FRIDAY 21st OCT - OR LAST DAY ON THE ROAD....

“Good Morning Sunshine the world says hello” and out of bed at 6 for getting ready for another day.

Went to breakfast and muster at warning Gardens in Deniliquin.

Bacon, egg and sausage and baked beans begs the question, "Who is going to suffer in the car today? Not nice for sure.

The road was in fair to good condition with the odd surprise bump, ditch or muddy patch, nothing to get excited about at all.

As we got out of Deniliquin, it was obvious that this is a wheat sheep town, they were everywhere

We all know what the Missus, kids or grandkids can buy Loz (Laurie) for Christmas—an Animal Sound affects and amplifier for his car.

I just realized that I had failed to mention that throughout the entire trip Laurie had fallen in love with the barking or is it yapping dog sound made by the “thing”

He would belt out the sound at any poor dog on the foot path, in the yard, in the far corners of the farm and any poor person that looked like they need cheering up. What about the sheep, boy did they get a flogging!

It is safe to say that he got to do the sound at every opportunity. At times he even created the opportunity. We had to laugh. It was fun.

Onto the dirt road, we could see endless fields of wheat and to irrigate these paddocks they had the biggest darned sprinklers you can imagine, the bloody things were over 120 metre long!

We were constantly on and off the bitumen and dusty, rough roads. The road was almost the same as yesterday,

We had a short “comfort” stop at a township of Katunga. This town is on the Murray River.

I think I better insert this humorous bit here—there really isn’t any proper place for it so here will do

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As you know the car had a siren and air horn operating.

Ok then, this morning Darren inadvertently discovered that if/when he pressed the Microphone button that the siren or air horn would cut out. You have no idea the level of enjoyment he and Ross got out of this knowledge.

Rob was driving, as usual Laurie was navigating. At some point they activated the siren and Darren started to press and release the mic button causing the thing to start stop blurt stop start, blurt and really sounded weird.

The boys in front were very perplexed about the sound stopping and starting etc.

We offered the proposition or suggestion that the wiring must be loose and that’s what caused it.

Sorry to advise yo folks of this- but this went on for over 20 minutes along the highway, Darren and Ross in the back seat were crying with laughter. It took until mid afternoon when Rob was in the rear of the car to identify what was doing—called a few choice words—but hey Darren and Ross really had a great time at their expense.

 A little further we found out that we were in Victoria again ; what with all the turning left, right and right again etc, we had forgotten we had left NSW about a day or so ago

As per instructions at muster red group (us being part-thereof) was asked to attend the Monichino Winery for a school visit. This is strange we thought, bringing buses fulls of children to a vinery and there meet a bigger bunch of crazy men in silly cars, what the??

At the winery about 200 kids from the Katunga South and Invergordon Public School had one of the biggest days in a long time.

Ross spoke to one of the teachers who told him the kids had Wednesday off as it was  the Katunga Show day and this “outing: this morning will put them right over the edge on proper behaviour.

Ok then let me tell you of another secret, the other day somewhere between some place and other (Lord only knows where) we discovered that silly sheep will stampede at the sound of the loud and intrusive air horn.  Much to the merriment of the crew we all had turn in seeing who could startle or get the biggest stampede going. It seems that fat sheep on green pastures will stampede easier that the ones chewing on the dry stuff that grows in this area; but enough of that.

This morning we also went to another school- Numurkah Public School.

At this school (as with all others) we traced some of the children’s hands on the guards with their name, grade and school. They liked the idea of us (and them) messing up the car.

Hey look up ahead—it’s the “Big Strawberry” who wants to have a look?” Nah, but I would like a photo opportunity if possible. Naturally as we came up to the place, we went of the main road and took a few photos of a giant strawberry, wow the excitement (I am saying this with a large degree of sarcasm).

We travelled for some reasonable time through Broken Bossy State Forrest. Dry, dusty, and to a degree boring (as far as scenery goes)

Wow, what do you know more wheat and sheep field, must be a popular farming practice in these parts.

As you can imaging, being in a vehicle for over 5 to 6 hours per day, the drivers and passengers try to pass the time away by humming or singing tunes. None of the team can sing. It became all too apparent that none of the team knew any songs fully; all we know is the chorus. It would appear that after 6 days the whole repertoire of the entire team was night exhausted, but we try to find new song. Ross even tried a few Italian ones but the rest of the team didn’t think this was such a good idea at all.

Continuing on we went into and through (didn’t sneeze or blink) the township of Tungamah. The road was rough and that is being polite—it was bad, but we smiled and continued on.

More wheat and fodder (the stuff they make hay and chaff out of) fields.

