2022 Alpine Ride Part 1

DAY 1

This years Alpine ride was going to be similar to the other years with similar route plan. I was thinking of changing it up a bit on the second day by doing something slightly different. But first it was time to put a new front tyre on as the Karoo3 may or may not make the trip. I sourced a Karoo4 as the 3's are now obsolete. 

Karoo4

I dropped by Stu's house and met up with the Sydney crew heading out at 7am. It was fresh at 13°C and only a handful of days out from summer. This would be the theme for the trip so we would find out.

Our first stop was for a coffee and sausage roll at trappers bakery in Goulburn where we picked up a few more riders as we continued south. Dave's new Superduke 1290 looks mighty impressive. Like, will that rear tyre last the trip. 

Day one of this trip is always a bit of a slog as its really a commute day to get down south to ride the good twisty roads. Lunch was had in Nelligen, but I wasn't that hungry so opted for a coffee and Caramel tart instead. It had warmed up to a balmy 20°C.

NSW roads have become a minefield of potholes over the last 12 months with all the rain events we have had. The ride down to Braidwood was an excursion in pothole avoidance. Clyde mountain was filled with cars and some of NSW finest hair dryer operators trying to collect some funds to fix the roads.

Filling the tank in Batemans Bay, it took 15 litres for 330kms or 4.5l/100km. The Old Africa Twin is impressive on the fuel economy I must admit. Next stop was the usual rehydration stop at the Narooma Hotel.

Before making our way to our destination for tonight at the Tathra Hotel and picking up the last of our riders here. A total of 17 this year.

Tathra Hotel has some beautiful views out over the ocean, except it was far too cold and windy out tonight to enjoy them. We managed one beer out of the wind in the small alcove before retreating to the warmth of the pub and a delicious diner. Notice none of the locals were outside, that's how cold it was.

DAY 2

The weather today was a mighty improvement over yesterday, it was still a chilly morning but top temp was going to hit mid twenty's. Hooray for us. First stop was for a bite to eat at the local bakery. When 17 bikers turn up at the same time it can take a while.......

The route today was the same as last years, with us going up Mt Darragh and across to Bombala for a fuel stop before tackling the Bonang Highway. Here the group usually splits into 2, with the more precious riders that don't want to do the 10kms of dirt on the Bonang turn down Cann Valley way and meet at Orbost.

This year I was going to make it a 3 way ride. I bought some extra water and some lunch whilst fueling up in Bombala. Everyone that was interested last night in my alternate route now chickened out. That made me more determined to do it even if I went alone. I told them where I was going incase something went wrong. So when we got to Bonang I turned off the road and onto McKillops Road. Geoff stopped with a look of concern. I could tell he didn't want to ride this road but he also didn't want to let me ride it alone either. Either way I would have done it alone but company is always the prefered option.

So 150kms of dirt riding coming up, the road was in pretty good condition compared with some of the tarred roads we have ridden. The road followed the Deddick River for quite some time. We stopped several times to admire the views.

Plenty of rock faces on one side and big drop offs into the river on the other side. It helps keeping your concentration levels up but the scenery through here was awesome.

It seemed to take quite some time to actually get to McKillops Bridge but it was only 58kms from the turn off, but we stopped several times and were only doing about 60kmh as the road was narrow and twisty.

As we arrived I noticed 4 KTM riders parked up, looked like they were fixing one bike. Speaking to them they were the sweep riders on a 70 rider group heading to Jindabyne tonight. Luckily they were leaving as we were stopping for a bite to eat. I cracked out the sammiches and Geoff had some chocolate so we shared and had a cool drink in the shade whilst admiring the views. The bridge is 255m long and spans the Mighty Snowy River. The original bridge got swept away in a flood the day before it opened in 1934.

The road out of here was a steep and narrow 10km climb out into the vic highlands which meets up at the Barry Way.

It wasn't long before we came upon Little River Falls. A quick stop for a drink as it was thirsty work now it was getting warm. Surprisingly we passed 5 or 6 cars along the road, lots for a minor back road.

