In what seems to have now become a tradition, any semblance of biker sanity is chucked out of the window whilst selecting a venue for the Wildcats Christmas Party.

This years announcement that the final destination was the Warrumbungles in the middle of winter, had the manufacturers of winter apparel for bikers rubbing their hands with glee at the potential upsurge of sales to the Wildcats, and, no doubt all the hospitals en-route were on a red alert standby ready for potential cases of severe hypothermia and frostbite, however, wrapped up in enough clothing to give the Michelin Man a run for his money and with the thought, that, ‘if it was easy, everyone would be doing it’ the Hunter Valley contingent headed west. Around mid afternoon Friday saw us arriving at the Warrumbungles Holiday Camp, it’s situated a few klicks out of Coonabarabran, and was far enough from civilisation to allow for a bit of hair letting down without worrying about what the neighbours thought, although, given how cold it had been for the ride over there, I personally reckon it’s biggest asset was the massive fireplace filled with a couple of tree trunks that were throwing out enough heat to singe the feathers off low flying geese heading north for winter, it only took about thirty seconds standing in front of the fireplace to defrost the entire body and then you had to retreat about five metres to avoid cooking, fellow Wildcat, Mond, being local to the area, had done a top job organising the weekend, and would have gone close to challenging Brazil with the amount of deforestation he had done supplying logs for the fire.

The agenda for Friday night was a damn good feed at the very biker friendly Coonabarabran Hotel, and their hospitality certainly set the mood for the rest of the weekend.