P
Push and Shove
Guest
Day 1
We woke up to terrible weather and contemplated whether we should go or not. Being a little bit adventurous like we are we thought why not and left Westbury a little late at 11am. We were trialling a new rider to pillion intercom, once we got over a few teething problems it actually worked very well. Thank you Ebay $15!
From Westbury we went to Lilydale via Eccelstone Road and stopped at Lilydale bakery for a coffee and lunch.
The rain wasn't easing off but so far we were still warm and dry so we headed up Doaks Road. Besides a small section of rocks and the obvious water holes throughout the road it was plain sailing right until we decided to explore some tracks to try and get ourselves to Patersonia Road. This is where the fun started. We ventured onto some trails that were very wet and slippery but we were reasonably confident that even though we were going down some massive wet slippery hills that were going to be difficult to get back up again this track would make its way across to Patersonia Road. Then as luck would have it, we got to a river that was just too deep and soft to take the risk of crossing on our own. Which was a shame as we were literally only a couple of hundred metres from Patersonia Road. But all was not lost because the tracks we went down to get to this point were great fun and will be worth going back one day when we are trail riding one up.
This left us in the obvious position of having to get back out of his area and back up the slippery hills we came down. It was too wet and we were too hot and bothered to think of getting the camera out to get too many photos of our predicament. Needless to say, we did get out without too much bother, no broken bones and only one smashed mirror!
Ok, so with some relief we were back out onto the main road. We were very wet, our gloves were soaked thru, googles were fogging up something rotten, it was absolutely pouring down so we made a mad dash across to Mathinna. We are not sure of the names of the roads, but they were all very wet and slippery forestry roads. So between the slow going due to the shocking conditions and stopping very 5 mins to defog our goggles as well as changing to dry gloves it took us 3 1/2 hours to get from Lilydale to Mathinna and all this missing out on some of the other tracks we had planned on exploring this day.
Once at Mathinna the rain subsided just enough to have once last ditch effort at drying out our goggles and putting on yet another pair of dry gloves. At this point we decided it was getting very late in the day and given the conditions we were riding in and the hopelessness of riding with very fogged goggles, we decided to give all our exploring a miss and head straight to St Helens via Dilgers Hill Rd then Argonaut Rd as this is the quickest way we knew.
We arrived at St Helens with much relief at about 5.30pm narrowly avoiding disaster because with the darkness and fogged goggles it was almost a hopeless situation.
We booked in to our hotel room at the Bayside Inn, defrosted ourselves with a nice hot shower, drapped all our wet clothes in front of the heater in our room, had a really nice counter meal and went back to our room to watch the end of the football and fell asleep at a reasonable hour. Although Danny claims he slept with one eye open all night on the motorbike parked just outside the front of the room
6 1/2 hours 240km
Day 2
We awoke to the potential of similar conditions of day 1 so when fueling up we grabbed some Rainx antifog with our fingers crossed that the stuff would work better than the anti fog stuff we use at home. We also went to the supermarket and bought a packet of disposable surgical gloves to put over the top of our non waterproof gloves we have in the hope that our hands would stay dry and not freeze like they did the day before.
As it turned out, the clouds moved aside and we briefly saw some blue sky so our aim was to explore the tracks that we didn't get to explore yesterday.
We left St Helens at about 10am and went from Argonaut Rd up the Trafalgar track to the Launceston track in excellent conditions.
Popping out the other side of the Launceston track onto Hogan Rd then we travelled a few km's down Argonaut Rd to do some more exploring in an unknown territory for us onto Risky Ridge Rd.
At the other end of Risky Ridge Rd we got onto a really nice track that was looking like it had huge potential as it was one of those tracks that has moss grown all over it clearly pointing out that no one has used it for years. Hmmm we soon discovered that at the end of this really nice track was a massive big snotty downhill that we definitely were not prepared to risk going down on our own because if it didn't link up to the road that we thought, there was no way we would ever get back up again.
So, we doubled back to some forestry roads making our way back across to Dilgers Hill again where we rode across to explore some tracks on the other side of Mathinna.
Turning into the tracks on the other side of Mathinna it soon became obvious that we proberly shouldnt have been there because our first obstacle was a boom gate which they have gone to extraoridinary trouble of stopping even motorbikes getting around it. But the lure of the tracks on the other side was too much for us as we got around it!
Once onto these tracks we soon discovered that the more road orientered motorbikes would not enjoy this area, given that it was very wet but there were lots of trees over the tracks and a nice little rocky river crossing with a few snotty sections thrown in as well. Even though it was now raining this little section of tracks with all its obstacles had us steaming inside our bike gear.
Once out the other side of this track we then made our way back up the top of Roses Tier and down the other side to head towards home. To our amusement on the way home we come across a farmer driving about 50 head of cattle along the highway.
After our little adventure with the cattle we headed straight home along the highway but not before enduring more torrential rain and a hail storm of all things! We had one last stop under the overpass near Bunnings, once again to put on our last set of dry gloves for the quick dash along the highway to Westbury.
So that was our reccy ride to St Helens, in some ways the worst 2 days riding we have ever had because of the rain, gloves that weren't water proof and goggles that were fogging so bad on day 1 we had to stop every 5 mins to defog them. But, any ride is better than no ride so if we ever have a moment of madness again on a rainy weekend and decide to ride in it for 2 days we will be sure to invest in some better wet weather gloves and keep these motorcross helmets on the shelf and get a couple of decent dual sport helmets.
Even though it was wet and cold and uncomfortable at times we were very happy with our MotoDry pants and DriRider jackets, they worked extremely well and we have worked out what tracks are the most challenging and what tracks/roads would be suitable for one and all.
