If you live near bushland in the lower Hunter you know about trail bikes.
First, there are the on-farm riders, the teenage boys churning dust clouds on their parents' hobby farms, mufflers discarded, launching thunderous noise across your little haven, infecting otherwise peaceful gardens, all the way into otherwise restful living rooms, bouncing off the walls of an otherwise productive home office.
There's no home schooling going on in the lives of these kids.
Then, there are the illegal forest riders. Every Sunday since the virus started, on my way to drop meals to my mum, I pass SUVs with bike trailers parked in the scrubby byways on the edge of bushland around Freemans Waterhole.
A look at Google Earth shows me the trails across forestry land and national parks that are on offer, flat lands to the east, and hilly trails towards the Watagans to the west.
With practiced stealth, the trail bike riders unload and bolt, on their illegal, noisy, damaging Sunday outings.
Perhaps reflecting the intelligence of those involved, many of the SUVs left in hiding are emblazoned with a company name and a mobile phone number. It would be easy for a local constable to make a friendly phone call, no?
With practiced stealth, the trail bike riders unload and bolt, on their illegal, noisy, damaging Sunday outings.
Later the riders re-assemble behind the rubbish skips at the servo, sitting on milk crates in mud-splashed boots and wannabe suits, pretending they're Chad Reed, and eat chocolate bars. And then they drive off.
No virus shutdowns for these guys.
Of course, this pounding of the Sugarloaf-Watagans nature corridor is common across the remnant forests and scrubby sand dunes of our region.
Regular newspaper reports of emergency assistance to trail bikers with spinal injuries map the problem. It's been going on a long time.
One popular site gets shut down but another opens, sometimes on idle private land with fences cut, gates left open.
Invariably, there are more illegal riders after rain, like now, less dust, more sliding mud, a wild demolition of a creek bed. So erosion ruts are deeper, more habitat is destroyed, as if they care.
There are around 250,000 registered motor cycles in New South Wales, according to the latest motor vehicle census. Figures from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) show sales of new off-road bikes roughly equals sales for new road bikes. Which suggests there are about 250,000 off-road bikes available for bush-bashing, neighbourhood bashing, and ear-bashing around the state.
Looking closely at the sales figures for Australia my tally shows over 11,000 of the 34,000 off-road bikes sold last year were designated as child or youth models. These are the noise bombs across the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie rural-urban fringe, 100 decibels on wheels, round and round a small property, mindless, endless.
Communities protest to local MPs, to councils, to police. A short period of abatement is negotiated after a series of United Nations sponsored talks. Until it all starts again.
With the virus, there is a new intensity, especially with the Hunter's dirt bike tracks closed. One clings to the hope that NSW schools will resume full-time soon, with truancy returning as the only impediment to a quiet day at work from home.
The battle over illegal bike use in the lower Hunter has been a losing one. The lead warriors are the state MPs, Clayton Barr for Cessnock and Sonia Hornery for Wallsend. They have run public campaigns against illegal trail bikes for years, police campaigns are launched, there are pleas for crime stopper information. A few regular offenders are fined, and so it goes.
It's a shame the battle can't be won. You'd think regular, informed policing would clean up obvious places where the laws are flouted regularly, like around Freemans Waterhole. The Watagans and Sugarloaf, and all the Hunter's remnant forests, should be prized destinations for walkers, mountain bike riders and horse riders. Instead, 200 kilogram packages of metal and flesh, at speed, dismissive of the environmental damage caused, take control.
Then there are the pathetically weak laws controlling recreational noise on rural land. In NSW the state government dumps the problem of noise on the desk of local councils. The constabulary is unwilling to act.
The no-schooler shrugs and rides on.
