2025 (Not The) Snowy Ride - Day 2

 DAY 2

Well, we weren't too shabby this morning but it wasn't a super-early start either. The plan for the entire trip, breakfast was to be around 8am with stands up at 9am. Today we needed to ride to breakfast at the Tathra bakery so it was a bit of a compromise. We were soon chewing on an array of pies, pasties and bacon n egg rolls, all washed down with a coffee of course.

Today we were heading to Bombala via Candelo, Wyndham and Cathcart. I hadn't ridden these roads since the late '90s and was I in for a treat! I had no recollection of the Mt Darragh road out of Wyndham to Cathcart but holy cow, it is a superbly surveyed length of twisting, turning smooth surface that had me grinning from ear to ear! I wish I had a camera rolling as the line of bikes snaking along in front looked so impressive. I will definitely return to this little patch of Oz again soon - maybe with a sports bike under me!

I did manage to stop just prior to Bombala to get a photo of this one lane bridge.

We stopped for fuel and a bite to eat in Bombala. I would have like to take a look around the town but was cognisant of the fact that I didn't know the route and we had already lost Richard, aka Speedy, not long after leaving Tathra.

We waited quite a while before he arrived. Luckily he has done The Snowy Ride quite a few times and knew the route. I grabbed a sandwich to stash in my bags for lunch later on as the guys chatted to a couple of other riders who were parked up at the service station.

Checking my tyres I noticed that I must have had the big Duke leant over a ways along the Mt Darragh rd section as the front knobby was used pretty much right to the edge. Pretty impressive grip for what is quite a hard compound rubber on a full-on off road capable tyre, under 300+ kilograms of bike, gear and rider!

Once Richard arrived we mounted up and headed out the Delegate road. The countryside was more open along here with rolling green hillsides. 

Through Delegate and onto the Bonang road for a bit and the road was getting tighter and twistier. Twenty two kilometres out of Delegate Thomas, Rick and I turned off onto McKillops Bridge road. We were going to tackle the dirt across to Omeo while the road riders would head further south to come back north to Omeo along the Great Alpine road from Bruthen.

McKillops Bridge road proved to be quite a long ride along a fairly narrow but well surfaced gravel road. Plenty of concentration was required, especially as some of the views were very distracting.

There were a couple of little communities waaaay out here too which surprised me. They consisted of just a few houses and the odd tennis court. Surely, it would be a hell of a lonely existence. Peaceful though I guess.

Being Australia, there was plenty of road kill too.

After quite a while (this dirt riding is relatively slow going) we arrived at McKillops Bridge. Some history on the bridge can be found here.

We took a break to eat lunch and as we did the group of ADV bikes that had been at the servo in Bombala pulled up to do the same. Turns out they were a bunch of Kiwis who has hired Honda Transalps in Sydney and were touring around.

I faffed around with the drone to get a bit of  "follow me" footage. I was hoping the Neo wouldn't play up as the bridge is very high and I wasn't sure how much wind was out there in the open.

It decided to lose me about half way across though. When I rode back it was hovering in the middle of the bridge at about 8ft and comically swinging too and fro as if looking for me. I jumped off the bike and stuck my hand under it. It promptly landed as if nothing was wrong! Phew!

After eating we mounted up and headed west again. I followed Thomas across.......

...... while Rick brought up the rear on his Guzzi.

Once off the bridge I took up navigation duties again. Conveniently, this kept me out of the dust.....

Stu had warned me to be careful as we climbed out from McKillops Bridge as the road is very narrow, winding and has significant drop offs into the valley. 

He wasn't wrong!

So I took it pretty carefully and luckily the only other traffic we saw were motorcycles. I really don't know how two cars or a truck would pass each other along here.

I stopped for a photo on the wrong side of the trail as it was the only flat enough spot to get off the bike.

Of course, two riders promptly came along! Sorry fellas!!

The road twisted its way up the mountains and I managed to find one place where I could pull over to take in the view and get a half decent photo of the valley.

Eventually the road opened out onto grassy hillsides and we could relax for a bit. How easy is riding on sealed roads?!!

We soon came to the intersection of Snowy river road, where we took a moment to stretch the legs and grab a drink of water.

Snowy river road alternated dirt/sealed for a bit before we turned left onto Limestone road. This road would take us to Benambra, then our overnight destination of Omeo. But first there would be a couple more hours of this....

and this.....

The road got much more narrow and winding but the surface was good. It just meant slow going for a while. I decided to stop at Native Dog Flat camping area to take a break. I had camped here in about 2017(I think) with the kids and some friends. I recall plenty of ADV bikes rolling past during those days camped here. Now I was finally back here and on a bike of my own!

Rick and Thomas were enjoying the riding and the scenery too. I was glad as I had dragged them a long way off the beaten path!

After a break we got going again. The road changed in a fairly significant-for-us kind of way. It had clearly just been graded and resurfaced after the winter and unfortunately for us there was a thick coating of loose stone on it.

I could feel the bike moving around a bit but at least I had proper off road tyres on and while we were climbing it was kind of fun to roost out of the corners.

