2018 Christmas Toy Run - details

Just a quick reminder that the Toy Run is on this coming Saturday - 8^th December. The ride starts at 10.00am from Old Parliament House. Coffee and BBQ Breakfast will be cooking from 8.00am.

Please bring gifts and gift cards for the kids, and non-perishable food for families, to help make those less fortunate than us enjoy their Christmas.

Also, we’ll need a few volunteers to help with the BBQ and to clean up afterwards.  

See you there!

Ulysses Orange Newsletter - November 2018

Ulysses Orange Branch November 2018 Newsletter

Ulysses Albury Wodonga Newsletter - November 2018

Ulysses Albury Wodonga November 2018 newsletter

2019 Postie Bike Challenge

Discounted rate till Dec 31 - $4950 Route is Birdsville track, Brisbane to Adelaide.

More info here >> https://www.postiebikechallenge.org/?fbclid=IwAR1CvQNRRFR11ivnwdhjPOHuQIT2z0yNfp62gh6Hd37xcisGaSWCWNx5OCs

Ride (Drive) Report - Remembrance Day to Bateman's Bay, 11 November 2018

For those of us that live in Canberra’s Eastern Suburbs, for any rides west, where the meeting point is Nicholls, a day’s ride is automatically one hour longer as it takes us half an hour just to meet up with everyone. So we thought for Remembrance Day we would travel to Batemans Bay for their Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the World War One Armistice.

I am related, by blood or marriage to a few names on the Batemans Bay memorial. McMillan, Bettini, Backhouse, and Patrech are all in my family tree. But it was for Alexander McMillan, my great great uncle, that we travelled to the Bay.

Alexander was the 14th of sixteen children born to John McMillan and Ellen Backhouse. He was born at Batemans Bay and the family lived at South Durras.

Alexander enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in Sydney on 3 September 1914. He was 24 years old, single and employed as a sawyer (presumably in the family business). He joined the 13th Battalion, one of the first battalions to be raised, only six weeks after the declaration of war. The battalion left Melbourne for Albany on HMAT Ulysses 22 December 1914 arriving in Egypt in February 1915. Along with the rest of the 4th Brigade, under the command of then Colonel John Monash, the 13th Battalion took part in the landing at Anzac Cove, arriving late on 25 April 1915.

I don’t know which ship took Alexander to Gallipoli for the landing, but I do know that it is a bullet ridden lifeboat used by the 13th Battalion that greets you at the start of the WW1 gallery at the Australian War Memorial.

Surviving the landing, Alexander was shot in the left leg on 2 May and was eventually evacuated to the 1st Australian General Hospital in Heliopolis. He lingered for a few months as doctors tried at first to save his leg, and then his life. He died 7 August 1915 three days before two of his sisters arrived to check on his well-being. How did two civilian women travel half way around the world in the middle of a war? Was this common? I’m yet to find this out. Alexander was buried in the New Protestant Cemetery, Old Cairo, and to the best of my knowledge no relatives have ever visited his gravesite.

Alexander’s surname is spelt incorrectly on the memorial in Batemans Bay and the dates of the war are incorrect. According to the RSL, the people of Batemans Bay were so traumatised by the loss of so many local men so soon into the war that they wanted some sort of recognition immediately and so the memorial was created in 1917.

Alexander was just one of the 62,000 Australian men and women who lost their lives so we could live as we do today. RIP Great Uncle Alex.

Words by Tracey Winters

Christmas Toy Run - 8 December 2018

The 38th Annual Motorcyclist's Toy Run is on the 8^th December. The ride starts at 10.00am departing from outside Old Parliament House.

Roll up from 8.00am for a pre-ride coffee and a tasty breakfast treat from the Ulysses Canberra Branch BBQ. 

Please bring gifts and gift card for the kids, and non perishable food for families, to help make those less fortunate than us enjoy their Christmas.

Volunteers from the Canberra Branch are required to help with the BBQ and with the clean up afterwards.

Ride Report - Eden (no Mogo) - 21 October 2018

I had intended on going on the 0800am Eden ride today, even timing my awakening to perfection, allowing enough time to get the bike out of the shed, put my riding gear on and ride off knowing I would arrive on time. That's where all my prior planning fell over.  I normally carry one key card on me which I keep in a safe place, however the last thing I checked was the safe place .... oh shit.... the card is not there!!

I spent the next 30 mins with the wife frantically trying to find it...... card located in the washing basket....shit!

Now I was really late, instead of fashionably on time.

Shit again....

I rang Matt who I assumed was still going only to find that just two riders turned up and both on GTR1400s.

Matt and Chris were willing to wait so I rushed through my earlier routine and shot off to Hume on my GTR.

Three other guys arrived at the Hume Servo (one of them a Ulysses member) whilst I was in transit. All three were going to Mogo, so after a very quick carpark meeting - Mogo was the new destination.

We departed Hume at 0915am and rode through Queanbeyan via Lanyon Drive.  I had a minor verbal altercation with a moron car driver texting his way past the Queanbeyan Police Station. I continue to be amazed by the ever increasing levels of dumbness in our society and on our roads. The numpty car driver actually wanted me to pull over to discuss in detail his reason for texting. I was so tempted....

The ride along the highway to Bungendore was uneventful and quite pleasant for those on the GTRs with built in hand warmers. Believe it or not 11 degrees feels a lot cooler at 100kph.
A good Samaritan in a 4x4 flashed us so we accordingly monitored the road ahead only to find.... nothing. Gee thanks for the heads up.

Traffic was light and didn’t really inhibit us at all, the weather was also getting better by the minute with respect to the amount of cloud dissipating.

We stopped at Braidwood and had a heart starter and a pie. And then continued to the coast via a very smooth highway through the mountains. The road was damp but not wet so our overall pace was quite good.

There was an increase in cloud over the Clyde but no rain and the cloud cleared completely at Batemans Bay and Mogo.

We had lunch in a Cafe I can’t remember the name of which was opposite a Servo whose name I cannot recall either. But lunch was nice and hit the spot.

After a quick refuel (Chris headed south to watch his daughter jump out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft) we set off back to Bungendore along a now fully dry Kings Hwy. Suffice to say, we all enjoyed the ride back through the twisties as the temperature had improved to 21deg. We stopped at Bungendore for another coffee break prior to all of us heading in different directions.

So after a crappy start for me, the day ended with an incident free 350km (approx) ride. This is my first ride report.... be gentle.

Signed, Cooch

Riders:

Chris D              GTR1400 with Coms
Matt H               GTR1400 with Coms
Cooch               GTR1400 with Coms
(No Coms compatible - go figure)