London to Sydney
Paul's Diary !
Day 28, Australia Noosa, Breakneck, Lake Borumba Forest, Imbil, Exchange, Monsidale, Yednia, Jimna, Kilcoy, Esk and Glenn Innes.
Well today was a real challenge! We started at 7.15am from Noosa for a 800km day beginning with a 61km tour down to the Lake Borumba Forest.
This is a magnificent part of Australia and these stages were used in the recent Australian Rally Championship. We had 3 very long gravel stages today and the first one is a mammoth 54km. I am the navigator today and started off a little anxious about the distance and travel sickness . Anyway we now have a new feeling' car with the rear end a little higher and feeling much better. The first stage is called Breakneck and runs for 54km.
Well it was full of everything, very tight corners, uphill and downhill, water crossings, humps and dips, ruts and rocks, sand you name it. We had a pretty good run through here and no real moments, all went quite smoothly really.
Along the way the first casualty was Peter Lockhart in the Proton with a flat tyre .. but easy to recover from. The second casualty at about the 20km mark were the 2 Pauls in the yellow Capri Perana (same one that rolled down the hill in India), parked imbedded in the trees.
The next car at about the 25km mark was the green Falcon of Gary Gleeson, he was neatly parked off the road and we heard he broke a gearbox. Pity he leant his spare to the Green Capri Perana guys 2 days before and they broke it yesterday! Next at the creek crossing was Vidar in Peugot, don't know what he did but it looked like he missed the crossing all together and went straight into the creek! About the 35km mark I really started to feel nauseas and it made the concentration of note calling all that more difficult couldn't wait to the end to come!
I was sweating madly with the concentration but managed to stay on top of it all and we came through without any moments a good run really. It was a 50 minute run so any wonder I wasn't feeling well! We cruised down the road to the service area and met up with Troy and Rosco for a good spanner check again, just to make sure the car was going to last. I forgot to keep check on the time as I was more concerned about feeling better again and suddenly realized we had 20 minutes to do 20kms for the next 35km stage.
We raced down the road and there was a line up . And I told Steve just to pull in behind the cars and I will run down and confirm/check in, at this stage we were about 3 minutes late so he insisted on blasting past everyone and into the time control zone anyway, net result was I stuffed up because they actually had an amendment to add another 20 minutes on the arrival time that I missed (dumb) and they would have been OK with me getting there, but because the car was now in time control and visible to everyone we had to cop another 15minute penalty! Dumb and Dumber, that's what we started calling ourselves!
The penalty here is worse than getting 3 punctures in the stage! Anyway, there are no sheep stations at stake, so it wasn't long before we could laugh about it! The second stage was pretty much the same as the first, but without any of the long runs and more twisty roads and some jumps added. We only saw one casualty here and that was the red Corolla of Peter Taylor. They were well and truly parked in the trees but all OK and waiting for the end to get a tow.
The rest of the stage went pretty smoothly other than the nausea setting in at around the 20km mark this time. I managed to keep it in control to the end and we had another pretty good run. We stopped at the same spot again for another spanner check just to make sure and hear the news that the little Suzuki of Freddie Preston had rolled, but they were OK. Freddie is 72 and was a driver in the original London-Sydney in 1968. This stage took us 27 minutes to complete. From here it was straight in to the final stage of 26km, once again through the same forest area and much the same terrain to deal with, but it seemed a little rougher this time.
We had yet another clean run but I started to suffer the nausea at around the 10km mark this time and was sweating profusely by 15km. Once again I managed to hold it all together and got us through OK, but it wasn't easy. From here we had a quick run into Kilcoy and stopped for some lunch at the local bakery just to see if that could make me feel any better it did! From here it was just a long haul across to Glenn Innes, often described as one of the coldest places in Australia it was apparently -7C yesterday morning! We watched as we got closer and the temp is now down to 0C. We are really buggered today as it was a huge start followed by the long transport, so I can see dinner and early night again as we start tomorrow at 7.15 again! Hopefully the car will be up to some more punishment just as we arrived we noticed some more noises coming from the CV's again!
Day 29, Australia Glenn Innes, Pinkitt, Kookabookra, Armidale, Styx River, bellbrook, Mackenzies Creek, Port Macquarie.
Well its all getting closer to the end and everyone is starting to dislike all these early starts another 7.15am start today. We did yet another spanner check on the car last night and everything was OK and we decided to live with the noisy CV's. We had nothing to gain and everything to loose if we pushed it too hard over the next couple of days it wrecked the car, so the simple decision was to drive and have fun, but be conservative!
Today was a run of about 400km starting with a short tour of 50km down to the first of 3 gravel stages. The first stage at Kookabookra is 17km. The conditions are perfect and these stages are now in forests very similar to NE Victoria where I grew up. Basically forest roads weaving their way around farmers paddocks and into the forest, over creeks, up hills with some fast stretches added in.
The surface as usual was slippery but that just added to the fun. We had a great run and it was a good start to the day. I think I am starting to get used to front wheel drive in the dirt and using the rear brakes to set up for the corners lots of sideways action, but the only problem with the Astra is lack of power.
I must say Steve was a very nervous passenger today and was very uncomfortable on quite a few occasions. He just needed to warm up a little really. From this stage was a run of 181km down to Armidale where we had a passage control as the township was quite excited about having us come through the area. Lots of people turned out to wave and greet us and we had a short coffee break here. We had a simple 23km tour from here to the next stage at Styx River of 24km in the New England National Park.
