The Tar24 Roundup...Roundup Reports

#61
Derrick, the problem with gps is that you then really should have a headset so you aren't gazing at it looking for intructions when lost.. of course , once you have headset, then you will want to go wireless, which then means you needs a second battery and a charger. once you have that, then some one, quite prolly the long haired general at home,will want to have you connect your phone.
stick to the paper maps, at least the dog can eat that and everyone will understand why you didn't turn up on time :)
 
#62
Rally Proper

Even though I’d identified the bonus just to the north as a potential out of the gate bonus I headed south to the Abacus. (I thought it might better qualify as a “if I get back with time to spare it will be a good capture then” style bonus).

I was one of the “early birds” but a re-reading of the bonus and awareness of general “milling around” of others had me re-submit at the correct time.



Out to Old Bar, and benefitted from being fourth in a line of bikes when the first two missed the corner to the Tavern. Quick photo with Damien, chat with his sponsor from “Ray White Real Estate” and back to the bike.



Crappy had parked in front and when he asked “Are you heading North?” I said “Yes, though my plan was to just follow you around!” (Maybe I should’ve done just that!)

Just to show how flexible my mindset was I changed my mind about the bonus in Cundleton. I ‘d realised this was a potentially tricky/time sapping bonus, and, after benefitting from other people at Old Bar and knowing I could use the second Taree northbound exit I decided to grab it now. (I also know I have a history of staying late and cutting things and the 800 points in under ½ an hour was worthwhile.)

Trouble was: I went to the wrong park (No GPS remember) and parked because I saw two obelisks with plaques. After de-helmeting (it was hot) I was less than thrilled to see that neither were on the list, and a lap of the park saw me find a third plaque also not on the list!. Damn you Milady!

Google Maps to the rescue, and then I saw KiwiMartin, Biggles and JeffTheChef looking for the right plaques. They’d found one, and I’d spotted what I thought was the other one as I rode up to them.





At the second photo requirement I wondered if this was a deliberate placement given our MobMaster’s sense of humour.



Ok, time to head north. I was happy to see Cassegrain Wines signposted from the freeway, so a quick in and out was in order.



Too early for a hotdog I got back on the freeway. I’d decided that a Fish and Chip shop or a Roadhouse with a “Fast food” sign were easy/the best candidates for a hot dog. Now to find one within the next hr and a half. It didn’t have the points for a much more than an “on the way” type of bonus.

Kempsey came along and the Caltex appeared. Here’s where a bit of experience paid off. I first checked if they had Hot dogs – yes but they’d be a 5 minute wait. No problem – I’ll get fuel even though I didn’t need to just yet. Grabbing my flag and camera I got the teenage clerk to take my photo (and re-issue the receipt since I hadn’t asked for one previously) .



Scoffed down the Hot dog (FYI -it wasn’t gourmet!) and pulled back onto the highway just in front of KiwiMartin and Biggles (and somewhat behind what I thought was Ron (GreyGentry) at the time. (It wasn’t.)

Not familiar with Pacific Hwy etiquette I slowed enough to let Kiwimartin take the lead. Around here I was a) realising why Dorrigo Coach House was a daylight only bonus! and b) doing the math on arrival times in Queensland and realised that I’d have a time to spare, and while I hadn’t planned on hitting Dorrigo it was likely that a loop in and re-joining the highway further north would make sense and not cost too much time.

I was being a bit cheeky, by hanging behind the others I was going to take a last minute exit and confound them but alas they also took the exit and so I followed them all the way into Dorrigo. Coach house and Soldier photo’s taken





There was opposing GPS views of where to go next and so I followed Biggles out of town. I knew there was a school photo in Dorrigo so I doubled back while Biggles continued on. Just to show how close it was for daylight the flash went off at the school location. The photo below doesn’t do that justice




It was only here that I had the chance to figure out how to get back on the highway. Ebor made sense and so out there we went.
Hahaha love the write up. You were the only one who noticed the loitering sign! Bahaha
 
#63
My 3rd and final instalment will come. I've had a really stressful few months and things didn't end so well in 2016 with business matters, so my mind and time have been elsewhere. I've been loving all the write ups. Great stuff. Oh and yes, I do believe Crappy may have to deduct a large amount of points off the very first bonus location. Tsk tsk tsk. I noticed as soon as I saw that one. Can you see the problem? Let me go check the rest....
 
