CanTeen Ride Report

CanTeen Ride - Sunday 19th October, 2003

When I rang the organisers on Sunday morning I was told the event had sadly been
cancelled due to constant rain. A CanTeen ride had never before been cancelled
but this time it looked like a lot of kids were gonna be disappointed.

Bugger it, in steady rain I rode down to the hospital anyway. I discovered a bus
had been hired at short notice to drive the CanTeens to the castle.

The rain kept coming down but many of the kids still wanted to go on the bikes
rain or no rain, but weren't allowed to. Public liability and cr*p like that I
'spose.

Anyway, a vote among the 60 or 70 riders still there was taken, and many decided
to go home. Couldn't blame them I guess.

About 35 bikes decided to press on regardless, solo, escorting the bus to the
Castle in the hope the rain would break.

And break it did .... hello Mr Rainbow.

Unfortunately however not before this little black duck got soaked to the skin

(tip: Draggin Jeans aren't water proof. And neither are Daytona boots nor were
my fancy "waterproof" Motorsprint Autumn gloves).

So near Bacchus Marsh we stopped at a servo, the kids each chose a bike/rider,
kitted up, hopped on and we blasted off the rest of the way to the Castle with
the poor smokey bus trying to keep up.

The day at Kryal Castle (http://www.ballarat.com/kryal.htm) was pretty good.
After a short ride up a winding cobbled path to the castle itself we were
greeted by the King and Queen as well as an assortment of brave knights and
lusty wenches. I thought we'd stumbled onto the set of Holy Grail.

We had a crack up feast waiting for us in a huge medieval style hall complete
with open fire and after some honorary knighthoods for a few of the kids we went
exploring. There's a lot to see, I highly recommend the torture chambers, some
very interesting apparatus in there, and of course the obligatory naughty wench
whipping was good fun.

A few of us were lucky enough to bump into King Keith in a corner of his castle
who gave us a personal tour of his neat collection of old motorcycles and cars.
Turns out the King owns the first ever Victoria Police radio police car (a
1920's Dodge with flat six and updraft carburettor. And it still runs.

Happily the weather stayed clear for the entire ride back to Melbourne.

As in all previous years, the CanTeens had a blast of a day clearly evident by
the happy chatter and huge smiles all day. And us riders had a lot of fun too I
reckon. Those who in the wet morning had decided to stay and press on were glad
they did.

Some pics of the day here:
http://tinyurl.com/rh55
(click on the thumbnails to view each image)

Pics of last year's ride here:
http://tinyurl.com/rphd

Info on CanTeen here:
http://www.canteen.com.au/


Stay upright,
Tony

 

<snip>

Hi Tony,

Nice one and good on you for going ahead despite the conditions. A few
years ago I had the distinct honour of spending an afternoon chatting with
Christine Rowell who was the CEO of CanTeen at the time. It's pretty
humbling to see how much some people give of themselves and to actually
contribute a little of your own time, especially to kids who've got it tough
is very rewarding. Those kids are often the happiest and most gracious. No
doubt they got a huge buzz out of those of you who voted to go on.

Enjoy yourself and no doubt you'll be along for the Pink Ribbon Ride eh?
We're on for Sunday here in Sydney - should be fun. (I'm not completely
selfless... at the end of the day I will support anything that contributes
to healthy breasts... hehehe).

Cheers,
Dave ZZR600 => ST2 (stolen) => '03 XX

 

G'day! I'm just wondering: who actually were the organisers? I can't find
any mention of the ride on canteen.org.au and the only publicity it seemed
to get was from yourself (IIRC) posting it to aus.moto and netrider. There's
also nothing on mraa.org.au except for the ride report Did CanTeen set
the dates etc, or what?

I would have loved to have gone, as I'm sure would hundreds of other
people - but firstly it was on the same day as the MotoGP (!!) and secondly
the publicity of the event itself was a bit late and a bit quiet. I don't
want to sit back and snipe from the sidelines and I'm happy to put my hand
up to help out with the organisation of similar events etc, but we need to
know about them first.

In a similar vein, what's happening with this year's Toy Run? Anyone know?
The date (14/12/03) is advertised in tiny print on mraa.org.au, and more
information has been promised closer to the date. It's less than a month
away now...

I'm really not trying to have a go at anyone, and my apologies if it appears
that way. What I'm trying to highlight is that there appears to be a handful
of volunteers who are trying to do way too much and are getting buried under
the mountains of work they've taken on. If there's anything we (unskilled,
un-knowledgeable peons that we might be) can do to help out, please - put
the word out.


Anyway, it's good to see that a good time was had by many on Sunday, and I'm
looking forward to next year's event.