Katie and Leon try rallying

Together with another CF dad I entered “The Great Escape” a charity car rally/bash thing in September 2004. Any offers of sponsorship gladly accepted.

The organisers of the Great Escape organised a Mini Escape as a practice cum introductory bash. As I have never done anything like this I thought I would give it a go, so along with Katie (daughter) we entered the Mini Escape in her little red Gemini. It was being run from Bungendore to Batemans Bay via Braidwood, almost in our backyard, how could we resist?

We got to the start line in Bungendore on Saturday morning only to discover we had been given the wrong date. We were a week early. Home again. We should have taken the hint and given up this idea early.

Saturday 12 June we return to Bungendore. Soon the other cars began to arrive - about 13 other cars – 13? another sign?

Car is not adequate to describe these vehicles. They were all older Fords and Holdens – adorned with 'roo bars of various sizes and shapes, bright colour schemes, sponsors adverts/names all over, lifted up suspension, big lumpy tyres, roll cages, orange flashing lights on roof, big tow points front and back, some had race car seats and multipoint seat belts, computer driven multi function trip meters, cb radios, silly horns etc etc etc

We had the little Gemini, bog standard, stock, with plastic roses and soft toys on rear shelf as token decorations. I had a premonition.

Our first problem was not having a "terra meter" trip-meter thingy. This is a super accurate computer driven distance measuring and log thing. We had to keep resetting the trip meter and guesstimating the distance between corners. Navigation is a big big part of this rally game. We had to follow a set of instructions and diagrams telling us when to turn and what directions we should take. Fortunately we were low down the starting list so we could often see the tyre marks of other cars where they went round the corners. It was mostly on dirt roads. As time went on and the other cars went past us and we got lower down the list. But the corners got easier to see.

We quickly discovered it is not a good idea to reset trip meter by sticking one’s arm through the steering wheel while attempting to turn hard right on a dirt road.

We went splash through a river that actually had water in it, bounced around on bumpy roads and slid around corners a bit. We got through the first section OK. This was fun - in a petrol-head way. The second stage ( rally talk ) was more into the hills. Katie drove.

We started and headed off up into the hills, Katie driving Leon navigating, calling the instructions..“ T intersection turn left one point eight kilometres”

One section of the road was badly washed away and very rocky. Katie missed most of the rocks but hit 2 or 3 pretty hard with the under parts of car. The steering became vague and very notchy...it would bind up tight when steering wheel turned left or right about 45 degrees. We hit the rocks hard enough to launch all soft toys off back shelf into front seat and the water container for window washer popped off its mounting clip in engine bay.

Katie got through the section but then the speedo stopped working. Then we picked up a big stick - tangled up in rear suspension and dragging on ground making a lot of noise through the car.

We stopped to have a look under the car....pulled the stick out...the speedo cable was hanging down and looked pretty squashed I guess a rock crushed it. The main front cross member/brace under the front of the car body looked bent. Not nice.

We tied a rope around the front cross member and the other end to a big tree and using reverse gear bounced the car backwards off the rope a couple of times. This improved the steering a lot. It was still vague but moved more freely.

I’m thinking here...”We’ve not got to the lunch stop yet and we have probably damaged car beyond economic repair...hmmmmmmmmmm”

As we now had no speedo and no trip meter we got lost before we finished the section. We couldn't contact the people on the UHF radio - it is very hilly area so we gave it away...found our way back to a bigger track....found this track on a map and eventually found our way into Braidwood.

We were out of the rally before lunch on first day...” hmmmmmmmm “ again.

We had some lunch and asked around the local service stations if they could help fix the car.

Eventually we ended up at the Braidwood NRMA depot. I hadn’t wanted to go there because I thought if the NRMA man looked at car he would say it was unsafe to drive and we would be stuck in Braidwood and in deep poo, it was already quite deep enough. But he was cool.

I asked if he had a spare speedo cable for a Gemini.

He said “Yearrrr” but went on to say it was on the car still.

No problem thinks I - I can pull it off easily enough.

“How much do you want for it?” asks Leon

“$75” says he.

“Ouch!” thinks I. That's steep. “...for the whole car.” says he.

We haggled around a bit he tossed in an extra front end – the very cross member that we had bent, along with the associated steering assembly, shock absorbers etc and we agreed on $70 for the lot.

I got ripped off...but we had a speedo cable and could rejoin the rally. Hooray!

