. 

I rounded a bend soon after, to find an assembled group looking at Geoff's bike and shaking their collective heads.  The Bergenstein was dead!  Seems the gongle-port that supplies the coolant into the gyro had gotten blocked, and anyone who knows which end of a spanner to hold will tell you that once the hardened, conductive shaft has turned 3 and 3 quater degrees off its azimuth, then you're about as rooted as an old gum tree!  We contemplated what to do and decided that setting fire to the bike and leaving Geoff on the side of the road (in true AMTRA fashion) was the way to go. But Other Steve (the tree-hugging hippie from Tassie), thought that wasn't in the spirit of kum-by-yar, so Richard offered to tow him out.  That all went surprisingly well, and we re-grouped out of the forest and sent them on their merry way into Delegate.



We continued on, crossing the NSW/Vic border a few times and stopped at a firetower for some more breathtaking view.





Then from here we hot-footed it through Cragie and onto Delegate for our overnight stop.  On arrival at the pub, we found that the Grand Final was still running , so despite this being the DILLIGAF ride, we watched the second half with the locals.  This pub has more atmosphere than the previous night's accommodation, so we settled into a good evening session.  Meanwhile, Geoff and Richard had arrived and dropped off Geoff's bike.  The Richard dunk him back to Bruthen so he could get his car, whilst Richard rode back to Delgate.  All made it safely back to the pub and we had dinner,  A great effort by Richard, thanks.



All the bikes tucked in for the night,



Purveyors of 60's art will know of the 3 flying ducks that adorned many a wall.  This pub had it's own version.  Not chooks, but cocks none the less!

Once again, I'm not sure how many k's we did, but I'm gonna say around 350.

More to follow.

Day 3:

Breakfast this morning was part of the deal, and it was a COOKED breaky, which meant bacon, eggs, tomatoes, beans and toast...yum! 








The publican had also arranged with the local servo owner to open up and re-fuel us, which was great!



Sadly, this is where we said good-bye to Geoff and his multi-national piece of engineered excrement 



It was another cracker day and we were all keen to get back into the riding.  Today's ride would see us heading towards Mc Killop's Bridge, built in the 1930's.  The ride there took us along some twisty, cliff-top trails, which tested some riders tolerance to heights.





We soon arrived at the bridge.















Rob did his best to boost our confidence of the structural integrity of this edifice, by walking along and kicking bits off the timbers.  He was told to stop!  We rode down to the water to take in the view from below.





Then back up to cross it and continue along the (apparently) heart stopping ridge trail.








At the end of this trail, we found ourselves working our way back to Buchan, where we stopped for lunch.



At this point, the group started to split.  Phil made his way onto a prior engagement in Bairnsdale, while Mick and Other Steve peeled of to Bruthen to load their DR's onto their trailer and give them a rest on their way home.

the rest of Team Bavaria (and the Orange thing), struck out towards Cowwarr along the highway, battling some ferocious headwinds and traffic.  We took the Cowwarr-Wallhalla Road (which was much nicer to ride in the daylight) and turned off to cross the foot-bridge and wind our way into Wallhalla.  We made our way back onto South Face Road and reveled in the decent on the twisties.  By the time we had ridden the Reefton Spur, I was over twisties!  Into Yarra Junction and the ride was all but over.  We re-grouped to say our good-byes, with Pat, Willie, Richard and Steve heading towards Cockatoo while Rob and I went towards Lilydale and onto the Maroondah Hwy to home.

I lost track of individual day'd distance, but when I pulled into my driveway at 8:00, I had completed 1489 k's for the weekend.  And I'd had a ball!

Thanks to Patsy for putting it all together.  Thanks to Richard for his above-and-beyond effort in looking after Geoff.  Thanks to Mick for pulling up the rear for the entire ride and thanks to the rest of the crew for making it such a good, fun weekend.
Apologies for the lack of photos, it's too hard to put them up here!

Excrement ride report Sergio Coffee. Thanks for everyone for attending this great weekend.