Little River Falls

From here it was only a short fun ride to the Barry Way turn off. It looks to be all tarred from the turn off down to Buchan, but we turned north and headed to Limestone Road. I was surprised as there was 8kms of good tar on the Barry Way. I thought it would be all dirt.

I must say the new Karoo4 was handling the dirt better than the Karoo3, I didn't have any front end slides or moments of any kind and I was getting better at braking into corners. Bit more dirt and my confidence is slowly coming along. Only about 80km of dirt to go and then back onto the tar again.

Limestone road had a bit of every type of gravel on it. Good fast compact gravel, slippery new rocky gravel and a fair amount of rutted gravel corners thrown in, but was a good fun ride through some beautiful countryside. We stopped at Native Dog Flat campground for a drink. Geoff then remembered he had a bag of donuts he bought at the bakery this morning, we made quick work of those before heading off again.

It took us about an hour to get to Benambra. As we came down from the hills into the valley to Benambra I was thinking this rich green beautiful area is truly god's country. Amazing. Stopping at the intersection in town we both spied the pub across the road. I asked Geoff if he needed Hydration, it was a dumb question. We settled in for a couple of quick pots, as it was only a short 22km ride into Omeo from here.

The road from Benambra to Omeo is a cracker too, wishing I had my R1 for that bit but we still had fun.

As we arrived in Omeo I notice Dave was here and a couple of the others had just arrived. Impeccable timing. So we all caught up over a few beers. We made sure that the guys that chickened out on the ride heard all about the great ride up over McKillops Bridge really was. They saw the photos and then they wished they had come along. Next year fellas.

Geoff keeping the hydration up, only problem is two hands and only one mouth

Day2 Map Reference

RIP - Wakefield Park

 A long time ago in a galaxy country town far far away, I'd just purchased my first road bike, a Kawasaki ZZR250 so I could go road riding on long trips away. At this time I'd been riding an XL250 dirt bike around for about 6 months and was still very much a learner. After a little incident on a ride with my older brother out the back of Wyangala Dam where I ran off the road and dropped the bike after I'd stopped just before launching over a 6ft drop and scaring the bejesus out of myself, my brother suggested that I go to the track and do some rider training. Yep good idea that.

And so a couple of weeks later I had booked myself and a friend of mine into a Roadsense rider training course at a new race circuit at Goulburn, southwest of Sydney. The new circuit was the 2.2km long Wakefield Park Raceway which was made in 1993 by veteran racer Paul Samuels and his business partner John Carter, their vision was for historic events and club racing in the mid 1990s. Back in the 90s there were only 3 other permanent race circuits in NSW; Amaroo Park, Oran Park and Eastern Creek(SMSP).

Amaroo Park closed in August 1998 to make way for a housing development, then in 2010 Oran Park also closed for the same reason, the encroaching urban sprawl of Sydney's outer suburbs had swallowed both circuits.

Wakefield Park Circuit Map 2000-2022

Wakefield Park is positioned 11km south of Goulburn's CDB in the middle of sheep paddocks as seen on google maps above.

It was somewhere around 94-95, the memory is a little hazy these days. I was a bright bushy eyed kid from the bush, eager to learn how to ride properly. I still remember the first time on the track. They took us around for 2 sighting laps to give us a feel for where the track goes. I clearly remember thinking "Gee why are they going so fast on these sighting laps?"

After many cornering drills, braking drills, gear shift selection drills and combinations of corner/braking drills, by the end of the day I was thinking back to those opening 2 laps and how slow we actually had been riding. My eye's had been opened now to a whole new world of riding. I borrowed "A Twist of the Wrist" by Keith Code from flyboy and proceeded to do another 3 or 4 rider training days at Wakefield Park and Eastern Creek before moving onto track days at Eastern Creek.

Back in the mid 90s Wakefield park was pretty basic as far as tracks go. There was a control tower, 2 or 3 sheds and a set of open air pit garages, the track and that was about it. From this the track eventually grew. Back in the day it was rare for me to carry a camera, but I did take one of those disposable film cameras  to the track, my photos then were pretty poor but you can see the barren look of the track back then.