5 and 1/2 Hours 170Kays
We woke up to terrible weather and contemplated whether we should go or not. Being a little bit adventurous like we are we thought why not and left Westbury a little late at 11am. We were trialling a new rider to pillion intercom, once we got over a few teething problems it actually worked very well. Thank you Ebay $15!
From Westbury we went to Lilydale via Eccelstone Road and stopped at Lilydale bakery for a coffee and lunch.
The rain wasn't easing off but so far we were still warm and dry so we headed up Doaks Road. Besides a small section of rocks and the obvious water holes throughout the road it was plain sailing right until we decided to explore some tracks to try and get ourselves to Patersonia Road. This is where the fun started. We ventured onto some trails that were very wet and slippery but we were reasonably confident that even though we were going down some massive wet slippery hills that were going to be difficult to get back up again this track would make its way across to Patersonia Road. Then as luck would have it, we got to a river that was just too deep and soft to take the risk of crossing on our own. Which was a shame as we were literally only a couple of hundred metres from Patersonia Road. But all was not lost because the tracks we went down to get to this point were great fun and will be worth going back one day when we are trail riding one up.
This left us in the obvious position of having to get back out of his area and back up the slippery hills we came down. It was too wet and we were too hot and bothered to think of getting the camera out to get too many photos of our predicament. Needless to say, we did get out without too much bother, no broken bones and only one smashed mirror!
Ok, so with some relief we were back out onto the main road. We were very wet, our gloves were soaked thru, googles were fogging up something rotten, it was absolutely pouring down so we made a mad dash across to Mathinna. We are not sure of the names of the roads, but they were all very wet and slippery forestry roads. So between the slow going due to the shocking conditions and stopping very 5 mins to defog our goggles as well as changing to dry gloves it took us 3 1/2 hours to get from Lilydale to Mathinna and all this missing out on some of the other tracks we had planned on exploring this day.
Once at Mathinna the rain subsided just enough to have once last ditch effort at drying out our goggles and putting on yet another pair of dry gloves. At this point we decided it was getting very late in the day and given the conditions we were riding in and the hopelessness of riding with very fogged goggles, we decided to give all our exploring a miss and head straight to St Helens via Dilgers Hill Rd then Argonaut Rd as this is the quickest way we knew.
We arrived at St Helens with much relief at about 5.30pm narrowly avoiding disaster because with the darkness and fogged goggles it was almost a hopeless situation.
We booked in to our hotel room at the Bayside Inn, defrosted ourselves with a nice hot shower, drapped all our wet clothes in front of the heater in our room, had a really nice counter meal and went back to our room to watch the end of the football and fell asleep at a reasonable hour. Although Danny claims he slept with one eye open all night on the motorbike parked just outside the front of the room
6 1/2 hours 240km
Day 2
We awoke to the potential of similar conditions of day 1 so when fueling up we grabbed some Rainx antifog with our fingers crossed that the stuff would work better than the anti fog stuff we use at home. We also went to the supermarket and bought a packet of disposable surgical gloves to put over the top of our non waterproof gloves we have in the hope that our hands would stay dry and not freeze like they did the day before.
As it turned out, the clouds moved aside and we briefly saw some blue sky so our aim was to explore the tracks that we didn't get to explore yesterday.
We left St Helens at about 10am and went from Argonaut Rd up the Trafalgar track to the Launceston track in excellent conditions.
Popping out the other side of the Launceston track onto Hogan Rd then we travelled a few km's down Argonaut Rd to do some more exploring in an unknown territory for us onto Risky Ridge Rd.
At the other end of Risky Ridge Rd we got onto a really nice track that was looking like it had huge potential as it was one of those tracks that has moss grown all over it clearly pointing out that no one has used it for years. Hmmm we soon discovered that at the end of this really nice track was a massive big snotty downhill that we definitely were not prepared to risk going down on our own because if it didn't link up to the road that we thought, there was no way we would ever get back up again.
So, we doubled back to some forestry roads making our way back across to Dilgers Hill again where we rode across to explore some tracks on the other side of Mathinna.
Turning into the tracks on the other side of Mathinna it soon became obvious that we proberly shouldnt have been there because our first obstacle was a boom gate which they have gone to extraoridinary trouble of stopping even motorbikes getting around it. But the lure of the tracks on the other side was too much for us as we got around it!
Once onto these tracks we soon discovered that the more road orientered motorbikes would not enjoy this area, given that it was very wet but there were lots of trees over the tracks and a nice little rocky river crossing with a few snotty sections thrown in as well. Even though it was now raining this little section of tracks with all its obstacles had us steaming inside our bike gear.
Once out the other side of this track we then made our way back up the top of Roses Tier and down the other side to head towards home. To our amusement on the way home we come across a farmer driving about 50 head of cattle along the highway.
After our little adventure with the cattle we headed straight home along the highway but not before enduring more torrential rain and a hail storm of all things! We had one last stop under the overpass near Bunnings, once again to put on our last set of dry gloves for the quick dash along the highway to Westbury.
So that was our reccy ride to St Helens, in some ways the worst 2 days riding we have ever had because of the rain, gloves that weren't water proof and goggles that were fogging so bad on day 1 we had to stop every 5 mins to defog them. But, any ride is better than no ride so if we ever have a moment of madness again on a rainy weekend and decide to ride in it for 2 days we will be sure to invest in some better wet weather gloves and keep these motorcross helmets on the shelf and get a couple of decent dual sport helmets.
Even though it was wet and cold and uncomfortable at times we were very happy with our MotoDry pants and DriRider jackets, they worked extremely well and we have worked out what tracks are the most challenging and what tracks/roads would be suitable for one and all.
5 and 1/2 Hours 170Kays
That'll be REALLY difficult, hehe....this is one steadfast GPS-abstainer here. 
