For all you groovers, rockers, mods and if you don’t remember those terms or are too young to know, don’t worry, we have something for you all. Set down 6 March 2004 in your calendar as a date to remember. Get yourself and your partner into gear for the event of the year …. a nice easy hop about the hills in a gentle 6 hour event. In considering various options for locations, ranging from north of south Geraldton, Mt Gibson just north of Wubin, Cape Le Grand National Park east of Esperance, various places south of Albany and similar, we finally picked somewhere that is found in the Perth metropolitan street directory. That’s right, it’s right on the edge of suburbia, minutes only from almost anywhere (alright, it is a little distance from Bunbury but worth the drive). This means you have no excuse not to attend and a lot of good reasons to bring all and sundry with you.

Considering the bushland area and the tracks through it, we are setting an event for everyone and great to introduce a novice to rogaining. If you can only stroll a few hundred metres then you should at least clock up a few points and if you think you’re game then you can rock on to a few more far flung controls with a bit more challenge to get them.

As you might guess it is in jarrah forest and scrub which in places is a bit thick but the prevalent tracks will assist all but the most gung-ho. There are more than a few brown lines on the map and while distances as the crow flies may not be so huge, some of the vertical hops will compensate. Some of the views make it worth going to places just for that.

It’ll be something like a mini-Everybody’s where everyone gets to clock up a few points and have some fun.

As it is a 6 hour there will be no catering provided but then its only a few minutes up the road to the Loose Box for classic French one way and down the hill to KFC and Macca’s the other – who said we couldn’t provide some catering? We will have the gas barbie for a bring your own dinner and a bit of Danny and the Juniors for those who can remember. So altogether now…. Well, you can rock it, you can roll it, do the stomp and really stroll it at the Hop ….let’s go to the (Hovea) Hop.

Brian Austin and Jane Hardy