For the second weekend in a row I was in NSW, this time for the WRC Rally Australia. And to be honest, the whole thing was massively underwhelming. I'd never been to a rally event before, certainly not a WRC one, and it might have been partly my fault for watching Group B videos, but I was really expecting to actually see some rally cars.

In reality, they only had 5 or so events with spectator areas (out of something like 35 stages), and those were mostly so far from the action, and behind barricades and temporary fences, that you could barely identify who's car it was let alone cop a Citroen in the face, Group B style.

The only people to get a decent view, besides the officials, were the farmers who setup deckchairs or a couch by their front gate, or in a paddock. They also wouldn't have gotten hassled for drinking beers. Honestly, drinking and motorsport have been going hand in hand since the very start, you nancys.

Really the only time you could see a WRC car up close was during the Super Special Stages through the centre of Murwillumbah. Other than that the best view was on the road sections between stages where they'd stop for roadside repairs or join the queue of traffic to the next stage.

And generally that was the most interesting part of the whole rally from a spectator point of view. Driving between stages, I mean. A gravel road was pretty much an excuse for to make up for the lack of action we'd seen from the rally, with a bit of handbrake entry to a corner. Or mid corner. Or on a straight. Or paddock. Whatever, its always a laugh.

The other thing that kept us amused on the long drives between stages were the anti-rally protesters. I couldn't quite get the gist of what they were protesting, presumably something about the risks to people, wildlife and global warming as a result of cars driving very fast on dirt roads. The Nimbin-based protesters were seemingly unaware of the irony of them driving hundreds of kilometres from their communes, starting fires, spraying painting 30 kilometres of Kyogle Rd with slogans "No Rally", and doing the same to signs, trees and (probably) animals. They also put boulders on the road, threw rocks at cars and apparently tried rolling roadblocks. We never saw it, in fact the hippies we saw looked fairly docile, probably because it was after bong o'clock.

And regarding the nature of the protests, I'd like to claim the moral high ground, but considering the fun I had hurling insults from the car at the "green-loving folk", it might be overstepping it a bit. That said, if the rally was anti-democratic (which is clearly true, because nobody would have voted for the frenchy Loeb), than the drive-by abuse was just part of the democratic process they were trying to establish. Free speech and all that, right?

Besides, the majority of the environmental damage done during the weekend wasn't caused by the rally cars. It was, in fact, caused by us on our way to the local pub from the farm house we were staying at. You see, there was a long and windy road from the farm that looped around the properties in the area and eventually to center town with the pub, or there was a few kilometres of scrub and a few cows if you took a more direct route. The drive was a fair bit slower, and we had to stop a few times to drag trees out of the way, or wait for animals to move. The beers however, were more than worth the effort. It was a typical country pub scene, a lonely drunk bloke at the bar slurred a question in our direction as we entered. I'm not sure what the question was, but if it had been "what time is it?", the answer would have been "about 10:30 in the morning". Yeah.

Not so in with the country pub feel were the fifteen or so hot (and surprisingly sophisticated) girls in black dresses complete with hats and fascinators who walked in 5 minutes later. Though, not surprisingly, they weren't dressed like that for the pub. The town, I should point out, I can't even remember, let alone spell. The fact that there was route for drunks to drive home without driving on gazetted roads I think is brilliant.

Other than the awesome pub, I came home a bit disappointed. I wanted to see more WRC action, but I think I would have enjoyed seeing more of the classics. The Mk1 Ford Escorts, XT Falcons and so forth might not have been the fastest, but they were easily the coolest, though I have no idea why someone would want to drive them at speed on gravel unless they had a death wish. Unfortunately, we had spent too much time at the said pub to see them on the gravel stages (they reversed the order). If I go next time, I'm bringing a couch and a TV and watching from some paddock (near a pub). And I'll use a Koala as a foot stool.

UPDATE:
Apparently my sister was one of the dirty hippies protesting the rally. I think I'll disown her.