THOMMO'S PILGRIMAGE

by Thommo

Fully fuelled, Mars Bar eaten, map looked at, I left Mudgee; riding up through Gulgong (the home of Henry Lawson) and Coolah (The Black Stump). I had intended to keep heading up the middle to Boggabri, but after seeing a sign saying "Warrumbungle Way" I decided that that might be a good road to travel and headed off on that up through Binnaway, coming out on the Newell Highway about 6 kilometres south of Coonabarabran.

Beyond the Black Stump

There's a cleaning job happening soon

Stats for the day...

I don't have a great deal to say about this road, apart from that the sign is definitely misleading. I thought that it might be a stonker of a road, but found it to be fairly uninteresting, a few fast sweepers is about it.

The run up the Highway back to the Qld border was very uneventful. I find the Coonabarabran to Narribri stretch to be the most boring bit I have had to ride on. After crossing the border at Goondiwindi, I kept heading north and stopped in at Moonie to clean the visor: the bug splatter on it had been annoying me for the last 200 kilometres.

While stopped I also fuelled up there instead of at Miles as I had intended. Mudgee to Moonie is around 600 odd kilometres. A few kilometres on from Moonie, my progress slowed somewhat. In the distance I could see this car that just looked odd to me, and as I got closer it sure was odd. A brightly decorated one with party lights. He was plodding along bang on the speed limit, and he knew the tricks too. Sitting behind most of them, one can pick up where they slow down up hills etc and, within a few kilometres you can work out where you can pass them when they slow up a fraction and not have the party lights light up.

Some will even slow up a bit, and indicate for you to go past them. As long as you watch your speed (GPS really helps here), you can cruise on past them, and after 5 or 6 kilometres put enough distance between you to open the throttle back up and keep moving along. But noooo, this guy sure was on the ball and I was stuck behind him all the way to Miles.Once in Miles and I saw that he was heading in the same direction north as me. I thought fook it, time for another stop. I had a cuppa and a nice real steak burger to get some distance between us.

Miles to Taroom is getting very rough, and the suspension really gets a good workout as you bounce all over the road. The only interesting event on this leg was a road train whose last trailer was really walking around.

Up to Banana and from Wowan to the cross roads at Dululu (about 10km) it bucketed down rain, which was good really; it gave the bike a bit of a clean for me. It was here that the sun finally went down, and with the roo toasters lit, I blazed the last 50 odd kilometres through to Mt Morgan, down the Razorback (I love that road) and parked the bike under the veranda after some 13 hours and 1300 odd kilometres for the day.