September 22nd finally arrived and the long planned weekend away was finally on. Changes to ownership at Goomburra had not caused any problems and the new owners were anticipating our arrival, but not as much as we were looking forward to being there.
The Brisbane group assembled at the Maccas at Yamanto to fuel themselves after fuelling the bikes. With it warming, up the air con was a pleasant place to be. Departure draws nigh and requires a couple of phone calls to try to locate the missing riders. Winston is doing a job at the airport and Simon and Carol could not be located. Off to Flavours at Boonah to meet the Gold Coast and southern groups. As with last year, good timing saw us all arrive within a few minutes of each other. Coffee, cold drinks some lunches consumed and we head for Aratula, Cunningham’s Gap; destination Goomburra. Plenty of headlight flashing after Cunningham’s Gap meant something was going on and sure enough, at the Gladfield driver reviver there was what appeared to be a radar or breathalyser point but we were allowed through and turned toward Goomburra. 30 minutes later we rolled into the park, checked in and commenced the set-up of facilities.
As usual, the bunkhouse crew were quickly out and about giving the trailer trash group a hard time. With trailers unfolded, campers and tents erected, beds prepared and so on it was time to get beyond the social drinking during these activities and start the serious stuff. It was a great opportunity to put the feet up for a weekend. Our hosts, and Debbie with family assisting, served the group a beautiful meal with the promise of a camp oven cooked meal the following night. The meals provided have got to be the best value ever and make the weekend worthwhile.
After dinner the social activity continued round the tables and the camp fire until the karaoke session, delayed by some semi final game of some ball sport played with an oval synthetic/leather ball, commenced in earnest led by Bear and Thommo and capably harmonised by Meady. Unfortunately, the session did not live up to previous standards due to volume and time restrictions. Oh well, back to that other activity, drinking,until Thommo unfortunately “lost” his bottle of scotch and could not be pacified until I bought the port out to finish the night. Prior to bed though, there were a number of strange games yet to be played. You may not be familiar with some of these. They included bin diving, tree and ground hugging, carrying the disabled, chair sleeping, port calling, cross country sneaking and I have no doubt, many others that I wasn’t aware of.
Saturday dawned as a beautiful day, breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages and bubble and squeak went down well even if a little later than most would have liked. After breakfast, I needed my glasses to read something and after a thorough search of the tent and bike they were nowhere to be found. Then Therese suggested I may have lost them while bin diving. What bin diving???? Then I remembered the episode when by some incredible feat of fumbled accuracy, Jayne had sent a mug flying from her clutches across a space of about 1 metre and into a wheelie bin. Being the gentleman I think I am (and also because I had the longest arms, I leaned into the bin to retrieve the mug. Apparently, I was more than leaning. Anyway, off to the bin and wouldn’t you know it, which bin was used for the breakfast scraps? You guessed it. Another bout of bin diving and the glasses were retrieved and cleaned up, as was I.
Saturday was set as a free day. That saves anyone who has had a few drinks the night before from having to ride. Some headed to Warwick with Bill going to check out a possible venue for the 2007 AGM, Therese and I headed back across to Gladfield to visit family and met Clint, Charleen, John and Linda on their way in. With everyone back in time for lunch, I was disappointed to find that after Thommo’s promises of a bottle of Galway Pipe port for the night, he and Bear couldn’t wait beyond morning tea and had started and almost finished without me.
After lunch the Stanthorpe group arrived with a few containers of mulled wine for the night, set up their campers and joined the social activities of yarning and emptying the liquid contents of various types of containers. The main topic of conversation was the benefit of making this year two days instead of one so everyone had an opportunity to relax and unwind away from the normal home and business pressures. The afternoon was topped of by a camp oven meal of roast beef and pork and vegetables beautifully cooked by our hosts accompanied by the mulled wine.
The night’s activities again involved the camp fire, another of those TV ball games and anxiously awaiting the opportunity for the karaoke session. The three usual players accompanied by Bill, Clint and others and egged on by Jayne provided great entertainment until a break was taken and the lights and equipment were too quickly turned off.
Sunday morning, earlier breakfast and the ritual of packing up the campers, tents and trailers to the haranguing of the remaining bunk house crew, the rest having done a bunk earlier. All loaded and assembled for the traditional photos of participants and bikes, thanks and farewells to our hosts and those heading in other directions then off to Aratula for coffee and refuelling and final farewells.
All in all a great weekend, successfully taken to two days with plans to re-attend and do it all again next year.