Two mates and myself made the trip this year. This is a basic outline of our road trip to CD8.
Left Ballarat Vic. at 4am on the Tuesday before CD8. Stopped for a sightsee at the Dish at Parkes NSW. This was much better than I expected as I had no idea how big it is. We were lucky to be there when they were changing the receiver on top of the dish. To do it they tip it over to ground level and let a hoist rope down and lift the receiver unit up from the back of a small truck then put the dish horizontal again to install it, great to watch. Travelled on to Dubbo for our first night stop, booked into a caravan park cabin. Had a meal at the local pub. Fantastic meal and service ( better than we are used to in Vic. even had VB on tap). Wednesday morning travelled to Coonabarabran where I had bought a Hiace van off ebay 2 weeks earlier. Picked it up from the very honest guy that I bought it off.(it was better than I had hoped) Travelled on to Goongiwindi and stayed at a motel for the night. Another good meal in their resturant. Thursday on the road to Maleny. Reached there about 2pm, had a couple of beers at the hotel and checked in. They showed us the room I had booked but only 2 beds instead of the 3 I had booked.(good mates but not that good) After some thought, the manager gave us half the house out the back of the pub. 2 large bedrooms, large lounge room, large slate bathroom, kitchen, laundry, entrance hall with piano and balcony opening onto lawn area with creek and waterfall. All this for our $105 that we had paid for the pub room. My hat is off to the manager for rectifying the problem at a great cost to him. Anyway,we decided to find a local woodyard and get a ute load of wood to take with us to CD8(Just incase) as you do
before we settled into the bar. A local John Hyde put us onto a mate of his that sold wood. We went there bought the wood and got out as quickly as we could as we could hear the banjo's playing in the background
Settled into the bar and met some new guys and caught up with some old freinds. had a fantastic night and doggy digger walked us home and put us to bed but not before he made us clean our teeth first, what a good mate
Woke up at 7am to a message on my phone from DD about cleaning my teeth again
Sausage rolls at the bakery(Yum) a stop at the supermarket and out to the Conondale. Our spot was gone that we had the year before but found another better one overlooking the whole place. Set up, sold a heap of stuff as we were unloading, got a good fire going and opened the esky with 7 slabs of beautiful Melbourne bitter stubbies and VB cans in 6 bags of ice in it. We sat back cracked our first can and took it all in around us. (I wonder what the poor people were doing just then
) Had a wander and couldn't beleive the variety of all the machinery there with more to come. Great night Friday with the films etc. Saturday woke up slowly, had another wander, even more to see. Great legends segment again this year. Lots of riding to watch then back to the fire and esky again when the rain started. Filled in time with some old mates and some new ones around our fire then down to see if the band was as good as last year. As it turned out it wasn't it was much
better. Fabulous night very entertaining (thanks to Alison and her plastic ducks
) doggy digger put us to bed again in the miserable rain. It never let up till the morning. Woke up and my mates had decided it would be a good idea to pack up and go before the rain started again. I thought we should stay but the majority ruled so we packed up, got cleaned up and watched the Legends that had stuck around again.
Really interesting interwiews again (well done macca for your work and entertainment all weekend)
Left Conondale about 2pm and headed for Lismore via a stop over on the Gold Coast. Monday morning picked up 2 bare bones XL250's at a forum members place near Nimbin and headed for Kempsey. Held up by water over the highway for a an hour or so then the terencial rain started. We arrived at Kempsey just after the highway was cut in several places. If we hadn't left when we did we might still be there.(thank goodness for majority rules
)
"to be continued."
