A weekend riding in the Capital

Saturday 1st March, 2008

Well, not having won the Insurance company competition for a three day, all expenses paid trip to the World Super Bike (WSB) race at Philip Island this past weekend, I decided to make a trip to our Nation's Capital Canberra and do some of the local rides that I have heard so much about.

I rode down on the Saturday from Bathurst via Oberon, Taralga and Goulburn. I did this route just before new year and was pleased to find that it is now completely sealed and a very good ride. Apart from being a tad chilly on the top of the Great Dividing Range, it was a glorious run and the coffee and marvellous caramel and banana cake at the Taralga cafe was just what the doctor ordered to warm up. I met up with another rider at Taralga and from there we rode on to Goulburn and then on to Bungendore via Braidwood Road and Tarago Road, passing through Wakefield Park, Lake Bathurst and Tarago. Bungendore is about 30kms from Canberra and is a favourite stopping place for motorcyclists doing day trips from Canberra. The town is on the route from Canberra to the coast which is quite heavily travelled during holiday times and weekends. We had lunch at the Square Cafe in the Bungendore village square, sitting outside on one of their many tables, with plenty of shade. I can recommend the toasted ham, cheese, tomato and mustard seed focaccia sandwich - Yum. Sorry no pics of it this time :)

After a bit of a browse through some of the village shops we headed in to Canberra to organise our overnight accommodation in Belconnen and sort out our riding itinerary for Sunday.

Sunday 2nd March 2008

Another glorious day, blue skies, not a cloud in sight and the anticipation of a great riding day made this the perfect riding day. Having thanked our overnight host for the room we headed out towards one of the Canberra/ACT motorcycling community's favourite rides - the Cotter Road.


Map of the route taken on Sunday.

Renowned for its weekend "boy racers" out to prove their stuff on the great twisties that the Cotter is famous for, the Cotter did not disappoint. It was a great ride and I found myself setting up for corners, flowing through them and joining with the bike to dance through the zigzagging bends and turns. We didn't see any other motorcyclists on the trip down, however there were numerous cyclists, cars and 4WDs out and about. The road descends down into the valley of the Cotter River where there is a lovely river side reserve beneath the Cotter Dam. It was about 9.30 when we arrived at the reserve and already families were setting up picnics and barbques under the many trees. The reserve has plenty of parking, bbq facilities and toilet facilities and has a children's playground as well.


View from the end of the Cotter Reserve, looking back to the picnic grounds and main entrance

After our "wee" stop we continued on down Paddy's River Road towards Tidbinbilla, where our next stop was to be at the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex http://www.cdscc.nasa.gov/, where there is a visitor's centre and a cafe. Morning coffee was calling :) On the way to the Tidbinbilla we were overtaken by what I believe to have been two motorcycles playing tag, leaving a lot of noise and the smell of racing fuel behind them. I say believe, because they went past me (I was on 100kph) like I was stationary and I only heard them and saw two blurs. Didn't even see them coming up in the rear vision mirrors. Of course they could have been two low level jet fighters, but I know jetfuel and they weren't running that :) We turned off Paddy's River Road onto the CDSCC road (which is very smooth indeed) and soon found ourselves cresting a hill to find the complex and its array of telescopes/antennas spread out before us. The big 70m dish taking pride of place in the picture with two 34m and one 26m dishes looking quite small beneath it. A large car park with a few trees outside the Complex's main gate provides a good number of parking spaces for visitors. A short walk from there and you are at the Visitor's Centre which contains displays on the Moon landings and more recent Mars landings. There is also a cafe (the Moon Rock Cafe) there with a balcony outside seating area overlooking the large antenna. Whilst enjoying a coffee and a very nice chocolate chip cookie we were joined by "Lurch" and a friend of his from the Canberra Riders http://www.canberrariders.org/portal.php . We spent the next 20 minutes discussing all things motorcycling in Canberra and swapped riding route details before heading back to the carpark to continue our respective journeys. Lurch and friend were heading back to Canberra to attend a WSB BBQ. Hmmm that sounded good :) Nothing like sausage on a slice of bread covered in tomato sauce :)



A view of the 70m dish from the Moon Rock Cafe balcony

On with our trip. The 26m antenna was the dish originally constructed in 1965 at Honeysuckle Creek, south of Tidbinbilla, and was the dish that received the first images of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. Therefore, we decided that our next stop should be the old Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station, about 35kms south of Tidbinbilla. The station was de-commissioned in the mid 1980s with the buildings razed to the ground and the antenna relocated to the CDSCC. however there is still foundations and historical information displays at the site. We stopped at Tharwa on the way to Honeysuckle Creek to fill up with fuel at the small village's combined General Store/Postoffice and Service Station. Since the closure of Tharwa's historical bridge across the Murumbidgee River (which provided a direct link with Canberra) because of structural concerns, , the village has been in decline. It was therefore nice to see a few more bikes pull up after us, no doubt to enjoy a cold drink and rest stop. From Tharwa we headed on down Naas Road to Top Naas and the turn off for Honeysuckle Creek on the aptley named Apollo Road :) Somehow I think it was renamed after 1969 :)


Apollo Road leading the 10kms to the old Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station

The road up to the old Tracking Station is in reasonable condition, but after reaching the top I couldn't help but wonder as to how some of the components for the antenna and buildings were transported up there on that winding road up the mountain in the early 1960s. Upon arrival at the Tracking Station site you are greeted by all that is left of the original site. That is three flat areas containing paved road surfaces, building slab foundations and the base foundations and leg mountings for the 26m antenna.


