Brmm, Brmm

Old Pat was nearly wiped out when she drove out of our drive! The other bloke took evasive action by heading into the long grass on the verge, but Pat was completely oblivious and puttered out to the main road. We have warned her that exiting our drive has become dangerous but at 80 her driving days are numbered and habit is her main driving force.

Pat is the only person to live on this road longer than us, and we built our house here 33 years ago. Then there were five permanent lived-in residences, the forest headquarters, the sawmill and a handful of holiday cribs. We pretty much regarded the road as our personal driveway.

Now there are some thirty permanent lived-in residences, no forest headquarters – but the area is now a camping ground, no sawmill and twice as many holiday cribs! As well the forest is used by mountain bikers and hikers who seem unable to read the black writing in the middle of a red and white circular sign.

Outside our drive, to the left there is a dip in the road where it crosses a small creek; the dip starts about 30 metres away and another 30 metres to where an approaching car is not visible. We ask people leaving here to stop and count to five before driving onto the road.

There is a speed limit of 70kph, which is probably a bit quick and it is a good thing we are all oldies with no small kids around – usually.

In the past nobody used to travel more than 60kph, but the newer residents see the road as part of their daily commute and travel as fast as they can, making it a bit more dangerous to exit our property and very the reason old Pat was nearly wiped out.

We were treated to a special pleasure the other weekend. A petrol-head convention otherwise known as a car rally! The actual rally was up in the forest and the cars were merely ‘ferrying’ along our road -not only the rally cars but also their carers, handlers and marshals as well. All of them were in a hurry and some for the rally cars had no respect for the legal speed limits they should have adhered to – others followed the rules ok.

You would think that the organisers of the event would have alerted the residents, but that did not happen. We all found it a bit intimidating coming and going from our properties. And why do they have to be so rowdy?

The rally passed through twice – in and around the forest then out, and later in and around the forest the other way and then out again.

Sure motorsport is massively popular but that doesn’t include everyone.

Back in the day, the local car club pestered me to allow them into the forest to have a whiz around but I remained staunch until a deputation of guys turned up because they were planning an international rally sponsored by some tobacco outfit. I relented and Reg whizzed me around the proposed course, roads I knew like the back of my hand, unable to freak me but increasing my aversion to crazy driving.  

I had to have two fire crews standing by to pounce and reluctantly allowed spectators access to the forest.

The top gun, seed, petrol-head, honcho or whatever you call him didn’t last five minutes! There had been snow and a shady area produced black ice causing him to slide off the road into a swap and become bogged!

A number of the cars fell off the road but none caught fire and the fire crews enjoyed pulling them back onto the road.

Whizzing around the roads swept the gravel off the carriage-way and the cost of road repairs was considerable – grader and hire of trucks to replace gravel. Do you think the organisers of the rally were interested in coming to the party? They didn’t want to know! The forest had to carry the cost and the cost of the fire crews –just so petrol-heads could reach a petrol-fumed orgasm!    

But that’s not all, the spectators wanted to emulate their heroes and whizzed around the course in their cars faster than their driving ability could cope! We spent until dark cleaning up and pulling numbnuts out of the scrub.

Other spectators decided to take the opportunity to have a little picnic and boil the billy over a little camp fire. Anyone with a couple of beans to rattle in their heads knows you don’t light fires in a forest!

One particular bunch of drunks took exception to a polite request to bugger off, and so took a regulation dousing along with their fire.

No more car rallies for me!