Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club
National Rally Healesville Victoria
October 24th & 25th 2009
by Simon Whittaker

With my 1975 Honda 360 T "Flat tracker", and Ray Lalics Honda 400/4 "Cafe racer" securely tied down on the club trailer, we left Canberra about 6am Friday morning and headed towards Healesville. The rally was going to be held in March but the Victorian bushfires put paid to that... We were soon pulled up in Holbrook , sampling the giant wagon wheels from the bakery, and having a nice coffee in the morning sun. As we approached Healesville it became evident that the bushfires had only narrowly missed destroying the entire area, as the wind had changed direction just in time. It wasn't to hard to imagine how lush and verdant the area was before though and the recovery of the bush is well underway with fresh greenery adorning most of the trees still alive. Coming down the winding "black spur" just outside the town was quite tight and the logging trucks seem to use all the road and then some......We arrived at the local racecourse about 1.30pm and soon had our tents up and the bikes unloaded and in the stalls, just like the thoroughbreds they are...

We popped into Healesville for a few supplies(beer ) and soon were back at camp relaxing under the marquee and sipping cold ones. Checking out the other bikes as they rolled in. Saturday morning, masterchef Ray Lalic soon had his famous ham and cheese omelettes cooking in the pan and the sun was coming out after a suprisingly cool night. There were about 150 bikes pre entered and a long ride was organised in the morning. So about 50 of us set off around 10am for 160 klms round trip throughout the country side. Great roads and perfect weather although we felt it was a little too long for us. The roads went from tight twisty stuff up the mountains, country roads, a national park, stopping at Molesworth for morning tea and then back down more twistys amongst what was probably a nice rainforest until the flames got to it all.....

Arriving back at the racecourse the show & shine was underway with the "show ponies" and "indoor bikes" taking up prime spots on the grass area. Some of these guys must have big houses if they have to keep their bikes indoors? "Sandwich honey? "Sure, I'll just warm the bike up and ride down to the kitchen and get you one......" Anyway there were some outstanding hardly/never ridden machines on display and rare Japanese bikes you'd probably only ever see in a book. ...Well, Ray and I thought they were rare, until we saw 5 Suzuki RE5 rotaries lined up, 4 Honda CX500 turbos, a 650 turbo, Honda Rune, 2 CB1100R's, 4 Kawasaki 750 triples, 5 Z1's, 2 Eddie Lawson replicas, 2 Macintosh Suzuki's, a Honda NR 750 with 10k's on the clock, 750/4s etc and plenty of early 50's & 60's stuff as well as a few trail bikes...Pick any 5 from each row and you'd have a museum ready to go.....

Later that afternoon we finished watching Dave Russel the stuntman doing his thing, and readied ourselves for the presentation dinner at 7.00pm held just up the road at the local pub. After seeing who won the various awards, Bike of the rally went to a 1960 Suzuki, which was restored 25 years ago and hadn't been running for 24.....we left and went out for a look around the town. Interesting people live in Healesville I must say,with a Karaoke night at the local a highlight... Also a place called "Innocent bystander" a nightclub/restaurant/ bakery/wine bar/winery was cool too, as well as a little place with a trio playing cool blues music, "Grind & Groove" I think it was called.....Anyway we got back to the rally site "in due course" had a beer with a couple of the organisers who were still up, and called it a night. There was all intention of going on Sunday mornings ride, but Saturdays effort took it out of us a bit, plus the weather was starting to turn, so we said our goodbyes and saddled up and headed out around 10.30. through a bit of a storm on the way home, sadly they were out of giant wagon wheels as we passes back through Holbrook, we got home around 6.30 ish and both Ray and I decided we'd return next year, but we 'll do our own ride on Saturday....Check out the photos on the website to see what you missed.

....cheers Simon.