Straddie 2005

Date: Sat 10th - Sun 11th December 2005

This years overnight camping run to Stradbroke Island has come and gone. Assembling at the Pineapple, the mob headed out to Cleveland to the ferry terminal.

Queued up and waiting to board

Squeezed onto the back of the ferry

Mel and Neil looking back at Cleveland

After a fairly swift 45 mins the ferry dumped us at Dunwich where we began our lazy 20km ride North up the island to Adder Rock camping ground.

Ulick & Pete



Laura, Cainy, Earl & Mel kickin' back...


Pete keeping his face out of the sun...

By the time we were all set up we were well into the afternoon. A swim in the ocean rinsed the grime off and woke us up for a barbeque dinner and a chance to talk to the new faces, Neil & Mel.

Laura & Bernie

Mary & Mel

The new Vespa GT200 comes with its own ice bucket...

Neil & Anthony

The night was your typical balmy evening, perfect for beer consumption, which then led to the local security asking us to take it down a notch.

1 night was definitely not enough and before we knew it we were packing our gear and heading home. Short but sweet...

Dubbo 2005 - Australian National Scooter Rally

This year saw the Australian National Scooter Rally arive in Dubbo, New South Wales. Dubbo being a large regional centre, and being fairly central to most of Australias scooting fraternity, was deemed a suitable location.

A number of the Canetoads made the 950 km (590 mile) trek southward.

Canetoads trickling into the Pineapple Hotel Carpark

Leaving the Pineapple hotel, the group headed out through Ipswich, and out toward our first stop in Aratula. 60km out we lost or first member Thomo, and our only Lambretta...

Thomo and Pablo share their thoughts

Venturing on, the party now split in 2, plus a ute a few hours behind with another passenger, we were treated to some of the best Pizza the world has ever seen courtessy of Paddy in Glenn Innes who unfortunately couldn't join us.

Pee stop on the road to Coonabarabran



Pressing on, the last of our sorry bunch pulled into Tamworth having driven for the last 4 hours without the sun at 10.30pm.
After some sleep, we were off onto part two, where the temperature rose, and the roads become straighter and longer, passing through Coonabarabran and on to Dubbo...

Middle of nowhere...

Finally we pull into Dubbo

Finally we pulled into Dubbo on the Friday afternoon, to meet all the others who had a headstart on us with the the Coopers Pale Ale. The next 2 days brought the Show 'n Shine, treasure hunt and winery visit, but the ultimate goal was to get back to the Pub , talk scooters, and drink beer.

Lineup for Show 'n Shine

Slow racing...

Sadly, all good things come to an end and we had to head home til next year...

There and back again...

Dubbo 2005 Rally Patch

Many more photos can be seen Scoot.net -
http://scoot.net/gallery/2005/11/australiannational/