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Phillip Island Report 14–20 October 2009 A Group Ride and MotoGP event Riders: Rally point: 07.30am from Johnston Drive Monaro Highway junction The weather over the weekend and days leading up to our departure was cold wet with heavy rain and high winds. On morning of our departure it was overcast with light showers. We all met up on time and with egger expectations set off for Cooma being our first schedule stop for breakfast at Macas and refuelling. Although a boring ride the blue skies started to appear with the odd sunny periods that lifted our sprits. We past through Bombala and headed for Cann River for another schedule stop for refuelling and a welcome hot drink after covering around 210km. Now joining the Princes Highway we travelled through Orbost and onto Lakes Entrance for our first overnight stop. Stan had made prior bookings at the RSL’s Glenara Motel, the accommodations is clean and cheap. We arrived at 2.30pm covering 360km after checking in, we changed into normal cloths and went to stretched our legs along the main street searching for somewhere for afternoon tea. We patronised the motel for our evening meal which was very busy, fairly good food and service with reasonable prices for both food and drinks. After diner we walked along the harbour frontage to settle the meal a pleasant evening was had by all. Lenny and Phil left at the crack of dawn to get to Phillip Island and stake their claim on a good tent pitch. The rest of us at a more reasonable hour had breakfast from a café along the main street who had a good selection of motorcycle magazines and supplied the usual good cooked breakfast and coffee for our final run into Phillip Island. Ernie Gary left earlier then the rest of us to make their way to Bairnsdale and to join the Barry Sheen group ride into Phillip Island and one lap around the race track. The final leg of our journey along the A1 and took us through Bairnsdale, Sale, Morwell, Leongatha, Inverloch, San Remo and onto the Island. We had the usual stops for fuel and meal breaks along the way. The journey was mixed with heavy rain and overcast conditions and some sunny periods. At one stage just outside of Stoney Creek we hit a very heavy cloud burst with rain and haul stones so heavy on a hilly narrow section of road that we had no choice but to continue on. My Bonneville electrics suffered complete outage and I had to coast onto the hard shoulder on a down hill section of road. Stan who was tail end Charlie was able to assist me with the breakdown. After about ten minutes and checking for a spark from the HT cap we were able to restart the engine and continue on our way. John and Graham had turned back some time later once the conditions had improved to check on our position they were concerned that we might have been involved in an accident during the diabolical weather conditions. We had covered 760km from Canberra to Phillip Island, Lenny and Phil where doing the camping experience on trackside and the rest of us were in more luxurious accommodation in a rented holiday house that Gary had organised. The house was located 2.5km from Cows with garage accommodation for some rather dirty bikes a wet riding gear. Once we had settled in and unloaded our bikes, a shopping trip was organised for food to cover the period of our stay. Three of us made our way by bike to the local supermarket as you can imagine, everybody staying in and around Cows had the same idea it was rather busy. We managed to get all our provisions in back-packs and panniers and home without any breakages. The following morning we caught the bus to the trackside rather than taking the bikes. The bus stop was just a few metres from the house, and since they were running every 15minues it was very convenient. An all day ticket cost $14 per person and could be used up until midnight we used the buses for the rest of our stay. On Friday we had arranged to meet Floyd Primmer one of our usual midweek riding group members, whose son Patrick works for Olin’s the suspension people. Patrick travels all over the world to the MotoGP venues. It was Patrick who had managed to obtain pit passes for us. It was to our great surprise we were able to gain access into the garages of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo and speak Graham the Fiat Team Manager. One of the team mechanic’s was a Canberra lad, who trained as a mechanic with ACTON buses. What a small world it is! The rest of the day was spent socking up the atmosphere of the pit-side and viewing the practise laps from the observation roof over the garages. I have to say, Rossi really looks after his fans, he is happy signing autographs whenever the fans have access. I’ll not mention the other celebrities the group met and had their photograph taken with? I’ll just let them live off the stories for the next few months! On Saturday evening we invited Lenny and Phil over for a BBQ and drinks and to check out what luxury we were staying in. Everybody took their turn on housekeeping and cooking duties throughout our stay, in fact the cost of food and drink for the entire time we stayed at rented house was just $70 per person. Stan had booked Grandstand seats on the south Siberia side of the track for the group earlier in the year. Both Stan and John had been on previous years and this location gave a good view of most of the track, just opposite was the large screen where the race telecast was being shown. The location is aptly named, the winds off Bass Strait which chilled you to the bone let alone the contrary weather of Victoria, (see attached photographs to see what I mean). All in all a great time was had watching the 125cc and 250cc and MotoGP practice and races and other organised events. It was also great to watch Casey Stoner win on his home track especially, after his health problems earlier on in the year. I won’t mention too much other about the other races because I’m sure most of the club members will have watched the racing on TV or satellite coverage. Our departure on Monday morning was at 9.30am and we joined the throng of traffic leaving for home. We took a more scenic route via Foster and Yarram then joined the A1 at Sale. Again we had an overnight stop at Lakes Entrance we had made prior bookings on our outward journey. Phil and Lenny where continuing onto Canberra in one day. The rest of our journey home the following day was on the same route as before with the usual fuel and refreshment stops and home by late afternoon, covering around 1500km for the entire trip. All in all everybody enjoyed the company and journey, for those of the group who hadn’t been before it was an interesting experience with great atmosphere track side. Albeit, better if the weather had been a little kinder. Instead of cold and windy and the occasional shower, but I guess that’s Victoria for you! Those who had only camped trackside before, the rented house is the only way to go for future events. Our thanks go to both Floyd and Patrick for organising a great day on Friday in around the pits area and posters of the celebrities riders. Post script:
Len Skipper |
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