Unfortunately, what goes up must come down! There were some quite steep descents into tight, slow corners. These took some effort to negotiate and I was glad I was on good off road rubber. Safely off the mountain I waited at the next intersection for the guys to catch up.

Yeah, I waited quite a while actually. Eventually the lads rolled up. Thomas had had an "excursion" into the drainage ditch along the side of the road on one of the steep, loose downhill sections as he was on 50/50 tyres and the bike just wouldn't stop or turn! Luckily for him the ditch caught him, otherwise he was going over the side apparently!

It wasn't that far to Benambra and there were no turns so I dropped back to tail end charlie to get some shots of the guys. Geeze, its a bit dusty back there!

Rick's Guzzi sounds amazing and I happily sat by his shoulder for a while just listening to it's throaty growl.

He was probably wondering WTF I was up to....

Yeah, this was pleasant riding, being able to get along at a reasonable clip again.

I was dead keen to have a beer at the Benambra Hotel and it didn't take much arm twisting to get the guys to stop.

Rick was loving it while Thomas may have been considering his life choices here....

As we didn't have far to go we stopped here for a while. I used this time to convince the lads that there was just one more dirt road that we needed to ride. I didn't even know it existed until Steve mentioned it to me yesterday. Apparently he has seen it in several YouTube vids that some ADV riders have posted up.

They agreed to take a look, so not far out of Benambra we took a right turn onto Parish Boundary road. It looked to be a straight road on the map but it turned out to be this awesome ribbon of dirt that climbed and dove, weaved and wound it's way across several hills.

I was soo glad we did this road!

It was bloody windy up here though. I almost got blown off the track while trying to catch up to the guys. Even the hawk was struggling with the wind!

The last few kilometres into Omeo were sealed. I think we were all cooked from the concentration required today so it was very welcome. I noted that someone was getting a slow down into Melbourne on this Friday afternoon (the contrail). The only way to lose time is to arc around the sky as the air traffic controllers in this country seem to not like using holding patterns. It must look bad in their delay stats....

Rick and I headed for fuel before the pub. We wanted to be ready for anything tomorrow!

The Golden Age hotel is a great place to stay with great food and a selection of craft beers on tap. We were staying here for two nights which gave us a chance to sample different menu options, which after seeing the steaks that came out for some of the guys put the steak at the top of my list for tomorrow - not that there was anything wrong with the slow cooked lamb that I had tonight.

It was "only" 356 kilometres on the bikes today but many of those kilometres were high concentration, so there was no need to be rocked to sleep tonight! 

Tomorrow was going to be an easier day, almost a rest day with a loop ride on unloaded bikes. Climbing into some of Australia's alpine region is always stunning and I was very much looking forward to it.

DAY 3 here.

Cheers.

Flinders Ranges Trip 2025 - The Ride Day 3

 There was no need for a super early start today as we were going to be looping out of Blinman and would never be too far away from home so to speak. 

The Blinman pub provides a complimentary continental breakfast in the dining room for guests staying in the pub.  Utensils and plates are left on a tray with your room number on it and you just help yourself to whatever cereal or toast and jam that you feel like.  Simple but effective!

We had decided for today to head 27km south along the sealed road to the Brachina Gorge turn off,  follow that track to the Bunyeroo Gorge turn that branched off left,  then follow Bunyeroo Gorge track all the way until it re-intercepts the main highway back up to Blinman, far to the south.  From there we weren't sure what to do but no doubt we could come up with a cunning plan. 

Riding carefully because of the kangaroo problem we were soon turning into the Brachina Gorge road.  It has had a lot of traffic lately and so was very dusty.  Riding side by side mitigated the dust but when a car came past we were blind for a bit afterwards as there was no wind to blow it away. #advriderproblems

Just a ho-hum view on Brachina Gorge rd. 

Ten kilometres later we turned into Bunyeroo Gorge road. We took a minute here to chat about the amazing views so far. Little did Steve know but it was about to ratchet the awesomeness up the "views" scale!

But first we had to traverse Bunyeroo Gorge road which was an undulating red ribbon flanked by pine covered hillsides. Not lush pines but those grizzled, knargled little shrubby ones that cling to life in the driest State of the driest continent...and it WAS dry!

Bunyeroo gorge itself isn't huge. It is simply where the water has cut through the low lying hills on it's way to lower ground. The "cutting" of the gorge is lined with big old gum trees. We stopped here for a while for Steve to get his camera out. 

After sitting there for five minutes I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. Focusing in on it I realised that these rock wallabies had been sitting quietly, not twenty metres from us the whole time. There was some water seeping down the rock and they were slowly getting a drink by licking the rock. See if you can spot them...

How that massive gum tree grew there and is still standing is a miracle! 

Pressing on along the sandy creek bed the road opened out onto solid ground again and we began climbing. We climbed up to arguably one of the best lookouts in South Australia, The Razorback Lookout.

We spent quite a bit of time here this morning taking photos and video ( which I will hopefully figure out how to edit in the future...).

Steve and the big AT cruising up to the lookout. 

