BoJ East Coast Road Hunt (Qld 2011)

[whiteballz]

10 days, 4000 Kilometers, Five Guys And all the roads you could ever want.

A little back story, For months I have been organising a road trip with the help of Clutch-Monkey, IB4R, a little known member called Shifty and my flatmate Ben. The goal has always been to find and drive the best roads on offer.

In the process of planning this changed from an international event (Fly to Ny and drive across the US), to a road trip around the east coast of Australia (Start in the north east and drive to Tasmania) We decided that doing it all in one go would be a bit too much for us to handle so we sized it down and will be doing multiple road trips each year to a state/region with the best roads.

Our first trip has just been completed.

Friday saw the two eurofags drive from Canberra to my house in Sydney. Day two saw us leaving pre-dawn up the Putty road through the New England Hwy to Brisbane.

Nice dawn.


Storm Pooper is not amused at riding in the back.


Leaving through Windsor was rather agricultural.


Putty Road always is enjoyable.


Not to mention very photogenic


We made it to Singleton before we encountered any police.
Cruising with three cars at 120 attracted the attention of the police but both Euro Hatchbacks (Golf GTI + Focus ST170) got waved on without a look.
My flatmates 180 however didn't avoid the gaze of the law.

While he got off lightly it breifly did dampen the mood.


Shortcut to arriving at Clutch-Monkeys house outside of brisbane the nissan finally succumbed to its heritage.


We ended up crashing fairly early after the 14 hour drive because we were attending the Club HighRollers cruise to Wivenhoe damn.

Despite some minor navigational mishaps it was a great success. Lots of great cars and awesome roads.






After bailing from the dam we decided to go hunting. And wow, we found some outstanding roads. Out little convoy consisted of Clutches 965 "Grimace" Porsche, Alexs' Focus ST170, Regis' Mk4 Gti and Ferdinands' Evo9.

Missing was Bens' 180SX due to an electrical fault and lack of wheels - we had Issues fitting his new rims over night.

(More photos shortly)

[whiteballz]

From the dam and the awesome roads we stopped at Kilcoy and had a classic pub lunch.


From there we continued on and SE Qld is certainly a great place if you love mountain roads.


Stopping for roadworks was a great excuse to jump out and grab a group shot.


Returning home on our first day in Brisbane left plenty of time to get some rolling shots.








Group Shot!

[whiteballz]

We went out to O'Reily's - Its a brilliant drive but I've come to the conclusion the only thing wrong with QLD roads are QLD drivers.

We stopped briefly to attach the GoPro camera to the back of the Porsche, so we can watch the Focus Chase through the twisties (way closer than you think).


The view on the way up is outstanding.


I sticker-bomb'd the Porsche without Clutch realising.


We then went on some massive trans continental (In reality about 12 KM) mountain trek. (Photos not included) where we stopped for lunch at a waterfall.

When we got back to the cars and rested for a short while we began the return journey home for Origin 3.

While we were in QLD the NRL "State of Origin" was on. Essentially it is a State Vs State battle of 3 matches in football. My state (NSW/Blues) is currently in an awesome losing streak of 6 years without the trophy. Clutches state (QLD/Maroons) are riding an all time high. Going into the final match on Wednesday the series was tied one a piece and I was hoping for a NSW victory as I was deep behind enemy and state lines.

Unfortunately NSW got beaten reasonably soundly and those supporting NSW at Clutch's house were thoroughly ridiculed.

Coming back home.


The Focus and golf shot ahead after Clutch stopped for the photo op.


It is a close shot between the two.


However Alex - the driver of the Focus ST170 had bigger balls and brakes thus getting the clean run down Tambourine Mountain.


All in all it was a big day, with the NSW loss marring an otherwise flawless 24 hours!

[whiteballz]

On Thursday after the loss we spent most of the day hanging around the house cleaning the cars for an intended photo shoot and small meetup across the city.

We started the day with a big breakfast care of Clutch's mum.



We then took the new chassis of the Triumph to get some work done and watched a movie (The dog didn't enjoy it)


After that we basically farted around and cleaned and polished all the cars.

Golf is not amused.


The mini in particular polished up well.




Props for waxing a car in pearls.

[whiteballz]

Next up was the GT3









Then Grimace



Then the Focus





We then proceeded to fart Arse around some more and play Mario kart and compare photos from the meet on Sunday.

[whiteballz]

I also got a chance in the beautiful afternoon light to practice my favourite form of photography - candid portraiture.

[whiteballz]

Some random shots from the week away.

I love Alex's Focus. Quick little thing.


Twisties!




The view from the top of one of our trips was outstanding.


The Focus Harassing the Porsche.


The Golf was not far behind.


Some of the GT3 photoshoot.




5:30 AM on sunday saw us departing from South East of Brisbane to Lions Road.
Which is pretty rough and pitted. However the sunrise on the way was beautiful (And cold!)

[whiteballz]

I'm still processing some photos that got uploaded to my PC out of order, So I'll be posting a few more in the coming days.

I will also throw up a few videos of some of the roads we took.

The general plan is to do another 10 days away in 6 months time in early/late January.
Probably down to the victoria/New South Wales border to take advantage of the alpine roads usually too icy and cold to take advantage of.

[Magnum9987]

That must have been quite a trip! I can tell you had a blast.

[f6fhellcat13]

Great stuff!
It's good to have you back, man.

[pimento]

That's a brilliant time had, good stuff. Slightly jelly.

[Kitdy]

Yeah, that was very nice! A well told story in words and pictures.

I was wondering where y'all were.

Do I spy a certain mini-Sam's sister?

[whiteballz]

You do, Sams' sister is a proud member of the BoJ since its inception way back.

[clutch-monkey]

here are a couple of pics from various forums from the first part of the drive we did on the sunday, quite the convoy.

[NSXType-R]

That looks really cool!

Nice shots.