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#64
TAR24 Rally – How to test your relationship!


Rally, did someone mention a rally? Iron Butt Australia are going to run one this year so we kept our eyes open for details on the forum. Over the last few years we have participated in a few of these and we thought why not give it another shot. Details emerged and we read all about the rally that was fine until we read “Base Camp”. Holy crapp if doing a rally together isn’t bad enough to test our relationship now they’ve thrown in this curve ball! We both sat down and attempted to use Base Camp prior to the rally, and yes there were some discussions and disagreements. So, you guessed it we registered for our annual relationship tester, who needs counselling when you can do a rally? It was then that I asked Fatman to please ensure that if he dropped me off that it be at a Bonus location that hopefully I could hitch a ride with a fellow rider.

We decided that we would head off from home on Thursday arvo after work and ride to Holbrook (435kms) for the night and then ride through to Taree (793kms) on Friday. We had planned to refuel at Holbrook as we arrived as there was a 24-hour servo near where we were staying only to arrive and find that it had closed 6 weeks prior, a new one on the southern side of town has opened but we didn’t want to ride back where we came from. Mmm, well plan B was made, we knew we had enough fuel to get to Gundagai so we decided that we’d refuel. We had a leisurely ride from Gundagai through to Pheasants Nest where the temperature had started to rise so we decided to start removing clothes. From here we rode through to the 24Hr Servo at Alison on the Pacific Motorway and decided we’d grab a bite to eat before continuing to Taree. OMG traffic, we finally found a carpark, had a bite to eat and discussed that this place was always busy so unless it was in the wee early hours this was no longer going to be a place for us to stop as it was just bedlam. Back on the road and on our way to Taree finally arriving around 3pm or there about. Naughty Bart was already booked in and by the time we had unpacked and got changed Philmor, Simon B and Derek had arrived. We all wandered down to the Chinese restaurant for a feed and yarn before heading back to our rooms for some shut eye.

Bzzzzz the alarm goes off, I awake with an aching tooth didn’t think much of it just drugged myself up, got ready, packed the bike and headed off to the start for some training on base camp and get our Rally books, so now the fun begins. How hard could it be all you need 20,000 points to be a finisher. I ask Milady, is it at all possible that if a pillion was found alone and was collected by another rider could they get 10000 points and to the one who left her there lose 10000 points? Well I do believe everyone said they’d pick me up if they saw me did they not? We had information coming in a little bit faster than our brains could keep up with. We were changing the values of the bonus when our 1st disagreement happened. I was attempting to assist Fatman by coding all the COMBO’s but he was on another page to me, he just wanted to change the values. Oh dear, then came the routing, oh my this was fun we sort on knew what we wanted to do and had some valuable insight to making a perimeter from the stat finish location as well as other buttons that you could adjust, ie speed, type of road etc etc. We finally got a route that we were happy with and was just over 1100km, and time was ticking away getting closer to the start time. Off we go to the bike and pack everything up and get ready for the Warchild wave off, well done Shane.

So, we are both feeling as though we had accomplished a good route and we’d be ok until…. Fatman decided that it was too hot to be riding around amongst the traffic in Newcastle looking for points so he deleted them! So, I asked “Ah ok so where are we going then?” Fatman responded with “I don’t really know, we’ll just trust the GPS!” And that we did, DOH. We headed off along with everyone else down to the 1st bonus, ABAC -a pic of the Abacus and get Enterprise to sign the Manning Valley sticker but only between 15.15 and 15.45, we just rearranged things on the bike whilst killing time, meanwhile others ran over got their pics and took off, oh dear they just lost 3000points.

LTP photo bombing to get her pic


From here we headed onward to Old Bar Tavern to get a pic with Alex, a coaster signed by Alex and the name of one of his sponsors. Upon arriving and walking in the door my aim was to collect all the coasters so that there were none left for the others but Alex yelled out to us, “I’m over here” buggar he had already signed the coasters. As usual Alex was more than happy to oblige with whatever Milady had requested him to do to be part of her scheming little rally.

