Once again this event loomed large over the Easter weekend and promised live entertainment on both the Friday and Saturday nights. Due to other commitments I planned only to pop down Saturday night for the band but finding I had nothing dramatic to do on the Sunday morning, I decided that for an extra £4 I could take my tent and not have to organize a cab home on the night. Plus I would get a shiny metal badge and complementary bin-bag.
The weather had been a bit damp so the site was getting rather muddy in the main thoroughfares. I found a vacant plot and lost no time in getting the tent up in case it decided to rain some more. The camping areas were about half full at that point (late in the afternoon) and there were three or four stalls near the clubhouse including some familiar faces in the shape of Mark and Lorraine from Broadway Leathers. They had equipped themselves with a larger tent this year, which made it easier to stroll around and browse the goodies on offer. I had a pint or two and a chat with them before carrying out the next part of my clever strategy, namely to sneak off home again (remember it's only about 4 miles away) for a nice hot dinner.
That done it was back to the site to park the bike and head for the bar which was filling up nicely with punters. Anecdotal reports suggested that the Friday night entertainment (billed as Stevie and his mandolin) had been somewhat underwhelming but the two bands on the Saturday were anything but. The first was a group of young guys (and I mean young!) by the name of Black Dog who knocked out some Pearl Jam-style originals and some recognizable heavy covers including a storming version of Rage Against The Machine's "Killing In The Name" - not easy to do convincingly.
By that point several Bexley members had arrived: Gary and Jackie, Lee and Tracey, Bob, Andy and Lee plus new-ish members Steve and Brenda and friends. An unexpected addition to our ranks also appeared in the person of Shelley, who had only left the Isle Of Wight at around 5 p.m. and had done well to get all the way up to the site in the intervening time. As darkness had descended, I lent some assistance in putting her tent up and before too long we were back in the bar with the others.
The second band Voltage followed and romped through a good set as we got stuck into the beers and a bit of jigging about. Eventually things began to wind down and the sensible people headed for home. I headed for my tent, recalling Mark and Lorraine's graphic descriptions of how cold it had been the previous night. A similar situation prevailed for the next few hours as I huddled fully-clothed in my sleeping bag; if I could have got inside with my jacket on I'd have worn that as well.
Still I must have got some sleep because I woke up around 9 a.m. to the sounds of people packing up. I decided that a quick get-away would work best and that breakfast could wait until I was home. So: sleeping bag into the top box (yeah, a bit naff for a rufty-tufty bikers' rally but damn convenient), down came the tent, strap it on the bike and point the front wheel at the exit. Once home there was just time to have a bit of breakfast, sort out the tent and switch bikes for a dry run down to the Pied Bull for an hour or two relaxing outside in the sunshine. Lovely.
This was another well-organised rally right on our doorstep and the fact that it clashed with the Highwaymen's bike show in Chilham did not seem to be a major problem - I gathered that some rally-goers had taken a ride down there in the afternoon.