There isn't alot of things that differenciate a road trip, usually it the road some bikers and their bikes and a given destination. Whats makes it worth writing about is how you get there.The Thunderbolt rally is a 2 day party in the foothills above the Hunter valley in Mid New South wales Australia. The party had been going for 8 years now, in or around the 18th of May. In the 8 years i have been going we have had one 1 venue change..From Stroud , to Dungog a bigger town.
Friday the 18th saw the South Coast chapter of the American Motorcycle club, head north. 18 bikes not a bad effort considering most people find it hard to get time off work these days. We rode the usual way, staggered and kept the pace up to we hit wilberforce..a small village at the start of the Putty Road , a winding blacktop that links into the centre of the Hunter Valley. its a 100 miles from start to finish. with a new pitstop along the way called the Grey Gums cafe. A real biker friendly place run by 3 women. I can thoroughly recommend the buckachinoand the toasted white bread ham cheese tomato and onions sammichs..( a buckachino is a bucket like mug off cappachino coffee..) Setting off from there, I took up my usual spot dead least...and enjoyed the ride through the mountians..coming round a corner, i spied what looked to be fresh road kill, and moved out of the way accordingly, it wasn't..it was a rider jacket...I stopped and picked it up...our break down unit was nearby so i tossed it to the driver on the way past...coming round another bend another rider was stopped he had just swerved to miss rain pants....about 5 km up the road on another bend we met the owner tear assin the other way...but we never recognied him on the bend..so he didn't know we had his gear...coming round a mighty long sweeping leftbend I had to take evasive action as a skippy was standing in the middle of the road enjoying the view...damn it was only 1pm...(skippies are Kangaroos) usually seen late night or early mornings and are a real bugger when ya hit one on a bike. The results are never good for the rider/bike.
With that in mind i continued onto Singleton and met up with the pack once more. I have found that our guys don't read road maps or worse, don't look at signs either..So I had to lead..which isn't sobad...being up fromnt means no rocks are catapulted back into your face..the raod to Dungog from Singleton , is a semi potyted holed paved farm road usually a car and half wide, so it makes for interesting riding...and of course in climbs all over the hills in the surrounding district. It's 2.30pm and the afternoon sun is making the riding enjoyable even at my pace..60 mph...But 4pm we are there in Dungog, turning into the road to tyhe showground i am greated by 2 cars of NSW's finiest...and of course they are eager to talk...we are stopped, and all but one of us got through without a ticket....not so bad considering...$30 bucks at the gate and thats what its all about party time boyz.
The dude in the pics was a sideshow attraction...this stuff was insane....