We then went through the Mt Bruno area (not actually through the town we had to turn off before the town) Mt Bruno is a Cherry growing area (so the sign said)

As we went to the school we were running a little late, so when we got to Wangaratta for lunch, it was quick zip into the hotel, order steak meal, wait for it to be cooked, sit down and scoff it as we needed to be out of there in the next 25 minutes if we were going to be anywhere near on time for the festivities in Bright at end of he day.

Ok so we all ate what we could (and it was a fantastic feed too let me tell you) raced to the car, Ross drove and we were out of the place in a total of 45 minutes flat. Not fair, not fair at all!

Along the dirt and bitumen roads we arrived at Eldorado. Ross poisoned the boys mind when the name of the town reminded him of the theme song from the TV program” Bonanza: and started singing/humming/destroying the song and all joined and much o his delight (har har) they couldn’t get the thing out of their heads—har har some more. Not that you need to know this but at Eldorado we all needed to stop yet again for another comfort stop. The town has a general store that doubles up as a hotel and that is also the post office. Oh did you know that is only opened between 8 and 12 and 3and 5 and some Saturdays only. The milk and papers are on the back table, obviously the proprietor uses the "honour" system--I hope it works

Moving on into the high country, through some seriously winding roads that offered very spectacular vistas obviously for everyone but the driver as the precarious drop off the road was not something the boys wanted to experience.

                     

As we drove into the high country we came into Beechworth. I am sure that Beechworth has many attributes it can boast about, but apparently according to Laurie, Beechworth is famous for its honey. Yep, the honey is known all over the place. Ok we believe ya—let’s keep going.

At some point on the drive through the high country we received a weird message over the radio that advised the following message not once, not twice, no not even three times but I am sure that we heard it 100 times before we turned off the bloody radio. Apparently the wind was blowing at 6 knots and was coming from a Northerly direction. The weather was fine and the blah blah blah—oh my God why do we need to listen tho this.

We again came across the highway again and at that point we agreed that after getting into town late every day, and as the last leg of the dirt road was going to take too long we chickened-out and went via the bitumen.

We finally .got to Bright—the end point of the trip.

As arranged we went to the marshalling area, booked off, and joined the parade through the main city/Town centre of Bright, dusty cars blaring sirens and horns etc, squirting water and smoke etc either entertaining or annoying locals and visitors.

The was a reasonable number of spectators there and this sort of egged the “hoons” in the parade on and they did more noise and more smoke

After the parade we agreed that we would return to the Welcome to Bright sign at the entrance of town for the obvious photo shoot.

Got there did up a THE END sign, stuck it on the car and took several snaps. Everyone was happy, now lets to the accommodation.

Go to the Bright Chalet booked in. We got two rooms with 2 beds and 2 bunks in each for the price of 1 room, “Not bad we thought”

Got showered, dressed in 90’s homey boys and parole officer theme and went to dinner and last night presentations etc.

Got to the large white marque on the banks of the creek where the final dinner and end of Rally function was to be held. Tables all set up looking very formal.

Again the Queensland contingent sat at one table. It was almost comforting that in most cases at dinner the table was set for 10 and that there were 10 of us made it all so chummy (oh phew)

During the evening various awards were presented to long serving Camp Quality Volunteers and helpers etc.

Also an award/certificate was give to each member of each team.

The awards were based on the amount each team raised.

Team Afro - Car 51 was called and we all went up to receive Certificate and a bottle of wine.

Ross received his Certificate issued in his real name—the announcer could not pronounce it causing much mirth for the Qld contingent- not funny guys.

To add a little trivia info here, Ross who had desperately tried (very unsuccessfully) to get the assembly to join him at Bendigo on the first night in the chant and reply – “Aussie Aussie   ---   Oi Oi Oi” chorus could not resist and did it again, this time to a spontaneous response and enthusiastic participation by a vast majority of the gathering. Yes! (The esCarpadians must have finallt figured Ross out - he is a great patriot to this fair land of Austtralia).

The hard by the entrants was recognised and it was amazing how much money was raised by some of the teams.

The highest amount raised from team 222 (by 1 tem of 6 men) was $222,000. NOW THAT’S A LOT OF MONEY!

Total amount raised on the 2011 Escarpade was $1,406,865 it was so obvious that everyone was very pleased with this.

After the presentations were done, we went to the Chalet and all went to bed for a well earned rest.

This concludes the Team Afro 2011 Escarpade, but as we still have to get home I shall do another page at our Saturday night stop.

It is our intention to return home in some form of convoy with 3 other cars from Brisbane Booger Mobile, 808 and Sharkies.

Whilst it may sound corny we all are anxious to return home to our loved ones and our jobs.

Please see the blog for the last day—thank you for being with us or following us on our journey and I hope that the information I/we have presented has been entertaining and of interest to you.

All of Team Afro, Darren, Rob, Laurie and Ross want to thank you for your thoughts and prayers over the past 8 days-----Thanks.