Newsgroups: aus.motorcycles From: csdlm@manta.jcu.edu.au (Mr Dominique Morel) Subject: What Rally? "The What Rally" Message-ID: <1994Oct31.082430.2919@marlin.jcu.edu.au> Organization: James Cook University Date: Mon, 31 Oct 94 08:24:30 GMTWell here is a report of the What rally held last weekend. Well a report of the James Cook University Saints Motorcycle Club trip to the What Rally and back. The What Rally is organised by the Far North Queensland Touring Club, and is held at Archer Creek near Ravenshoe on the Atherton Tableland. Members gathered at the Bohle Caltex at 8 am on Saturday morning along with five members of of the Mackay MC who had riden up on the Friday and had stayed at Eddy's our pres. A member had riden down from Charters Towers and had stayed with me overnight.
At the Bohle were 18 bikes from the Saints 7 from the MRA Townsville and 5 from Mackay MC. Our First stop was Cardwell 160 ks North where we fuelled up and decided to stop at Gordonvale 30 ks from Cairns and the turn off to the Giles Range road up to the tableland though 6 bikes decided to go up the Palmerston whose turn of is 50 ks down the coast.
The Palmerston is a much faster run long sweepers where you have to go at 160 to 190 to find the limits of the modern bikes. Whereas you can get unstuck on the Giles at 70 to 90.
I was on my trusty 1976 Z650 (one of those manufactured before they were released) so I had no hope of keeping up to the others. I left Gordonvale early as I knew I would be one of last up the top in order to minimise the wait for the others. About 1k from the range an RGV250 and a GSX 1100 came past me both blue and white. Six corners up the range I came across the Suzies. To my surprise it wasn't the kid on the RGV but Kenny from the MRA who had dropped his bike. Now Kenny is in his mid forties and has been riding since year dot. Luckly for him he was wearing full leathers and did not get badly hurt, but alas his steed was 8 or 9 metres down the steep embankment, and in danger of going an other 20 or so. Call the RACQ was the story. I stayed with him and Emma who was carrying the gear for the MRA gave Kenny a lift to the rally point as his Bike went to Cairns with the RACQ truck.
The two of us who stayed with Kenny had to skip the sesion at the Pearmont pub and we caught up with the others at Ravenshoe as they were of to Archer Creek camp site. Much fun was had by all the riders and pillions that evening especially Kenny who was drowning his sorrows with copious quantities as he did not have to ride or drive the next day.
As Kenny said he was lucky to come out of it so lightly a sore knee and lots of cosmetic damage to his pride and joy.
Some of the blokes rode very hard using their knee pads etc. One bloke had brand new knee pad on their leather at the Bohle and I thought wanker these blokes never use them until I saw them at the top as if they had been on there for years.
The next day some took the shortest way home ie down the Palmerston while the rest of us went back down the Giles. At Gordonvale we refeuled. Some had to work that afternoon and others had enough with 900 ks for the weekend, but just over a dozen of us went to have lunch at Kuranda. The Kuranda range is now a great piece of road wide a bit faster than the Giles and lots of overtaking lanes. Three of use stayed together and rode the range at 7 to 8 tens not the ten tenths of the crazy ones. Having lunch at Kuranda we were joined by the learner on his 250 trail bike. We thought he was going back with the other. So after lunch 11 bikes headed south on the tablelands, and we took it in turns to baby sit the trail bike.
We rode to Atherton and then down the Palmerston and rejoined the Bruce highway just north of Innisfail. I had to stop for fuel at Tully and so did one ot the guys from the MRA. We waited for the baby sitters to catch up before heading to Cardwell where the other were going to wait for us. The trip from Cardwell to Townsville was uneventful except that we cruised at 40 to 50 above the speed limit.
Townsville was well represented at the What rally with the Saints, the MRA, the Ulyses there and the crazy dude the rode his Honda 70 step through that rode the 450 kilometres there and the 450 back.
Next year the What Rally should be bigger and better.
Dominique Morel.