Not A Mid Life Crisis (Part II)

 DAY 3

An early start was on the cards today. I had made an "appointment" to meet my Dad for coffee at the local bakery in Forbes at 10am. I reckon that nobody has ever made an appointment with Dad for a coffee (old timey bush mechanic all his life) and since Mum passed away in mid 2020, Dad has been a bit lost. I thought my surprise visit might cheer him up and get him out of the house.

Now, the problem is when I set the meeting time I only had a vague idea of how long it would take to get from Rylestone to Forbes. With (very) limited internet I texted my brother for a Google Maps appraisal. Maps reckoned it would take 3hours and 45minutes to do the 276km.

Fcuk! 

So, to be there at 10am I would need to be on the road at just after 6am! Not good as that was just on first light. There wouldn't be many Skippys on the road at that hour...! 😟

I set the alarm for stupidly early, struggled all of my gear out of my room, being careful not to lock myself out of the pub until my stuff was all outside, then fumbled in the dark with the combination lock that was on the shed the bike was in.

Loaded up and on the road I took it very steady at 80km/h. It was a bit foggy this morning so that didn't help with the Skippy spotting. As I made my way through Kandos it started to feel cold. Maybe the loading exertion was starting to wear off but the temperature guage did indicate 10C. That is cold for a Queenslander where the temperature hadn't been below 26C overnight in the previous week!

A few big eastern Greys loped across the road just to the west of Kandos and even the 80km/h felt fast as I braked to give them more room. Breaking out of the tree cover I had the most beautiful vista across the valley. 

Now THAT was singularly worth getting up for!

Just a few kilometres further on I turned south on the Castlereagh Highway and looking back East was just - WOW! As much as I hate early starts these days, the reward is worth it. 

I followed a delivery van for quite some time toward Sofala. I was happy to have him running interference for any potential roos that may be loitering by the road. Yes, I know (and have seen) plenty of roos jump between oncoming traffic but it made me feel better nonetheless. The twisty bit of road dropping off the range just west of Wattle Flat is hot mix asphalt and would be my second home if I lived in Bathurst or the surrounds. What an awesome bit of road!

I blasted straight past Sofala. Having seen it a few times it doesn't do anything for me these days (but if you haven't seen it, it is a must do). No, I didn't have any time to waste this morning. I really wanted to get to Orange ASAP so as to guage how I was tracking re my 10am appointment. Bathurst is always a slow traverse but I did find a new short cut that meant I didn't have to get on the Great Western Highway at Kelso and dawdle all the way through every traffic light in town. Hereford Street,  new bypass has been built since I last came from that way and I reckon it saved me 10 minutes.

There were extensive road works between Bathurst and Orange which again slowed progress. On the outskirts of Orange I elected to take the new-ish town bypass, again to save time. 

Well, what is the point of a town bypass if businesses move out of town to be lined along it and then the speed limit is dropped because there is so much traffic exiting and entering the road to access said businesses? Logical I guess but annoying too.

Luckily, I was running well to schedule and I decided to stop at the brand new to me Maccas for a muffin and a coffee, plus to catch my breath.

I also grabbed some fuel just up the road and was right for the last 120km or so. You can usually wind the wick up a bit west of Orange (well, you could 25 years ago) to make up time. At least when I got stuck at road works it was pretty easy to round up the conga line of traffic.

I made a super quick (as in just ride up onto the footpath) photo stop in Eugowra to get some snaps of  some of the murals. Eugowra's claim to fame, apart from being our family's settling place once off the boat in the late 1800s, is the hold up of the gold stage coach just outside of town in 1862. Ben Hall and his gang did many a dastardly deeds back in the day and I sort of find it slightly unsettling/amusing that all these small towns cash in on this past infamy. I guess you do what you gotta do, then and now. 😶

With only 34km or so to go I made it at 10:02! I hopped off the bike and wandered inside. No Dad, despite his car being outside. Wandering back out to the car, there he was, sitting in it. There was no way he was going inside by himself to wait! Did I mention he doesn't get out much? 😐

I spent the next three or four days hanging out and helping with some jobs that he can't do any more. I can see it is frustrating for him as he was one of those guys that never asked for help because he COULD do everything himself. Mechanic by trade but capable of tacking any job. They don't make 'em like Dad any more.