As I pulled the 'new' cable out of our 'new' car I discovered they are held into back of speedo by a plastic clip. I checked our broken speedo and the cable had simply pulled out of back of speedo clockface. I pushed it back in and it worked again...$70 for nothing bugger, bugger, bugger.

By now it was well into afternoon and we gave up trying to rejoin the rally. We had afternoon tea in a warm cafe ( it was bitterly cold and windy out side ) then drove to the top of the hill in Braidwood and tried to contact the rally on the UHF radio. We did and we told them we were OK.

They were relieved as they were just about to start searching for us.

Later after the others had finished rallying for the day we caught up with them at the pub in Braidwood. We told them of our adventures, they told us about theirs and we all shared a laugh or two.

Katie and I were staying in a little pub just out of Braidwood, down the road to Majors Creek. ( There is another story explaining why we were sleeping out of town I may tell later. ) We drove out to Majors Creek and got settled in to a pretty basic country pub. Shared bathroom, bore water, taps near blocked up with mineral deposits and the usual 17th century French grandfather clock in the corner of our room. The publican/owner had thoughtfully disabled the ‘bongs’ as it ‘bonged’ at quarter to the hour, the hour five past and quarter past. . . and after a night of all those ‘bong’s’ he feared we would be total wrecks in the morning.

Then we went back to Braidwood to join the organised dinner and participate in the silly games for a while. The owner of the Majors Creek pub explained how to get in if we were late and warned us to watch out for fog, breath tests and wombats when driving back late at night.

Back to Braidwwod. We ate country pub roast dinner, told lies, got bored and left about 9:00 to go back to Majors Creek to get an early night.

No wombats...Phahh! to wombats. Wombats are little...Not for us.. No, we hit a feral pig. A big, solid, black, hairy, smelly, feral pig.

It dashed onto road just as we crossed a little bridge/culvert thing. We saw it - recognized it as a pig then BBANG! Hit it.

We hit it in the head and right shoulder with front left corner of car. The impact lifted left side of car off ground as we went over the pig, smashed the headlight and shoved the panel back into front left tyre making a horrible noise as bent metal cut new grooves in tyre tread.

We didn't stop for 50m or so...I figured if the pig was not dead it would be jolly angry and I wanted to have some distance between us before I got out of car to assess the latest damage.

We stopped and sat there for a few seconds while our heart rates steadied at a higher than usual rate. Found the torch and while Katie scanned the road back in direction of pig impact I attacked the bent panel with tomahawk ( I always carry on in boot...never needed it till now...) I managed to bash the bent metal off the tyre.

We then turned around and drove back to find the pig. It was in the middle of road in a little dip just after culvert crossing - very dangerous for some one coming over culvert. Obviously, we had to get it off the road.

I nudged it with the car, the pig made no noise - dead??

Then, hiding behind car, I threw things at and hit the pig. No reaction. We had a close look. It didn't appear to be breathing at all so we guessed we had killed it - dead - instantly.

I took some photos. We have scanned them into computer, loaded them to the world wide web and one can be seen at the bottom of this story.

We pulled it off the road.

Feral pigs smell like human excrement.

We then proceeded to Majors Creek. No further incidents.

I had a beer, Katie had a cup of tea then we went to bed.

End of day 1. We were emotionally drained but still buzzing from the events of the day…………exhausted.

Day 2 -  It continues

Sunday morning we rejoined the rally. They promised us no more rocky roads.

We had fun again, easy roads, a bit bumpy, a bit slippy slidey in places and on some corners and splash through a river again. The steering was not the best but we could almost keep up.

We ALL got lost when the instructions led us all up a fire break, power line access clearance track. It was very bushy, very muddy and a little rocky. The little Gem did quite well.

Next nasty bits were the erosion control drains. In the hills, on the steeper wetter tracks, every now and then "they" ( and we all know how nasty "they" are ) dig cross drain channels at an angle across road and heap dirt up on down hill side. This seems to be intended to stop water rushing down road and washing it out. They are buggers of things to drive over. We had to crab up and over them or the would catch and get "hung up" with no wheels touching ground.

We did ok at this game for a while but another rock, just over the crest of one of these water diversion humps, caught the exhaust system and ripped it apart at a joint just forward of the muffler. We now had a straight through exhaust system and instant head aches.

We pulled over and were attempting to secure the hanging down bits of exhaust. The open pipe facing forward was digging up the road and filling with mud, stones, sticks etc - when the rescue truck caught up with us. We were coming very very last now.