Our pic with Alex


To Alex we thank you for your time and participation you are a great sport encouraging all us nutters out there or is that laughing at us all? It must be fun or we wouldn’t return to entertain you, isn’t that right? Following Jeff the Chef from Old Bar he turns north onto the freeway, we head south having full trust in the GPS to take us to our next bonus WITAT- take a pic of the Tatler Wines front Gate that it did but it seemed like we did a left then a right and a left and a right… I kept seeing signs to Maitland Fatman kept seeing signs to Cessnock…. Oh dear. At one stage as we turned left there were 2 Ass’s (donkey’s) that happened to look up at us in a weird way, it was then that I made the comment ‘yep so who’s the ass now? Us or them’ we continued on giggling between ourselves wondering where the hell the GPS was taking us. Finally, we got to our next bonus, only to pull up and dismount the bike when a couple drove up and asked if they could help us, when we told them what we were up to they said show us the pic and then they pointed it out to us.

the gate @ Tatler Wines


Ok so pic taken, back on the bike but the GPS is indicating for us to turn left go up 100m then do a u turn back passed where we were sitting, WTF? So, we ignored it and turned right again going on some nice back roads to our next bonus WIALG – Take a pic of the sculpture & write down that person’s name who carried out the dedication. Well we rode in and around and around then stopped and got off the bike and wandered around attempting to find such a thing, meanwhile this was in amongst 2 or 3 weddings that were in progress, I really don’t know why they looked at us so strange maybe we weren’t dressed to their liking, ha ha. Well we decided to give up on that and rode out to the entrance where we pulled over to attempt to work out where we were and with that the couple that had previously assisted us at Tatlers Winery drove passed and waved to us. It was while here that Fatman decided to scroll through the GPS instructions only to find that Sackville ferry was on the route, does it run at night? No Idea, I think we need to change the route entirely, we didn’t want to take the chance. Geez it’s starting to get dark and we’ve only got 3 bonuses and the GPS is telling us our next bonus point is 300 or so kms away! We thought it best to book into a motel earlier than we had planned, re-route the entire course, get our 6 hour sleep bonus and then leave early morning on the Sunday. Fatman put in Singleton into the GPS, and we rode there only upon arriving not being able to get any accommodation as it was all booked out we decided to find McDonalds and do a bit of re-routing, you guessed it the GPS was having issues trying to find McDonalds but we finally did and attempted to get the computer & GPS up and running so we could attempt to do a new route. Finally, after about 30 mins we got it all up and running and had a new route planned, now to find some accommodation. I phoned a motel in Muswellbrook only for the man to say yes, we have a vacancy just turn up, yep ok he didn’t take a name, number nothing oh so help me god if we get there and there isn’t room! This will be the end of the rally and the final argument! To our surprise there was plus he upgraded the room as well as moved his car so we could park the bike under cover out of sight. So now we did our next Bonus, the rest bonus worth 10000 points. Not bad we left Taree at 3pm and it was now 9.45pm and we had only collected 3 bonuses! Ooh don’t forget we can get a free 1000 points with a Banjo Patterson statue so it says in the rally book, I got Fatman to double check I had read this correctly, yep woo hoo that makes it 4 bonuses collected. Oh, and our call-in bonus that makes it 5 not bad hey. (only to then realize upon scoring that we were unable to collect this during our rest bonus)

TO BURN THE FLAG OR NOT ?


Off to bed we go to get some sleep, the alarm goes off and I ask what didn’t we just get into bed?

So, we’re back on the road at 4.30am heading off on our newly planned route, first stop was PSNUN – Nundle School,



then to PSWO - Woolami School,



soon after we came across a wide load, in deed it was 7m wide heading to Bendigo in Victoria, they gave us the nod to pass! We refueled at Moombi and had some breaky and decided that we should delete the 2 Armidale bonus locations as we would most likely arrive back at Taree after 2pm and that would attract large time deductions so we cut and ran down the Oxley to the next bonus being PSYAR - Yarrowitch – another school.



The Co-ordinates were incorrect but down the road a few Km was a sign “School” so we wandered on down only to see the Yarrowitch School sign had been removed from the poles and was upside down on the ground. I being a good sport placed the sign up against the pole so you could see it, not what Fatman said to do he told me to hide it! down the Oxley to WICAS - Wauchope School,



We then travelled along the Pacific Highway to grab another bonus that we thought would be easy, but no roadworks disallowed us to do a right hand turn so we had to do a U turn and come back to it. When we arrived, I was standing there oh so patiently when some of the owners wandered out to see what we were up to but before they got to ask we were on the bike and heading for our next bonus.



