Obversion Tour

It was a bright, sunny morning as we all arrived at our starting point, Macquarie Park on the Hawkesbury River at Windsor. There was a lot of eagerness displayed with all ‘officials’ and ‘contestants’ arriving early and keen to get started. The day had been planned as an opportunity to get out and enjoy the country. Although we had ‘contestants’ this wasn’t a race, simply a test of powers of observation while we all enjoyed a beautiful day out. The cars were organised into teams and the teams given their information packs.

These packs consisted of a rough‘mudmap’of the day’s trip, written turn-by-turn directions with odometer readings and questions the teams had to answer about what they observed along the route. There were a few rules, such as teams were not allowed to turn around and go back on the route and that the decision of the judges was final with no correspondence to be entered into. After taking this all on-board, the teams were ready to set off individually, zeroing their odometers at the park gate and then following their printed instructions. However, first to leave was Eric Raudkepp. As a facilitator for the day, Eric was to set up our morning tea stop.

Then off went the contestants at about oneminute intervals. Our other facilitator, Ian Baseby, set off about the middle of the group, to keep an eye on proceedings and then Pat and I set off as the tail-enders. Our route took us out through Freemans Reach and then to Kurmond, up the Bell’s Line of Road and on to Bilpin which was the end of the first section. After zeroing trip meters again, the teams followed Mountain Lagoon Road, answering the (sometimes) cryptic questions. The end of this section at Mountain Lagoon was our morning tea stop where Eric was waiting. As the various teams arrived, he reported that there seemed to be a few ‘lively’ discussions between team members regarding the answers! Ian Baseby was first away from morning tea, off to set up our lunch stop.

The teams zeroed their trip meters again at Mountain Lagoon and then headed onto the 4wd section of the trip. This piece of road had some deep ruts and washouts, but nothing that seriously troubled our vehicles. It was then onto Upper Colo, past the historic church and then across the Colo River and into Upper Colo Reserve for lunch. After a relaxing lunch, where the morning’s answers were marked (and discussed), we were off again, all teams with a new set of instructions and questions. Just up the road, we met Keith & Sue Walker who joined the group as Team 11. It wasn’t long before the afternoon’s route along Wheelbarrow Ridge and Sackville was completed and we all met at our final stop, the picturesque and historic Ebenezer Church. Soon, as all teams had submitted their final questions and they had been marked, we sat down to a very tasty afternoon Devonshire tea undercover in the Church’s small hall. (This was quite timely, as we had a small shower while inside).

The final results were all very close and in the end, the winning margin was only one point. The winning team was Team 7, the Learson family, who took out the winner’s prize of wine& chocolate. Congratulations to the winners and all who took part. I think it would be very fair to say that everyone enjoyed the day. We had good weather, good company and it all went very well. I would like to thank Eric Raudkepp, Ian and Suellen Baseby and Ted & Anne Rayment for working with Pat and I(on three previous recce’s) to set this up. Forthose who wanted to attend but weren’t able to make it on the day, we may be able to run it again. Watch out for it in the Trip Calendar, sometime in the future.