CARTER'S LEGACY RIDE - Hey mate, you okay - asks chopper pilot

Tumbles and dodging pothole as a chopper lands to check riders okay. Owen Rule is on his postie bike for Carter's Legacy Ride honouring Carter Keeble and raising funds for Boort District Health. He reports in on an eventful Day 5 of the ride

DAY 5 - Given the non appearance of rain of the past week some of the road have dried out and are now passable so change of plan and direction.

We've headed due west then up to the gate on the border into Queensland at Hungerford to stay at a delightfully green park with showers, toilet and a washing machine.

The road today, in a word, was treacherous. We had it all, gravel, sand, smooth clay, rocky crossings, muddy puddles, deep gutters, wheel tracks swerving at different angles, stones and possible the worst was the golf ball sized shinny round pebbles. I needed 110 per concentration all day with the front wheel wanting to head in all sorts of directions. It was a case of glancing up 100 to 200 metres ahead picking the best track but watching the whole time at the five to 10 metres out front dodging all the rocks, potholes, sandy patches and deep ruts.

When stopped along the road for a short stretch the local station owner saw us from the air and landed on the road with his helicopter to see if we were okay. Exciting.

Four incidents today. Sadly Rhondda has a cracked exhaust pipe at the muffler but on the plus side she is still ridable and has a nice note now. Tumble Tom suffered two sprawls today with one being a summersault into the side cut full of water. When I arrived I saw a grown man on his hands and knees swishing around looking like he trying to herd fish up into the shadow water. Turns out his phone came out of his pocket mid-air and that's what he was looking for and not fishing. His other fall was out on the gravel road. The fourth reportable event was a broken spring bracket on a trailer that was bound up with a ratchet strap.

I must admit that I was apprehensive to say the least to travel on roads that are a small dotted red lines on a map or those tiny grey lines on Maps that are not visible at all until zooming right in riding a tiny motorcycle. Turned out being a day that I'll remember for a long time.

Thought for the day. I'm feeling glad in saying,

“just go with the flow” and what a day it turned out to be.

Distance travelled: 157km (I think)