North West Loop
North West Loop
It has been some weeks since my last bonus ride, way back in late March.
This delay was not due to a lack of desire but rather a combination of Autumn school holidays, Easter public holidays, the ANZAC Day holiday, and extended above-average wet weather.
However, the coming of May promised some fine weather, and sure enough, the Rain Gods took pity on my poor soul and gifted me 3 continuous days of sunshine. Needless to say, I did not waste this opportunity and quickly pulled out my plan for a 3-day North West ride.
I also took pity on two of my riding companions, Tim & Harry, who were also starting to suffer from "cabin fever" and I invited them to join me.
Tuesday morning dawned with clear blue skies, and we met up at the designated starting location in Berowra, on the northern edge of Sydney.
Once underway, we took the dreaded M1 to Freemans Waterhole ( 90 km ) for the obligatory morning coffee and a chicko roll.
If you have read my previous blogs, you will know I dislike the M1 Motorway due to the sheer traffic volume. The latest stats I have seen suggest that the M1 is now running at 110% of maximum design capacity each day, and everyone drives like a Sterling Moss or Dale Earnhardt.
Last week, a semi-trailer inadvertently scattered 900 kg of steel shards along a 28 kilometre stretch just before the morning peak hour. Over 600 claims for tyre damage from the metal shavings have already been made, and the final total is expected to reach over 800.
And people wonder why I dislike the M1 so much.
From Freemans, we headed through the township of Kurri Kurri and its many wall murals, and onto the Hunter Expressway towards Jerry's Plains before taking the back-road through the open-cut coal mines to the township of Muswellbrook, and my first bonus photo of the Eaton Hotel (est 1866)
From Muswellbrook, we headed up the New England Hwy for a while before taking the 20 km dead-end road to the small village of Gundy, and my 2nd bonus photo of the Linga Longa Inn (est ~1850)
Unbeknownst to us, major drama was about to unfold as we turned our bikes around in the hotel's small car-park and headed back to Scone for lunch.
From Scone, we made our way up the New England Hwy to the small township of Murrurundi and a bonus photo of the Railway Hotel.
This was soon followed by a bonus photo of the General Store in the small village of Caroona. Actually, this is the only building in Coroona, as the 196 local residents live in the surrounding farms.
It was here that we started to become aware of the drama that was descending on us, when Tim, one of my riding friends, had some difficulty getting off his GS1200.
It seems that while doing a 3-point turn in the carpark of the Linga Longa Inn, Tim lost his footing and almost dropped his bike, as a result, he felt pain in his right hamstring muscle and was now in some discomfort.
Being the caring friends that we are, we of course just told Tim to "suck it up" and stop being a wuss.
From Caroona, we back-tracked a bit along some lane-ways between the farm paddocks, before taking the Gap Rd to Werris Creek.
However, after travelling only 500 metres, a warning sign advised that Gap Rd was closed at the Causeway due to river flooding.
So with all our hazard lights on, we convened a small committee meeting in the middle of the road to discuss this development.
I mean, do we waste some time riding the 6 or 7 kilometres to the Causeway only to turn around and come back, or do we just turn around now and save some time before taking the longer detour.
Decisions, decisions, . . . fortunately, while we stood around scratching our heads, a small SUV drove by, coming from the very direction of the Causeway. The driver gave us a "thumbs up" sign, so our decision was made.
After all, if a small SUV could make it across the flooded Causeway, we should be OK to do likewise.
Sure enough, we crossed the Causeway without a problem ( the water was only a couple of inches deep) and made our way to the Currabubula Hotel (est 1838).
As the sun was getting low in the sky, we turned our sights to Hillvue, about 35 km up the road, and our overnight accommodation.
At the motel, things really went pear-shaped as Tim could no longer bend his right leg and literally could not get off his bike.
In the end, while I held the bike steady, the motel manager and Harry physically lifted Tim off his bike. Then Harry & I walked/dragged Tim to his room.
About now, we decided that Tim was not a wuss after all as he seemed to be in significant pain.
We suggested to Tim that he should be examined at the nearby Hospital ER, but Tim said that it was just a simple muscle sprain and that he would just abandon the ride and ride back to Sydney in the morning. After all, it was only 400 km.
Clearly, this was not going to happen as Tim could not even walk, but we could not convince him otherwise.
So we took the easy way out and just rang his wife instead, and she politely insisted that Tim was not going to ride home and that she would arrange for their son to drive up to Hillvue and collect Tim in their car in the morning.
Having solved the "Tim" problem, we were then left with the "GS1200" problem, but as the old adage goes, "there is no problem that money can't fix".
The motel manager offered to store the GS for a few days, while Tim organised a specialist motorcycle transport company to collect / transport / deliver the bike to his home in Sydney.
As an alternative, we suggested hiring a U-Haul van, but Tim thought a transport company was a better idea, and as it was his credit card involved, he got to make the call.
With the day's problems resolved, Harry & I made our way to the Long Yard Hotel for a reasonable steak & chips dinner and few glasses of Guinness. I was also able to add 3 more beer coasters to my collection.
In the morning, we double-checked on Tim (no improvement), wished him a comfortable trip home and a speedy recovery, and reluctantly made ready for our departure.
It was about now that Harry heard that sound that no motorcyclist wants to hear. Instead of the whirring of a starter motor, all that he heard was the dreaded "click of death".
This is not to be confused with the Microsoft blue screen of death, although the end result is the same as in nothing works.
