National HOG 05

Home Discussion Forum Calendar of Events Past Rallies and Gatherings Links Cla$$ifieds Rules Awards Jokes Hefalump Biker Friendly Places Contact Us Odds & ends Sign Guestbook View Guestbook Friends of the 'cats Sound & Video Clips Recipes Body Art Wildcat Tats View Old Guestbook Hatched Matched & Dispatched ABZ of RoadKill Superbike Racing Tell it how it is! Emails and Press Releases About Us

National HOG Rally 05

For centuries men and women have ventured into remote locations around the world searching for mythical creatures, lost civilisations, and buried treasures, many times armed only with a tattered map and a lust for adventure, they traverse vast distances, endure unrelenting hardships, and, in most cases, arrive at the final destination to discover the thing which they seek does not exist, or they only find tantalising vestiges of evidence that leave them unfulfilled in their quest. As Kaz and myself found out, the 2005 National HOG Rally was no exception to this rule.

Day one, on arriving on the designated day, after a sometimes heavy going in places ride to Ayres “ Rip-off “ Rock Resort, we finally put the side-stands down, dismounted and registered for the rally. Receiving a pin and T-shirt confirmed that we were in the correct place; however on leaving the registration booth we were unable to find any further evidence of a rally. There was no central venue or area set up where you could meet and greet arrivals, so as soon as people had registered they simply went to their respective accommodations that were spread all over the resort, had a couple of well earned drinks and just stayed there in detached groups. Then, later in the day, because everyone had been told that shuttle buses would be running to and from it due to no cars or bikes being allowed at the oval, the opening ceremony and meal at the furthest place possible from the accommodation turned out to be a bloody fiasco. Having taken the shuttle bus advice at face value Kaz and I boarded the bus for our evening meal sitting at 7 o’clock, upon arrival we asked what time they would be picking up for the return trip, only to be told that no buses would be back until 11 o’clock that night. Now you don’t have to be a mathematical genius to figure out that with about 1400 people there, it was going to be well into the early hours of the morning that the last were going to get home, and with most having ridden a lot of miles to get there that day, standing around for hours waiting for a bus instead of getting back for some well deserved sleep was not a particularly good option. Mind you, just after the opening speeches, some 2 or 3 hundred people upon hearing that a bus had come early, found, as they rushed outside after eating a very mediocre meal washed down with some very over priced drinks, that there was a bloody great car park outside devoid of any vehicles except the ones that had brought the visiting HOG dignitaries.

Needless to say there were a lot of very pissed off, still ride weary, groups of people, including us walking around in circles through ill lit and poorly signposted streets trying to find their way back to their beds.

Day two dawned with still no trace of a rally evident, and although a ride around Ayres Rock had been organised to make an attempt to encircle it with bikes, I think the true reason we rode round it, was to see if a dingo had taken our rally. The evening meal and entertainment proved to be another non event, cancelled due to a wind and dust storm blowing everything away, the storm was of course totally out of the hands of the organisers, however the lack of an alternative central meeting place, meant, that once again people were spread out through the resort in small groups with no feeling of being at a rally.

Day three saw us packed up and heading for Alice Springs, a hot ride and two or three hundred bike long queues for petrol finally saw us arrive at, you guessed it, no rally site and no central place to meet, the Alice Springs Chapter had fortunately organised an evening meal at the Heavy Tree Tavern but with a limited number of seats it left the remaining rally goers that were spread out all over Alice Springs to their own devices.

Day four saw the rolling thunder to the Henley on Todd Regatta, and finally, due to a lot of work and organisation by the Alice Springs Chapter in conjunction with the Regatta committee, it was somewhere that we all stayed together. The regatta was one hell of a show, with spectators having as much fun as the contestants, but for some strange reason the evening meal was scheduled to start at 5 o’clock at the Road Transport Hall of Fame some 15 klm away, thus, all but a handful of the rally goers missed seeing the grand finale with the three big boats, which had been touted as, and was in fact the best part of the show. At the Hall of Fame only about 30 bikes were ridden there, most by non drinkers and maybe a few by those who took a punt on not getting caught by the breath tests, all the rest arrived and left in a steady stream of cabs and hired mini buses. Once again the food was mediocre, and a lot of comments about it being leftovers from Ayres Rock, probably had more than a grain of truth in them, also, I can’t for the life of me figure out why, once again, it needed to be started so early when everyone knows that you will get hordes of flies all over it during daylight.

OK, so maybe the rally was out there somewhere, but it was like Lasseter’s lost gold reef, or the Minmi Lights, sort of there, but not quite there if you know what I mean, and unfortunately, an expensive 7,000 klm round trip ride for Kaz and myself to a non event, that, in fact, should have been the highlight of the years riding calendar does not bode well for next years one at Airlie Beach, where from memory of the type of location and facilities there, it could, without some serious rethinking about what people expect and require from a National Rally, easily become another Ayres Rock non event with people getting ripped off at every chance by the locals just because we ride Harleys and they think we have plenty of money.

Notwithstanding the disappointment with the rally setup itself, I would say that the scenery and the geographical features were enough to justify the ride, and that those, combined with the Regatta, the work put in by the Alice Springs Chapter and the huge effort by Desert Edge Harley Davidson's staff in putting more than 80 bikes through the workshop for major breakdowns and services were the only things in my opinion that saved the National Rally from complete failure.

On a sad note for the conclusion of this ride report, I am sure I speak for all who went to the rally and other bikers throughout Australia, when I offer the family and friends of Kevin “Yorrick” Hunt, ‘Darwin Chapter HOG’ my deepest sympathies on his tragic death whilst riding to the rally.

Vale Yorrick. May the sun and wind be always on your back as you ride on ahead of us with your spirit carried aloft on the backs of eagles in the vast Territory skies.

- Crusty