Circa 1995

Circa 1994

1994

The circuit was sold in 2000 to Rob Hodkinson and Paul Phillips, who made several adjustments to the track layout, straightening out the hook turn. This attracted major events to the circuit including club sprints, time attack events, manufacturer drive days, driver training programs, state championship race meetings, PROCAR, Shannons Nationals, endurance races, Australian Superbikes and the V8 Supercars Development Series.

I was lucky enough to be accepted by Motorcycling Australia(MA) as official media photographer at the 2021 and 2022 ASBK rounds at Wakefield Park, this was a pretty awesome experience for me I must say and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Here's a small selection of photos from the last 2 years of ASBK at Wakefield Park. I have more photos over at my facebook page. 

Lachlan Epis

Mad Mike Jones(46) & Troy Herfoss(17)

Oli Bayliss

Wayne Maxwell(1) & Mike Jones(46)

Troy Herfoss

Tom Drane

Bryan Staring

It's quite surreal to experience the inside goings on of a race event, to get access to areas that normal race fans cannot get access to, the people you meet and things you see behind the scenes is quite the eye opener. I never imagined bumping shoulders alongside Australian Racing Royalty before now.

Wakefield Park Media Centre

It's interesting to listen to the banter between the riders behind the scenes when the cameras are not on. Below was a short video I made of Tom Reynolds the MA media manager interviewing Mike Jones/Wayne Maxwell at the end of round 3.

Shooting at high noon - Inside turn 10 at the marshall hut

In 2007 the circuit was purchased by the Benalla Auto Club(BAC) and has been running events successfully until now. In 2021 the BAC submitted a Development Application(DA) for a major expansion to the track facilities. The DA for the complex was for a new two story pit building, an off road experience area and further use of the campgrounds, in total worth $5.6 million.

Artist's impression of the pitlane redevelopment

It is estimated that Wakefield Park brings in $18-20 million to the Goulburn community both directly and in-directly. There were rumours in Goulburn Mulwaree council that it would not be approved. On the 13th July 2021 an extraordinary meeting of the Goulburn Mulwaree Council took place which I watched on live stream. Nearby residents spoke about noise from the track affecting their daily lives, business members of Goulburn spoke about the benefits the track brings to the community, sports people like ASBK rider Tom Toparis 600cc Supersport Champion and goulburn resident spoke.

In turn council members spoke, some in favour and some not in favour. At the end of the day council did finally approve the DA but stunningly they slapped a whole raft of noise restrictions on the circuit.

“Council has also included noise limits as a condition of consent, with four different categories of noise being red, amber, green and blue. Included in the condition is a transition period over a three-year period commencing 1st January 2022.

“At conclusion of this period, in the year commencing 1st January 2024, Wakefield Park will be limited to 30 days per calendar year with noise not to exceed 95 decibels, and a further 100 days with noise not to exceed 85 decibels."

Wakefield parks response was to take Goulburn Mulwaree Council to the NSW land and environment court as this would make the circuit unviable to operate. On the 13th July 2022, in yet another stunning decision by the NSW land and environment court Wakefield Park was slapped with an even harsher restriction limiting the circuit to 30 days racing per year. You can read the official court report here - 

The Verdict

With Wakefield park running out of options the decision was made to close the track down as of today, 1st September 2022. All events have been cancelled. The backlash on social media and mainstream media has been quiet intense. Businesses already reeling from 2 years of Covid are now struggling further with takings down in the last month. Motel/hotel bookings cancelled all over Goulburn, pubs/club empty.

Goulburn Mulwaree Council you reap what you sow. There is nothing else in Goulburn to attract visitors, wherefore art thou supposing to fill that $20 million dollar hole?

Another NSW race track bites the dust, now there is only 1 permanent race track in NSW in Sydney Motorsport Park ironically smack bang in the middle of Australia's largest city. It only took 6 leftard complainers to have this track closed due to noise.

Farewell Wakefield Park, we can only hope that a politician somewhere will step in and reverse this absolutely ludicrous decision but in this day and age its looking less likely.