Its the Australia Day long weekend and after spending Australia Day Saturday doing some retail therapy in Sydney, I was hoping for a good day today so that I could take Clyde (the bike) out for a quick fang (coloquial for a fast ride) and blow away some of the cobwebs. Well this morning arrived, but still recovering from an earlier trip away in the week, I decided to sleep in a little longer than I would have liked. I ended up getting up about 10.00am. It was a glorious summer's day, but not too hot and I decided to make the most of what was left of the morning and take Clyde out for a quick fang out to Sofala (40kms away) and back. I left home around 1045 and decided to start the ride with a coffee at the local MacDonald's McCafe in town.
Map of the area which I was going to travel
With a nice extra large caffeine under the belt, I headed north to Sofala, passing through the villages of Peel, Wiagdon and then Wattle Flat. I love the road between Wiagdon and Wattle Flat as it has a stretch of road that climbs pretty steeply through a series of tight hairpins. Today I was intent on seeing if I could make a dent in the chicken strips on Clyde's tyres. For those who don't know what chicken strips are, Wikipedia has a good explanation :) I'm not sure if I managed to scrape any of the strips away, but I enjoyed that section of road nonetheless.
I arrived in Sofala around 11.45 and went for a slow cruise through the village. For a Sunday on a long weekend, there was quite a few visitors in the village, including a number of bikes outside the various cafes. Sofala is an historic gold mining town here in the Central West of New South Wales and in its heyday was a thriving ramshackle gold mining town, with its population reaching an estimated 10,000 in the early 1850s and sporting dozens of pubs and hearsay has it over 500 illegal grog shops! Gold mining stopped in 1948 and today very little is left of the makeshift town of the 1850s. Anyway enough with the history lesson :)
I decided that as it was such a glorious day for a ride, I'd push on and perhaps head up to Mudgee, which takes about 90 minutes from Bathurst. So, after stopping on the outskirts of Sofala to adjust my ipod earphones, I made tracks for Ilford on the Castlereagh Highway, where I would head towards Mudgee.
The road between Sofala and Ilford is a great road and has sweeping corners and some great scenery, particularly as you cross the ridge and look NE over the plain toward s Mudgee and the Gardens of Stone and Wollomi National Parks in the distance.
View of the geological formations NW towards the Wollemi National Park
After turning onto the Castlereagh Highway I headed north towards Mudgee and decided to check out the villages/ townships of Kandos and Rylstone. I haven't been there before, so thought this was a good chance to check out these little townships. The road was very good, once again lots of sweeping corners and it looks to have only recently been resealed. I chose the right day to visit Kandos, with a Street Hot Rod and motor festival happening in the town. The blue smoke seen over the township as I neared, which I assumed to be a bush fire, turned out to be the burn-out competition in full swing. The town's population must have doubled as a result of the show and I was confronted by a traffic police random breath test as I entered town. After showing the licence, having the officer check the rego on the bike and counting to ten into his machine, I was allowed to leave with a curt "thank-you". I can't understand why traffic officers have to be so miserable.
Anyway, I left Kandos and headed to Rylstone and then back onto the Castlereagh Highway via Cudgegoing and Lake Windamere. There were quite a few campers taking advantage of the long weekend and slighly increased water levels in the lake, with the Cudgegong Water Park looking like a little village on the side of the lake.
Right turn again onto the highway and a nice 30 ks ride to Mudgee, riding through some of the famous Mudgee wine country on the approaches to the town. By the time I arrived in Mudgee it was about 1.20pm so lunch was a definite must. I settled on Elton's for lunch and ended up parked right outside and enjoying the ambience of Mudgee from a sidewalk table. This gave me a chance to have a look through the Australian Motorcyle Atlas whilst slowly savouring my open roast beef sandwhich and coffee. As it was such a great day, I decided that I would head home via Wellington, Molong and Orange. That should see me home about 6.00pm - with pit stops :)
Lunch at Elton's - Roast beef open sandwich, coffee and the Australian Motorcycle Atlas :)
Lunch finished and a full tank of petrol courtesy of Caltex and my Visa card, I headed north towards Gulgong, where the road to Wellington branches off to the west about half way to Gulgong. The road between Mudgee and Wellington is again a very good road, crossing through farmland and light bushland , nicely sealed and no shocking corners or crappy sections of road.
On the move - The road between Mudgee and Wellington
A coffee and toilet pit stop in Wellington, famous for its old Phosphate mines and caves, then saw me heading south to Molong and then Orange along the Mitchell Highway. On the trip between Wellington and Orange I was able to test out a throttle lock style "cruise control" I recently bought for the bike. It worked well and proved to be an aid in making the ride less tiring. A short stop in Orange for a leg stretch and water break then had me back on the Mitchell Highway to Bathurst, where I arrived at just after 6.00pm.