HK01 located in Kendall for pic of Henry Kendall and while stopped send in another call-in bonus as the timing window had opened. Whilst here a special text was send to Milady to enquire if there were any marriage counselors open in Taree that we could go and see, she responded with a laughing face!



From here back to Taree to get pics of HKO2 x 2 which was in the parkland along the river. Naughty Bart was already there collecting his points.




We finally pulled into the finish with our “Blues Brothers song RAWHIDE” blasting out the speakers, Rollin Rollin Rollin keep them doggies moving rawhide! Ox guided us to the finish line, Lord told us to shut down then they went through the check list. Do you want to stop the clock? Yes. Ox read out the ODO, then asked if we had beer? No Lord, then he handed us a post it note with our arrival time & I think odo on it and advised us to ensure that this was in our envelope for scoring. I think we should have gotten bonus points for the song but none were forthcoming, tough judges.

We then went and parked the bike up and proceeded to the mental room to write up our Ride Log and mingle with our fellow competitors, I made it quite clear to most of them that I was a tad peeved as we saw none (except for Naughty Bart at the last bonus location) of them at any bonus locations and they were a little confused. I do believe that at the beginning that most of you said you would collect me if you found me stranded at a bonus location, well thank god Fatman didn’t kick me off cause none of you guys showed!! I was so so careful in not making any errors as a ride log with no errors was worth 1000 bonus points, yep going well then buggar I stuffed up, how easy it was to lose points with the stroke of a pen. We sealed our envelope, once sealed you cannot open it again, I placed it on the scoring board and sat and waited to be called up for scoring. Within a few minutes, Enterprise called us to step up for scoring…..he proceeded to open the envelope and check that we had included the Rally Flag, Ride Log, Manning Valley sticker signed & time stamped by himself, drink coaster signed by Alex. Tick, tick, tick & tick going well, now onto reading the ride log and looking at pics, yep still going ok until the call-in bonus sent in whilst on our rest bonus. Ok guys you can either lose the call-in bonus = 500 points or lose your rest bonus = 10000 points which is it to be? What a hard decision to make, NOT. He continued down the ride log very happy with everything until my slip up with the pen and that meant no bonus points of 1000 for a clear ride log.

Total Bonus points = 21,130
Total Kms ridden = I think it was only 830km or so.

So, we seemed to have come through another rally, yes there were some testing times but hey we’re still married and we have had a few good laughs since then about how to do it next time, if there is a next time!

To everyone on the organizing committee and to our fellow competitors thank you for your time, patience and participation towards a fun/frustrating weekend had by all.

The following day Fatman gave me a challenge to go to the supermarket, which is a bit like basecamp trying to find things as they have renovated the shop and I can’t find anything! Ok so here’s my challenge:

purchase cereal = 1000 points

purchase apples = 1000 points

purchase bananas = 1000 points

BUT if you get all 3 = 4000 points BUT if you purchase cigarettes you lose ALL points and Fail!


Oh, we worked our why my teeth were aching. I am now one less tooth having to have it extracted due to an abscess under it and now I have an infected gum! And to think Fatman told me to suck it up and stop whinging about the pain! Seriously I knew this rally was going to be a challenge but geez I didn’t need this!
Great write up! You guys did well.
 

Martin Little

Premier Member
IBR Finisher
#65
My 3rd and final instalment will come. I've had a really stressful few months and things didn't end so well in 2016 with business matters, so my mind and time have been elsewhere. I've been loving all the write ups. Great stuff. Oh and yes, I do believe Crappy may have to deduct a large amount of points off the very first bonus location. Tsk tsk tsk. I noticed as soon as I saw that one. Can you see the problem? Let me go check the rest....
As always our Rally Mistress keeps us guessing.

Can't wait to read the 3rd instalment!
 

Tele

Premier Member
#66
Thanks to all who have taken the time to write up their respective Rally experiences. a most interesting, informative and enjoyable read. It's been ages since I have taken the time (or had the energy) for a good distance ride. I've enjoyed reading of other's exploits during that time. Well done all!