DAY 4

After a few days at home I was coming into my reserve days. I had planned to just drop the bike in Sydney at Steve's house and fly home but as I hadn't been called in to work by the Saturday night I was rolling into another bunch of days off! Good for me, bad for the airline - things are still pretty quiet as far as air travel goes. This gave me another 7 days clear so I decided to go for it and booked the boat to Tassie for the Tuesday morning. A day sailing was the cheapest all week AND it happened to suit my time frame. YEAH!!

A quick tub for the steed to knock the bugs off and I loaded up, bid Dad farewell and hit the road toward south....er...Grenfell. But not before I was stopped by probably the only train to go through Forbes each day. And my, wasn't it a looong one! 😏

I was in Grenfell in no time at all, despite stops for photos, so snapped a photo of their silo art as well.

Next stop, Young. The road from Grenfell to Young is an interesting ride and every time I do it, it takes me back to the mid '90s when Steve and I heading to or from Phillip Island for the races...or us heading to the Snowies for a weekend. Good times and this is what it looked like.....

Steve on his ZX9R somewhere near Young C1998.

I stopped in Young only long enough to get a photo of the town hall before continuing south. I had a loose plan to make Tumbarumba tonight, which was 4 hours from Forbes and as I left at 4pm, there wasn't a lot of spare daylight.

The road from Young to Cootamundra is a pretty decent ride, as in just interesting enough to keep you focussed. I didn't stop in Coota but bypassed it for the Gundagai road to Coolac. It was warm and I had an idea to stop at thge Coolac pub for a cold one before pressing on. The road was quite entertaining, if a bit beat up in places but I made it to Coolac in good time, jumped off the bike to be greeted with a bunch of G'days from the drinkers on the verandah. bloody friendly place this!

I don't recall it being called the Beehive Hotel but then, I don't think we ever stopped here back in the day. We just blasted past as it was too close to home.

Next was a section of the Hume Highway where I dropped every vehicle as I stuck to the 100km/h my GPS said I was doing. Don't people wonder why all the trucks pass them when they are supposedly "speed limited"? Anyway, past Gundagai to the south Gundy turn off for Tumut. I used to love this road back in the day. It was where you could see the countryside changing and the roads became much more interesting. Well, a lot of the sharper bends have been taken out and the road consists of plenty of big, high speed sweepers these days. Nice on the right bike I guess...

The Poplar trees lining the road into Tumut always give me a flutter in the stomach. I can still remember like it was just yesterday driving into Tumut, on the way to a fishing trip to Anglers Reach at Lake Eucumbene with Dad when I was 7 years old. We had 2 Slim Dusty tapes in the old XB and I was in charge of playing them non-stop-all-the-way!

No Slim today but there would be Lights On The Hill later on.

I have heard my brother rabbit on about the Rosewood Raceway for years now but have never ridden it myself - until today. After I missed the turn at Wondalga and had to U-turn and come back. 🙄  I turned left and almost immediately saw the road marking turn to yellow. Oh, this was a good sign!

Holy.Heck.

This road was clearly built to service the logging industry and wound it way through the forests. Well, it would have if ALL of the forests hadn't burned down in the 2019 east coast infernos. Wondering why the price of timber for housing is going through the roof(haha)? Well, because thousands of acres of pine plantations went up in smoke in 2019.This left a perfectly sealed, winding road with almost unlimited sight lines just sitting out here. 

What.To.Do?

O.M.G. this is a good road!

A few rises were a bit concerning as the sun was level with the road surface and I had a couple of moments where I suddenly could not see at all. Probably should have been going east at this time of day! I saw no kangaroo activity but got a fright as a small deer shot out of the grass on a collision course but then veered off, all in the blink of an eye! There are also very few speed advisory signs on the corners, so the first run across should be seen as a “sighting lap”. 

I’ll be back..😎

I turned left at Rosewood and rolled into Tumbarumba at last light to grab one of the last rooms in the pub. 

The $50 for the room included a free beer. I was just too late for the kitchen but the barman, despite being mega busy, called the bowling club to get their kitchen to wait for me to pop around. He then gave me another beer for my trouble. Fuggin' champion! Of course that made me even later for my Chinese food at the bowlo. 😄Once collected after a short walk,  I took this back to the pub for another discounted beer (I reckon he was sweet on me....) where I watched the locals knock their balls around while I ate.

Yeah, not a bad day at all.....AND I was headed for Tassie, not Sydney. 😎

 

To be continued......