From the lookout we kept heading south along Bunyeroo Gorge rd back to the main Flinders road. The riding was mostly open, fast riding but we were in no hurry so took it pretty slowly. There was just so much to look at, so why rush?

GoPro Hero 6 still. 

Southern Bunyeroo rd. 

Once at the sealed road I mentioned to Steve that we were only ten kilometres from Wilpena resort. Why not go there, fuel up, grab a coffee and morning tea then?

So we did.

Coming back north we stopped at the National Park border for a photo with Wilpena Pound's imposing presence dominating the skyline.

Then it was back along Bunyeroo Gorge rd to get back to the intersection of Brachina Gorge rd, where we would turn left and head west.

 

Yeah, it was a tough morning on the bikes....

Whereas Bunyeroo was small and narrow, Brachina Gorge is a huge wide opening in the ranges with a dry river bed that is almost the complete width of the gorge - perhaps 100 metres in places. 

When it does rain enough here the flow must be incredible. The damage to the upstream side of the gum trees from the flotsam that gets washed along was two to three metres up the tree trunks. 

The sandy road/river bed is quite easy riding as it is compacted on the main line. It is a bit more beach like off that line but nothing too terrible to ride on - especially if one sticks to the rocky bits.

Every direction one looked, there was another stunning view. We stopped so many times through this gorge to take photos that I was beginning to worry about wearing my side stand pivot out!

So we got mobile with the DJI Action 4.

Climbing slightly above the river bed we could see the road curved around to the left at the base of a huge red cliff.

A few cars were stopped and the occupants were out taking photos of the imposing wall. We were marveling at the view that they had their backs toward. Like I said, everywhere you look here there is a stunning view!!

The western side of the gorge became much more rocky and we bounced along this roughly graded track for a kilometre or so before climbing out and over the western edge of the Flinders.

Once you exit the narrow north/south band of ranges that are the Flinders, the plains are dead flat either side. It is quite spectacular how it goes from dinner table to rugged outcrops instantly.

I had a plan to head north via the main Outback Highway for twenty kilometres to check out the tiny hamlet of Parachilna (Para-Kill-Na), where if we were lucky, the pub would be open.

Turning into Parachilna the little place was buzzing with tourists. A very different sight to when I was here in 2022. And the best thing was that the Prairie hotel was open.

Walking in I must say I expected a pub with a lot of outback "character" ie dirty and run down looking but I was gobsmacked when it was sparkling brand new! It could have been a brew pub in any capital city! (which is not a bad thing IMHO)

The Parachilna Brew Project integrates micro brewery beer brewed on site, great food, accomodation and local tourist attractions into one humble little pub. Good on 'em!

The original reason for being for Parachilna was as a railway stop on the Ghan Railway that ran from Adelaide to Alice Springs. The old railway station is open with information boards erected on it's walls. There is also some old railway kit outside with various information signs.

We tested a few of their beers to wash down the sandwiches we had bought back in Wilpena Resort this morning. They were pretty tasty beers actually!

We then headed back into The Flinders to complete our big loop back to Blinman via Parachilna Gorge road - YES, another gorge!!

We dispatched the ten kilometres of tabletop road without much ado and were back into the Flinders, soon crossing the dry river bed of Oratunga Creek. But we didn't go far along the road, turning left into Glass Gorge road, which would take us back into Blinman from the north side of town.

Glass Gorge road starts out very narrow and windy. The sandy surface was also very soft with both of us having front end moments as we tried to navigate the tight bends. An oncoming car didn't help the pucker factor here either as the road is only just wide enough for two cars to pass, with rocky walls on either side. It certainly didn't help that I still had my steering damper wound up and could barely turn the bars. Lets just say that was quickly backed right off!

Just four kilometres along Glass Gorge rd is a little lookout perched on top of a steep little climb. I didn't give Steve a chance to say no, just blazing up there and telling him to do the same. The short effort was so very worth it with great views across to Mt Falkland.

We had trucked a couple of cans of the Parachilna beer for the very purpose of enjoying them here as we soaked in the view.

Cheers!

4K image from the drone. 

We didn't have far to go back to Blinman now so we loitered at this lookout for quite a while. Once on the road again Glass Gorge road proved to be a little bit of everything, going from undulating twists and turns to more open, fast sections. We were a bit careful along here though. Yesterday at the pub we got talking to a guy who rode up on a mountain bike. He and some mates were doing a supported tour of the Flinders and he had just ridden in Glass Gorge road where he said a kangaroo had (I kid you not) jumped into his mate's head, knocking him off his bike. Looking at some of the faster downhill sections that had raised earth on the sides of the road, I could see how it was completely possible. 

Bloody stupid Aussie wildlife!!

We rolled back into Blinman around mid afternoon. Taking a short stroll around town we checked out some historical information on what was where when this was a mining town.

We then retired to the beer garden at the North Blinman Hotel to watch the sky change colour with the setting sun.

Ahhh, the serenity!

Another awesome day, fooling around on bikes and enjoying the odd beer with my little Bro. 

Does it get any better than this?

Cheers.

Day 4 here.