Gilgandra and Mudgee
8-10 October 2011

Riders: Trevor McLeod, Peter Arday, Bruce Black, David Robinson, Chris Dietzel, Nick and Therese Hicks, Brian Agius, Andrew Campbell, Ian Paterson.

We gathered at Nicholls bright and early on Saturday with nobody really sure whether or not to put on wet weather gear. Andrew solved the problem by donning a brand-new pair of high-tech rain pants covered in zips, corsets, Velcro and hidden features. It took him a while because he didn’t have the instruction manual but eventually we were ready and headed off with Trevor in the lead.

There was a fair bit of traffic as it was a long weekend but by the time we got onto Burley Griffin Way we had left most of it – and a few rain showers – behind. The countryside looks fantastic after the spring rain and everywhere we looked there were green pastures and wheat crops and golden canola flowers. We had a coffee break at Young and rode via Eugowra (where we dodged around a nasty looking storm) to Parkes for lunch in a little café in the main street. This set the tone for the rest of the trip as Peter left the waitresses looking a little baffled but laughing anyway. Nick and Therese went visiting rellos and so missed out on all the fun.

We shot up the Newell, enjoying the restored 110 km/h speed limit and mostly good road surface, and turned off at Tomingley for a pleasant ride to Narromine, with its beautiful main street, and eventually Gilgandra. We stayed in the Gilgandra Motel, which was pretty good as country motels go. It was only a short walk down the rather dowdy main street to a pub for a couple of welcome ales and back again to the Chinese restaurant next to the motel for a rowdy banquet dinner.

Bruce had to return to Canberra for work so on Sunday morning we were down to eight bikes as we headed north on the Newell to Coonabarabran for coffee and cake. From there we turned off in bright sunshine into the Warrumbungles and up to Siding Spring Observatory. It’s a spectacular road that twists and turns past rocky crags and peaks but as you might expect it’s a bit bumpy in places. You can go inside the observatory and check out the huge telescope, and there is a magnificent view of the ancient trachyte spires of the ’Bungles and the billiard table-flat plains to the west.

We rode back to Coona, headed south on the Newell for a few kilometres and turned left for a great run to Coolah. This is only a small town but it has a couple of pubs and a nice little café that unfortunately had run out of pies. They served the tea in beautiful china teapots with matching cups and saucers while the hamburgers came skewered on a steak knife! Nick and Therese were again visiting rellos so they didn’t share in this bounty or the view of the pig shooters across the road loading carcasses into a ute.

From Coolah it was a fast and fun ride down the beautiful Coolaburragundy valley and then a quick right-left onto the Castlereagh Highway and down through Gulgong to Mudgee. We stayed at the Motel Ningana, which based on the crowded room I shared with Andrew I’d give three stars at most. Dinner that night was another banquet, this time at an Indian restaurant with a bizarre Indian musical love story movie playing on the telly.

We were a bit slow off the mark on Monday morning but had a great ride through Ilford, Sofala and Wattle Flat to Bathurst. We wondered at the constant stream of 4wds, camper vans and caravans headed the other way until we remembered that thousands of people were heading home from Bathurst after the 1000km touring car race the day before. We had coffee at a very busy Beck’s Bakery and the others headed for Goulburn while I went visiting some rellos.

The main group got caught up in a huge traffic jam heading out from Bathurst towards Sydney. It took them 20 minutes to ride the 2km to Kelso but once they were on the Oberon road they were OK. After a very quick ride along Tablelands Way I caught up with them having lunch at Roses Café in Goulburn.

From there half our crew headed straight home while the others rode down the Hume and Barton highways to Murrumbateman to meet up with some SES riders from Melbourne and escort them into Canberra. They never turned up so after waiting in the cold for an hour with another half dozen Ulysses members we rode home. We found out later that the SES blokes had fuel and mechanical problems and got caught up in a car accident and didn’t get to Canberra until 8pm!

Ian Paterson