Australian Wing Riders Association (Qld) Inc

A club for riders of Honda GoldWing and Valkyrie motorcycles

Ride to The Channon

Sunday 26th June: Dawned overcast but not cool, forecast of a shower or two, here’s hoping.

Set off for Jubilee Park at Beaudesert and arriving at servo next to Jubilee Park, meet Andy fuelling up who pointed to the the rest of the bikes already there in the park, was going to get fuel, but only diesel pump available, bugger, get some later, so on to the park where, Clintand Charlene, Larry and Annette,Scott,Keith and Gayle, Eric and Deb, Ian (Gricey) and Robyn (on their first full ride with us) were waiting and having a chat.

We were shortly joined by first time guest riders, Shane and Kerry, Shane riding his Suzuki 1800 cruiser and Kerry on her Yamaha 650 “V” Star cruiser in search of ride with a much saner riding pace. Normally ride with a M-109 Suzuki Group who believe every ride is a practise for a G.P. event.

Winston and Jan were last to arrive and then needed fuel, no worries, a pretty easy timetable to keep to to-day!

Departed 9.30am heading toward Rathdowney then turning short to go via Lion’s Rd. to Kyogle.

Everyone was warned that road conditions would not be great after all the rain and watch for cattle as grids are all that keep the cattle from wandering. Only experienced one lot of cattle (it’s O.K. Shane, after hearing your bike, should be ok to give milk again by next week-end) but the same can’t be said of the pot-holes and bumps, there were really bad and a reduced pace was kept to ensure plenty of time to dodge them all.

Stopped at the camping area on the Lion’s Road in a lovely spot where we had morning tea and all the goodies came out as per usual. Morag had made some tiny meringues with coffee liquor cream centres and a choc slice and no one seemed to hate them.

Kerry proudly stated that this was the first time she had left with a group and arrived at the same time they did!

By this time the sun had come out and things had warmed up and we now had a great cloudless sky and perfect day for a ride. Pot-hole dodging, on the rest of the Lion’s Road and onto “The Summerland Way” then through Kyogle and taking The Kyogle Rd. 6km. on from town a 30km on a lot better (if still not perfect) road to our turnoff to The Channon.

A 10km ride through some really picturesque scenery on narrow but charming roads with a mostly tree canopy across our bikes with many of the locals waving, including a guy leading two donkeys down the road, (don’t scare ‘em, shane!).

Quite suddenly we came out and there is The Channon Tavern, a lovely country Tavern with quite a history, judging by the old photo’s on the walls. Clayton, mine host, (does that sound classy?) had our reserved table ready on the veranda and we all ordered drinks and lunch and I believe the food to was quite delicious (well mine and Morag’s was) and the meal was consumed with the usual banter.

Kerry and Shane’s meal took a bit longer than everyone else’s meal and soon as it did arrive, naturally they were told,5 minutes ‘till mount up. The raffle was run and won, Larry and Charleen, congratulations to both.

Morag discovered her new prescription sunnies were missing and after searching hi and low couldn’t find them, Charleen recalled seeing them in the ladies but they were gone and $300 down the drain. It was then the time to mount up and head off, returning to the Nimbin Rd. and turning right and with the roads getting worse the closer we got to Nimbin and then even worse the other side, caution was the game to go by.

Ian and Robyn were having rear suspension issues and had lost all the air-over just before The Channon and trying to pump-up the shock had failed – wouldn’t hold air, so their trip must have been pretty crappy!

We ventured on through Nimbin (there was a funny smell in the air) and bounced our way to the Kyogle Road, turning and heading for Uki.

Good road at last! Sweeping curves and no pot-holes and Larry was heard to cheer.  On through Uki to Murwillumbah and as some had to fuel up and some didn’t we split up saying our goodbyes on the CB and we fuelled up and headed for home.

I apologise for the standard of roads, it really is time N.S.W. spent some money on them.

I thank everyone for attending and hope you had an enjoyable day.

Hope to see you all soon.

p.s. Would like to take this time to wish Morag a Happy 60th for Friday week and thank her for all her help, we have always made a pretty decent team at getting tasks done. I also wish anyone who would like to lead a ride to step up and volunteer, It can’t be too hard if an old Pensioner like me can do it!

Regards Kevin

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