Sunday at Mount Borah/Manilla

[Newie]

Thought I'd put up a story on what we did Sunday afternoon at the Round Up as not that many people were able to come along with us - and even less made it up the mountain.

Sunday morning we headed out for an easy run up the Gunnedah Rd to Lake Keepit with about 20 Mokes from memory. Some had to head home that day, so to accomodate as many as we could we planned the run to Keepit for an early lunch to allow people an easy run before heading home.

I should put in a thank you at this point to Mokercar's local friend Caroline who pulled some strings and got us into the Lake free of charge at the last minute  . She ended up tagging along with us and spent a good portion of the day piloting TLP's White Pig and had a great day.

MoeMoke and CabSav were the only ones to head off directly from the lake as they were heading that way anyway, but several others headed back to Moke Central after lunch to either head off from there or rest up ready for their last night and an early departure Monday morning.

As I led the morning run (and forgot while we were at the lake) I don't have any pictures of that part of it. Maybe someone else can post a few up?


Anyway, those of us with less strict schedules and more dirt friendly Mokes headed over to Manilla and then on to Mt Borah for the afternoon. We were privileged to be allowed up the mountain track as it is private property and is regularly used by paragliders, but normally you have to be involved with a paragliding association to be permitted access. It is unique in that it is apparently one of only two mountains in the world which can be used to launch paragliders in all four directions. Michael and Greg of KMC know the owner personally and arranged access for us 

The track up the mountain started off pretty reasonable and with Greg (KMC) leading the way, we had all of our party tagging along for a while. I sent my photographer along with Greg in the lead Moke to get some pictures.



There was a bit of trouble behind us about half way up with one of the convoy turning back when things got a bit rugged, then another one forced to do the same when he started to overheat  . This sort of blocked the track for those following, so the advance party of KMC, me, Smokey and Mazy pushed on towards the top assuming the others would catch up fairly soon.









I waited for the others for a while and let Greg, Smokey and Mazy keep going to the peak.




To be continued ................


Newie

[Newie]

Not Moke photos, but the views once we got to the top were awesome. We could get right up to where the paragliders took off  .












We did get some Moke pics up there too. Here are the hardy ones who made it all the way to the top



Left to right: KMC, HalfPint, Andy W, Me, Mazy, Terry, This Little Piggy

Sunday afternoon seemed to be the day for all the cool (yellow  ) Mokes to come out to play

Cool Breeze





Mazy



Andy W



Mellow Yellow was also there in her yellow Moke, but was in the group waiting for us down below.


After a while, we all headed back down to join the others and headed back into Manilla for a brief stop where we were attacked by the local paparazzi  . We were asked to pose for a shot at the "Welcome to Manilla" sign before making our way back to Moke Central.




Newie

[Halfpint]

Nice 
Was an awsome place, and a challenging climb
Maddog has emailed me about a way to retrieve some deleted files off my memory card. Thanks MD. .
Not being IT I had no idea, glad some can help.
I'll post the video of the climb when I can work it all out.
HP

[smokey]

  Great photos Newie thanks for your effort they are so real

              Smokey

[Newie]

Thanks Smokey. Most of the photos are Newie Jnr's. He has at least a dozen more each of the paragliders and you can actually flick through them on my computer and they turn into an old "flip book" style animation 


Newie

PS. Hope Maddog can work some magic for you and get at least some of your stuff back HP

[Biggles]

G'day Newie,
           Dang!  i'm sorry i missed that run on Sunday
It looked like a top spot plus a challenge too and you
know how much i like a challenge   Thank Matt for
the pics he did a good job

          biggles