In case anyone's interested, I've put a gallery of photos up from this year's Ruptured Budgie rally, hosted by the Moto Guzzi Club of Queensland.

The only Ks in it are ours (well, apart from the 1600), but there are plenty of very nice or well-used airheads and the odd oilhead!

https://picasaweb.google.com/114943982869855054177/RupturedBudgie2012?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCP6d7MzmhM-aRA&feat=directlink

(Now let's hope Google lets the link work ... )

Cheers,
Jonathan

On my way South early Friday morning just outside of Warwick I was overtaken by and overtook several Moto Guzzis. One mad mob of four bikes were jackrabbiting to my tortoise. I reckon we passed one another four times. They seemed to stop at everything and I'd roll on by. Then they'd overtake me again at high speed. I'd been invited by an Airhead riding mate to the rally but already knew I was going down to Victoria for a few weeks. The weather would've been beaut! It's bloody cold down here in Victoria! Last night it was just under freezing, literally. I was forced to stop this arvo at an Aussie Disposals and buy two additional thin thermal layers, now I'm almost close to riding tropical again!

Thanks for sharing the pictures.

That Rally is only just over my back fence well almost (80km) and I have never made it, there always seems to be something else to get in the way.

Guest in the House wrote:The weather would've been beaut! It's bloody cold down here in Victoria! Last night it was just under freezing, literally. I was forced to stop this arvo at an Aussie Disposals and buy two additional thin thermal layers, now I'm almost close to riding tropical again!

Ha! It was one of the more pleasant Budgies! We've been going since, I think 2006 (can't check right now): On the first one, we were told by someone we bumped into north of Stanthorpe to not go because it was so wet and muddy (wasn't too bad, actually). We have gone to bed wearing every item of clothing we had, including boots, and not woken up too hot at any point (minus 5 sleeping bags), and last year we woke up with a thick layer of frost on everything.

This year was positively balmy by comparison!

Riding north to Brisbane on the Friday I passed a lot of bikes going there, including those 2 silver RS models. That was on the Cunningham hwy. On the Saturday I got talking to a guy on a GTR1000 at Warwick who was also on his way there. We had a good chat while I fixed my throttle.....

Passed you, eh, Saxon? Hope we spotted you and nodded!

It always interests me, riding to rallies, to see how many bikers aren't. We see so many laden bikes going in the same direction that a laden bike going in the other direction is a bit of a novelty.