Oh to be able to do this every day ........

Well this morning was a gorgeous, clear Autumn morning. Blue skies, not too chilly, still and the day was begging for me to begin it with a ride into town for coffee and something to eat before heading up to the office. So where would I go? There are a few choices in Bathurst at 8.00am, but I decided on somewhere slightly off the beaten track as such - Al Dente on Keppel Street. It does great coffee, has a selection of light things for breakfast and is well patronised. I could spend 30 - 45 mins just enjoying the morning and people watching before heading up to work :) Done deal !

I managed to get a parking spot for the bike pretty close to Al Dente, retrieved my wallet and joined the queue of people inside ordering their morning coffees, toasted sandwiches and lunches.

Al Dente, Keppel Street, Bathurst

What a great way to start the day, a toasted ham and cheese croissant with a large flat white coffee, sitting outside on a table watching "the world" go by on its way to work :) I'd nearly finished my croissant before I thought that maybe the Blog should have a photo of my breakfast, or in this case, what was left of it :)

Central West Ride Day and lunch at Mudgee - Sat 3rd May 2008

Well a beautiful day it was for our TwoWheels forum Central West ride to Mudgee. Six of us met at Bathurst Maccas at 10.30 am. "Sydney", who came up from Sydney on a camping trip whilst on holidays joined us together with "Jez" who came down from Dubbo. Then there was "Bubba", "Chalky", "Turbo" and myself from Bathurst area. We would be meeting Jez's girlfriend "WeeBR" in Mudgee for lunch. She was riding down from Dubbo via Wellington as she is still on her L's and didn't want to ride all the way to Bathurst.

This is a map of the route that we took.


We left Bathurst and headed north up to Sofala. I was in the middle of the group, following Bubba who was leading, Jez and Turbo. The climbing twisties up through Wiagdon (half way to Sofala) were great. I had the RPM on the GS hovering around 8000 as I negotiated the hairpins and sharp climbing corners. This was by far my best effort on these corners to date.

We went through Sofala without stopping, with Sydney and Chalky bringing up the rear of the group. After Sofala, I'm sure I heard a roadrunner style "Beep Beep" and I then saw the front three riders simply vanish in a speed blur as they left me standing still. I must have slowed down at a terrific rate to cause that to happen ;). I now know how the Coyote feels !! I finally caught up to them again at Ilford, where they had stopped for a leg stretch to wait for the rest of us to catch them up.


Rest stop and leg stretch at Ilford.

From Ilford we headed towards Mudgee via Kandos, Rylestone and Lue. Here is a map of the route taken:


From Ilford we went via Kandos (which was a great ride, passing under the coal buckets on the overhead railway between the mine site and ore processing plant at Kandos) and then on to Rylestone, where Sydney and Jez refulled. At Rylestone we turned off and followed the rail line to Mudgee via Lue, coming out just north of Mudgee. The road between Rylestone and Mudgee is not bad, but quite uneven and rough for a sealed road. The wind was also quite gusty and for those of us on smaller bikes, we did a few more metres than the rest as we were blown a tad sideways at times. At one stage I felt like I was back on a yacht, tacking into the wind on one stretch of road. Nearing Mudgee I was taking up rear position following Sydney when I got that Coyote feeling again as two other bikes casually "hurtled" past us. The guy on the front bike, a big touring Beemer was sitting there upright like he was in his armchair. At least he waved as he went past :))

In Mudgee we headed to the Oriental Hotel for lunch. This hotel has a nice, pleasant Bistro with inside, outside and semi outside seating areas. An open fire in the semi-outside area was a nice find. Judging by the large number of patrons, it appears to be well thought of as well. There was a wide selection of fare on the menu, with lunch specials, a good a-la-carte menu and of course cold beer on tap for the thirsty travellers.


Oriental Hotel in Mudgee

After lunch I headed on to Wellington with WeeBR, whilst the other five headed back to Bathurst via the route we had ridden up. The road between Mudgee and Wellington is a good sealed road and well maintained. I was amazed at the number of dead foxs on this road. We also came across a fairly large flattened snake and WeeBR told me later she also saw a dead sheep just off the road. Seems it had been part of a group of sheep wandering the road on he way to Mudgee. Looks like one tangled with a car and lost. We got into Wellington about 4.00pm, having battled the continuing cross wind during the trip. Poor WeeBR was feeling it more than I as she was on a small Honda CB125R. We decided a coffee at Maccas was in order before we refuelled and headed our seperate ways, WeeBR on north to Dubbo and I back south to Bathurst.

We said our goodbyes and I left Wellington at about 4.30pm, having about 150Kms to travel back to Bathurst. I stopped at Molong (about 2/3 of the way to Orange) as it was getting a little nippy on the bike and I needed to put on my winter warm gloves. As I entered Orange dusk was finally giving over to night and I was thankful for my upgraded halogen/xenon headlight globe that lit up the road ahead really well. I didn't want to come across a fox or roo carcase in the road, as a motorcycle doesn't handle them as well as cars do. The chill started to seep into the bones as I neared the half way mark between Orange and Bathurst and I was definitley thinking that heated hand grips are one thing I must buy before winter takes hold. I arrived back in Bathurst at 6.30pm chilled but smiling broadly. It had been another great day on the bike. I had met some great people, had a great lunch and added a few hundred Kms to my odometer. Life is definitely GOOD !! :)