This was another run through a spectacular forest very similar to the first run. Steve had warmed up a bit by now and I think there were a lot more tulips this time to keep him busy and more focused rather than looking where we were going. We had quite a good run again and this stage would have rated highly as one of the best on the event didn't have much uphill so it was much better on the Astra and I think we came in about 10 th probably one of our best results. Its just not possible to beat the Honda's, Toyota's and Capri's, but we managed to knock a few off every now and then. From here we run down to Bellbrook where the locals have put on a sausage sizzle at the local fire brigade.
Great little place in the NSW countryside, weather is next to perfect and all the people that turned up to greet us were very friendly. One guy came up to me and as it turned out I worked with him 20 years ago. The last stage of the day started from the town and into Mackenzies Creek area. At the start I think 3 out of the first 5 cars came into the first corner a little hot and collected the walls of the bridge. We were all warned about this and the rest of the field took it a lot more cautiously.
This is where Graham Lorimer in the Team Castrol Toyota crashed and relinquished his 3 rd place to another Honda putting the Honda's now into the top 3 spots. This run of 16km's was one of the busiest for both navigator and driver, we had lots of calls and tricky terrain to deal with but we got through fine. At the end we both agreed it was probably one of the most fun and exhausting stages we have done. We were covered in sweat with huge smiles on our faces.
We didn't really take any chances just drove it fairly consistently and it just seemed to all come together nicely this time. I think most people enjoyed this stage and once again we had a good result for the day. Not that it really matters, I don't think there is much we can do to change our 18 th spot other than crash/breakdown and go backwards! The final tour was 114km down to Port Macquarie back into the land of road signs and speed limits. Everyone was amazed at how may warnings were out there about speeding, speed limits, etc .. We arrived at Port and booked into the Sheraton, probably one of the better hotels we have had so far.
We then went out and found a car wash to clean the Astra up a little as the boys wanted to go over it all again and prepare it for the final day but without getting all dirty again! By the way, when I mention the 7am starts, that typically means Steve likes to get up at around 5.30am with alarms and wake up calls blasting so we can shower, pack and have breakfast then stand around for a while before we leave!
Day 30, Australia Port Macquarie, Charlies yard, Middle Brother, Waitful Falls, Little Nellie, Wahroonga and finally the Sydney Finish!
Today is a total of 420km with 2 final special stages on gravel to get through.
Everyone is pretty nervous this is the day that no-one wants to make a mistake, but everyone has looked at their points position and knows what they need to do to either keep or boost their position I sense a lot of anxiety in the air! Just a short run out of Port Macquarie to the first stage in a fantastic forest just to the south 40km away. This stage called Middle brother is very similar to yesterdays forest stages with 20km of mixed terrain forest roads.
Yesterday we managed to gain back the position we had previously lost because of our own stupidity for the early check in, so now there is absolutely nothing to gain to go too hard as we just cant make up 5minutes on the next position up, but it would be easy for us to stuff it up and move back some positions, so once again it's a go easy' day. This is very well to say, but when you are behind the wheel the true fun is when you are going hard. Steve drove today and we charged through a fairly tough stage without any real problems.
Everyone made it through and we all headed off for the next short stage 40km away. The last stage of the day of the event before our final tour down the highway to Sydney. This 10km stage called Little Nellie has everyone on their toes. Everyone is talking about how slow they will go, etc etc etc . but once behind the wheel I think everyone really wants to enjoy it while they can. Within the first 2km we came a little quick into a tight corner and we started to see the rear end of the Astra pass us.
At that point I just thought it was all over for us and we were going to end up down the bank broken but all of a sudden there was a pile of dirt and as the rear end hit it just straightened us up and sent us on our way around the corner. Neither of us could believe our luck, but the experience certainly slowed us up ..then another 1km down the road Gary Leeson and his well prepared green Falcon was over the bank in the trees and stuck on a log. It was very slippery in the dirt through this stage and we had experienced and now seen what it can do. Gary had a look of despair and embarrassment on his face as we went past . Definitely slower for the next 5km.
Out we finally came in one piece! All finished, all through and still in one piece. There were a few more casualties in the last stage with Chip Johns in his fairlane crashing out and the 67 Volvo of John Tallard crashing as well. This is the original Volvo from the 68 event .. even in the same condition and he hadn't had any problems or moments along the way until now! From here we all toured down to Wahroongha to a holding control so they could better control our arrival time into Darling Harbour.
The finish at the Rocks was great, we were paraded around the waterside to the crowds and all had our finishing photos taken. Gary Leeson made it back for this so did the Volvo, but poor Chip couldn't get his car together in time and missed the finish but did finally get their car into the hotel later that night.
Finally there, finally over. We had a few friends turn up to see us and I guess all the competitors were on a bit of a high heres where all the stories start to come out, reminiscing over the event and describing experiences to interested spectators and friends.
From here we had to then get ourselves checked in to the Novatel and ready for the awards ball. All in quick succession. The actual awards were fairly ordinary considering previous experiences of Targa and also what we had actually accomplished. Anyway, its not about the awards or recognition but the experience and accomplishment. It was a great event, like most it had lots of good and bad but that all adds to the experience and that's certainly something I will have forever.
Final results, Honda Integra 1, 2, 3 top 5 spots all from New Zealand!
Astra (#33) first (and only) Holden home, most artistic windscreen, 18 th overall.
For Sale: 1 Holden Astra - 15,000 careful Km's , Only slight body damage !!