The organisers were very organised and had two well equipped four wheel drives that followed the route of the rally exactly to collect fools like us with stuck, bent or broken cars.

We secured the loose end of exhaust and continued on out way, LOUDLY. The rescue truck crew had 1 set of ear plugs. I gave them to Katie so she can save her deafness for heavy metal concerts.

Again Gem did well. The short wheel base helped. A couple of the longer, bigger cars got caught up and had to be pushed off/over humps by following rally car.

A few kilometres down the track we picked up another big stick under the car and totally destroyed speedo cable this time.

That was it. We had had enough.

From here we drove just in front of the rescue/sweep truck. He called the navigation warnings to us via the radio.. "T intersection, turn right 250 metres" and we continued on to the lunch stop at the Araluen Pub.

At Araluen we had some lunch, a cup of coffee and said thanks but we will not keep on to Batemans Bay. We will go home now, thanks.

We did manage to park car over a drain and get under it. We replaced the speedo cable with the spare we bought the previous day in Braidwood. Was it really just yesterday? It seemed like days and days ago

And we almost got the exhaust pipe joined back together. The rear section was full of leaves and twigs and gravel and dirt but at least the car was a bit quieter.

Then we drove home via Braidwood and Bungendore.

We didn’t fancy trying to drive the now ratty looking Gemini home through the heavy Canberra coast traffic on Monday, or in the dark on Sunday night, especially with the police being extra busy on the roads for the long weekend. Even so, we saw several police cars and passed through a breath test stop. The policemen at the breath testing stop gave us a funny look but didn't stop or breath-test us.

We got home and unpacked. Katie had a long hot shower then went out to a 21st birthday party. I had a long hot shower a nice home cooked dinner, a nice glass or two of red and slept very well in our own comfy bed.

We plan to do this for 11 or 12 days in September??? In a 1973 Valiant Galant??? I begin to have some small doubts. I am hunting around for a better car, perhaps another Gemini??? madness

To be fair, if our little Gemini had been better prepared, with off-road tyres, more ground clearance, some under car protection - like a bash plate, a "terra trip" computer thing then perhaps we would have been OK. Hitting a pig could have happened to any one at any time - a pig, 'roo or a wombat. These are hazards of any country driving.

Call it "character building"

Monday I hired a car trailer drove back out to Braidwood, picked up our $70 Gemini parts car and spare front end, drove back to Canberra, dropped the lot out side a friendly repair/wrecker shop with a note then and ran away. I rang them Tuesday and they are happy to take my money to look at our bent Gemini, assess its repairability and use donor car as parts supply. Katie and I delivered the sick, bent, red Gemini on Friday for transplant surgery, in exchange for my money. I begin to see a pattern here.

I hate cars

PS

Quote to fix our Gemini, using bits off donor car, $500. Not so very terrible. I am now scrounging around wrecker’s yards trying to find the last few odd bits and pieces the donor car lacked.

PPS

The Great Escape Canberra Team has moved on from Geminis and are now the proud owners of a rally - almost ready - Datsun 240K. A few final touches and we will be all set, rego, roadworthy, tyres, etc etc. The list seems to grow by the day and the starting line gets closer even faster. We are all mad. This is the only explanation….

Update

Oct 2005. We missed out on the Great Escape 2005. Time, money and prepare/repair Datsun conspired against us.

We are now working toward 2006. We have moved on again from Datsuns and are now working on a 77 Ford Cortina that was donated to us as a fully registered ‘granny car’. Just a few simple modifications and it will be ‘escape proof’.. I dioy proof may take a little longer and need more money.

One thing needs no updating…..We are always looking for help to get our car and entry up and running.

Leon

Update 2006

The best laid plans ‘gang aft aglay’….. We have a new car, an XE Falcon with a proud history of bashing. The Cortina was sold on to part fund purchase of Falcon. But money and time and team availability have escaped us yet again. Paul is in India doing work for his church, John is laid up with two knees being rebuilt and sponsors have been very thin on the ground.

In the end we rolled what money and resources we did have into another team’s entry and Leon bought a seat in Car 11 from Queanbeyan.

We were able to lend some of our other gear to another Canberra based car so not everything was wasted.

As for car 56 - We start again and work towards 2008. One thing needs no updating…..We are always looking for help to get our car and entry up and running.