Updates from the Road 2009
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Tuesday July 22, 2009
Day Eight
Hi Folks,
Coen was the overnight stop last night. The idea of the night was to put money into the local community. That we did. Tea/breakfast/packed lunch and a bar were put on by the locals and held at the school tennis court. Great show for such a small community. I'm sure they enjoyed our company, as we did theirs. The first photo is of some local kids helping Nic & BJ at admin. Nic asked how many kids go the school, and the answer was "a whole mob".
Three cars were towed to Coen last night. The first to arrive was car 47 with a busted starter motor, then car 97 who argued with a Nissan that had a big bullbar (all's well), then car 333. All's well and cars and crews were sorted this morning. 47 was going to Mareeba to be fixed, and the others were on the road again.
Just as tea was on last night all the lights at the venue went black. Lucky a few people had torches. The story goes that Rocco from WIN TV was talking to the Main Man of town, asking if the lights were on separate circuits, so could black out half the tennis court to show some random TV footage on the big screen. So just as everyone was eating or lining up to eat, the Main Man says we'll check and turned the lights off. What he didn't count on was that the lights are the kind that take 20mins to warm up to come on again. The lights eventually came on and all was well.
Volunteers were a bit light on (as is the population of Coen), so I'd like to mention those who stepped up to help behind the bar. Thank you to Patto from car 53, Markus from car 500 and Karen from car 109. A couple of other stand out notables are Huddo & PK from car 113 and Vossy & Freddy from car 101. These guys are true ambassadors of the event, always helping out, and there to give a hand whenever needed. These guys always go over and above. The Great Endeavour spirit is alive and well! By the way, this is true for 99% travellers with the rally.
Today we had the Undies 500, which is where you wear your undies on the outside, for 500km's. The other 2 photos give you an idea of how this is done.
Short day today heading into Cooktown. Mobile service for some.
Marty from 109 got the idiot award this morning. The rally instructions say that a red rally arrow always takes precedence over the written instructions. Anyway, RB set up a secret check point and arrowed it. Most cars got it right but Marty argued with his navigator about following the arrow, and continued on. So, 109 missed the check point. Then yesterday, Marty followed a red non-rally arrow, and ended up at the local dump.
Tomorrow we get 3 hours of travelling with no dust. The rest of the day is of course, dusty. We all have a slight red tinge from imbedded dust.
Early day for most crews today. Good shower tonight.
Till next time,
Michelle