This is the way the original site looked on its opening in 1967. Note the location of the two people standing together in the carpark at the bottom left of the photograph and the position of the large main building.


This is a view from where the antenna was located looking down on where the building and carpark was located. The two bikes are parked roughly where the two people were standing in the photo above.

The information displays located on the main building's foundations and also on the base of the antenna provided details of the Tracking Station's history and its historic involvement in receiving the very first pictures of the moon landing and man's first steps on the moon. As a reminder, the site has numerous "Moon" footprints" painted on the floor of the main building and antenna base between the various displays. There is also a copious amount of kangaroo and wombat poo in the old grounds as well as the remains of numerous plants and trees, no doubt once part of the gardens around the buildings.


One of the many "Moon footprints" painted on the site.

After a wander around the site and marvelling at the structures that were once there and the atmosphere that must have existed during the first moon landing, we headed back down the mountain and retraced our tracks back to Canberra via Tharwa, Tidbinbilla, Cotter Reserve, past Mt Stromlo and into the city. I noted that Mt Stromlo Astronomical Observatory, destroyed during the 2003 Canberra Bushfires, is underway, with the new telescope's dome shining silver in the sunlight. The destruction of the vast forest and bushland areas all around the Stromlo and Cotter areas south of Canberra during those same fires is still very evident.

It was meant to be a quick fang on the bike :)

Bathurst, NSW, Sunday 27th January, 2008
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.

Sunday morning ride

Having looked out the window at home (Bathurst) for the past two days whilst it constantly rained, this morning (Sunday 20th Jan) brought blue skies, white cumulus clouds with a tinge of grey and a nice breeze - great weather to get out for a blat on the bike. Having only a little time to myself for a ride this morning, I decided to head out towards Orange on the Mitchell Highway to check out a new cafe on the highway.

Its roughly about half way between Bathurst and Orange (25kms) and is called the Beekeeper's Inn. It was built in 1859 and has been converted into a licensed cafe, farm shop with antiques and collectables as well.

There is off road parking and the cafe menu is reasonable. They have a patio seating area overlooking the fields and you can see the carpark from it. There is plenty of seating inside as well, where you can browse the shelves of local wine, farm and gourmet produce etc.
I ordered a large coffee and sweet muffins (that came with butter and honey) and sat back and watched the world and clouds float by :) The ride back to Bathurst was a joy :) Yet another place to take a leisurely break if you are riding out in the Central West.


View from the front of the Beekeeper's Inn approaching from Orange


View from the carpark looking at the rear/side patio


The rear/side patio seating area

Welcome One and All

Well this is my first post and I suppose it should introduce me, Ian, to you all.



I turned 50 in 2007 and in February of that year I obtained my motorcycle Learner's licence after deciding that I really wanted to learn to ride a motorcycle. Just like Toad of Toad Hall after he saw his first automobile, from that day on I was addicted, but in my case it was to the thrills and experiences associated with motorcycles and riding :)

In the months before I got my licence I had been constantly searching web sites, magazines and anywhere else related to motorcycles, for my very first bike. The bike that I eventually chose was going to have to take me through the first months of truely novice riding and then it would also need to satisfy my growing needs in being able to forgive me for small mistakes and also be a stable, comfortable riding platform for me to slowly learn the skills and techniques associated with becoming a competent rider. So, about 1 month after obtaining my licence, I took delivery of a brand new Suzuki GS500F, resplendent in its new pearl black and titanium grey colour scheme. I decided on a name for the bike - "Clyde" - given that I had always been taken by Triumph Bonnevilles, but due to engine size and power limitations for learners, I was not able to get my "Bonnie", so had to settle on my "Clyde" instead. this has been a great choice :)
This is a photo of Clyde in the driveway at home

In May 2007 I passed the Motorcycle Operators Skills Test (MOST) and because of my age and previous driving licence history was able to go straight onto an unrestricted motorcycle licence, without having to holed a Provisional Licence as younger, less experienced drivers and riders are required to do. Since getting the motorcycle I have travelled 8000kms, my longest single ride being on the 30th December 2007 from my home in Bathurst, NSW to Canberra (via Oberon, Taralga and Goulburn) and then return (via Yass, Boorowa, Cowra and Blayney). This was a day trip of just under 750 kms. You can see a report of that ride and some photos at this link:
http://www.twowheels.com.au/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8201

So there you have it. I'm nearly one year into my motorcycling adventure, having an absolute ball and I have found something that thrills, excites and enables me to get out and be free. this may sound a weird thing to say, but those who have a motorcycle and enjoy riding will know exactly what I mean :)

Ian :)