We borrowed a small tent from friends of Gary & Anne so that we wouldn’t have to pull our tent down and pack up everything. We only need a small amount of stuff for a weekend away. On our way to Mackay it was raining and the tent we borrowed was very old with the fly missing, so we decided to go into Mackay and buy a small tent for the weekend.

While in Mackay we dropped into Clark Rubber to ask for directions and to say hello to Paul, the owner, who we’d met when we stayed in Mackay. He wasn’t there but his wife, also a Ulysses member, and his daughter were and they were able to give us directions to the rally, and we talked with them a little while before heading off.

It was getting late as we headed out towards Mirani on the road to Eungella. The rally site was to be signposted but we were worried that if it got dark we wouldn’t see the signs. There were plenty of signs pointing the way to the rally and warning us of trucks on the roads, they’re carting cane at the moment, and places where the road turns from made road to dirt road.

We still had a bit of daylight left to put up our tent. We found where Chopper had put his and set up beside him.

Chopper is a Ulysses member from Whittlesea who has just had bowel cancer removed. He decided that instead of sitting around between chemo sessions, he’d travel nearly 3,000km to this rally. Of course he won the trophy for the longest distance! It was great to catch up with him again, we haven’t seen him since the AGM, but his wife, Kerry kept us up to date with his progress throughout his time in hospital.

Saturday 9 July 2005
You can never sleep in at a rally; people are always up early, even if they’ve sat drinking half the night before.

We spent the morning walking around the campsite looking at the bikes and talking with people. There were a few people from Townsville that we’d met when we went to the Stinger Rally, some others, the Kawasaki Z owners, who’d gone to Mountain Madness up in Cairns and were now about 800km further south at another rally.

We met Silver, who is from Newcastle and knows Dave, a friend of ours from Whittlesea. We also met Wobbly Bob, who takes photos for a magazine in America. He has a damaged spine and has tried a couple of different models of Harleys, currently an 883 Sportster, but he’s never sure if his legs will hold the weight when he puts his foot down to stop. He’s waiting on delivery of a sidecar for one of his bikes, that way he’ll be able to ride without fear of dropping his bike at traffic lights.

The gymkhana was run in the afternoon with the usual events, slow race, put the ball on the cone, tyre toss, tug of war and another event where the riders have to circle a pile of hay and when the siren sounds the pillion has to jump off, run to the pile of hay and find a can of beer.

In the evening they held the burnout competition which was won by Bubba who had also anchored the winning tug of war team. Just as well the prize for the burnout comp was for a new tyre, because Bubba’s wasn’t in any state to be ridden when he’d finished.

Several awards were presented and Chopper won the longest distance rider award, he’d travelled nearly 3,000km just to come to the rally! Chopper also won one of the gate prizes, a Ducati vest.

The rally organisers didn’t get time to stop they cooked food and served drinks all night, this is the first rally we’ve been to where there’s no bring your own drinks.

We sat around the camp fire talking with Chopper, Wobbly Bob and Silver most of the evening.

Sunday 10 July 2005
As usual everyone was up early, packing and leaving, I don’t know what their rush is, maybe they have to get to church.

We had breakfast and packed at a leisurely rate then did a walk around to have a last chat with the people we’d met. Silver was heading to Townsville to catch up with a friend, Roy and some of the others from Townsville were going to camp another night at Finch Hatton and Chopper wasn’t sure where he’d spend Sunday night. We said goodbye to Jock and Allan from the Euro bike club before leaving about 10am.

We got to Airlie Beach about 11.30 and had a walk around the main street. It’s a similar type of town to Port Douglas and Lorne. We had lunch there and then hit the road again.

We arrived back in Townsville at about 4.30, unpacked and went and had a cup of tea with Gary and Anne and told them about the weekend, it’s a rally they’ve been to many times, but not for the last few years.

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