The "click of death" is is not the sound of a low-voltage battery struggling to turn over an engine, but rather the "click" the starter solenoid makes when the battery does not have enough cranking amps to make the magic happen.
The lost art of "bump starting" is of no use with modern slipper clutches so that solution was ruled out, and many ECUs need a certain voltage level before they will even pulse the fuel injectors.
Time for Harry to pull out his credit card + mobile phone and call the NRMA Roadside Assistance.
Fortunately, we were still in Hillveu, a suburb of the large regional town of Tamworth so the service truck arrived within 20 minutes, confirmed the dead battery diagnosis and arranged for a replacement battery to be delivered and installed within an additional 30 minutes.
My rule of thumb is that you should expect to get at least 3 years of reliable service out of a bike's battery, but by 4 years, it is time to arrange for a replacement.
At 5 years, you are really "rolling the dice" and at 6 years you are just a problem waiting to happen.
Harry's battery was 6 years old.
All up, we lost about 90 minutes of riding time, so we made the difficult decision to abandon the dead-end legs to the Commercial Hotel in Curlewis and the Collie Hotel at Collie.
With these 2 bonuses ruled out, our revised riding plan had us arriving at our pre-booked accommodation in Mendooran just before sundown.
This is important because around sundown, kangaroos become active and the road to Mendooran runs through a heavily wooded area.
From Hillvue, we travelled about 60 km along the Oxley Hwy to the small town of Carroll for a bonus photo of their General Store.
As the Oxley Hwy runs across the Liverpool Plain, the road is flat, straight and boring, but the sun was shining and all our problems were behind us.
From Carroll, we skipped the turn-off to Curlewis and made our way to the Courthouse Hotel in Gunnedah for another bonus photo and a much-needed coffee and chicko roll.
From Gunnedah, we continued on the Oxley Hwy to the Post Office Hotel in Mullaley and then onto Coonabarabran for a bonus photo of the Imperial Hotel and a Subway lunch in the town park.
There is something about motorcycles that seems to attract older-aged men, and soon enough we had struck up a conversation with a retired Policeman who lives in Coona and rides a Honda ST1100.
Apparently, the ST1100 is a better handling bike that it's younger sibling, the ST1300, due to the ST1100s longer wheel base. It is these kinds of conversations that make Grand Tours so enjoyable.
Our next destination was Gilgandra, and Betty my GPS lady, would have taken us there via the Oxley Hwy. After all, it is a major highway and the GPS algorithms favour them.
Instead, we headed out along the National Park Rd through the Warrumbungle Mountains, home to the Siding Spring Astronomical Observatory (SSO).
The SSO houses Australia's largest optical and infrared telescope which has a reflecting mirror of 3.9m / 12.9 ft diameter.
Just as an aside, the southern nighttime sky offers a better view of the Milky Way's galactic centre, where many of the brighter stars and stellar objects are located and where northern constellations appear upside down.
Additionally, the southern hemisphere also has unique constellations that are not visible from the northern hemisphere. For example, while we can't see the North Star from Oz, we do have the Southern Cross which is not visible from the northern hemisphere.
But I digress, back to our Grand Tour.
The National Park Rd is a narrow, winding road that is a joy to ride, provided you keep an eye out for loose gravel on some of the corner apexes (apexii ?)
( edit: I am informed that apexes and apices are correct plurals of apex, but apexii is not )
After about 48 km of near-constant curves and bends, we turned towards Tooraweenah and then onto Gilgandra, and a bonus photo of the Railway Hotel.
From Gilgandra, we turned east to Mendooran, a ride of about 55 km.
Mendooran is a small village where time seems to have passed them by. Many shops and buildings are now closed or boarded up, with only four still open ( General Store, Hotel, Mechanical Workshop, and the Blue Cheese Factory ).
Don't get me wrong, the town's folk are super friendly, and it is a nice clean little town but after the main highways (Newel & Oxley) bypassed the town, its raison d'être has gone.
That said, the Blue Cheese Factory is an interesting story in that two local farming ladies joined forces in 2018 to create the Central West’s first commercial cheese business, using creamy single-source milk for a local dairy.
All the cheeses are made by hand in Mendooran, and having tasted their produce, I can say that they know what they are doing.
I just wish there had been more room in my saddle bags as I would have liked to bring some cheese home. I wonder if they have on-line shopping ?
Thursday dawned clear and bright and cold, and after an enjoyable country breakfast, Harry & I headed off to the next town of Dunedoo.
That was until, after about 10 minutes of riding, I realised that I had not taken the bonus photo of the Royal Hotel in Mendooran, so a quick u-turn was needed.
From Dunedoo, it was an enjoyable ride through rolling farm country to Mudgee, for the obligatory bonus photo and our morning coffee.
By now, the pull of the homeward leg had cut in, so we made good time through Capertee, Cullen Bullen to Wallerawang for lunch at the bakery, and then onto Marrangroo, and Lithgow for a couple more bonus photos.
Then it was a simple "last leg" ride along the Bells Line of Road onto the M7 / M2 and then home.
All up, we travelled just over 1,300 km, bagged a reasonable number of bonus photos, experienced some unexpected drama, enjoyed fine weather and rode some great country roads.
What more could you ask for ?
Postscript. Tim has now had an ultra-sound scan and medical examination and has been diagnosed with a partial tear of the right-hand hamstring muscle where it connects to the pelvic bone. If there is no improvement within the next 7 days, he will require the involvement of an orthopaedic surgeon.
Harry's new battery performed flawlessly and after I checked the purchase date of my own bike's battery (April 2021), I will be ordering a replacement next week.
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