Motorcycling With Our Mates

We had a lovely trip away on Snubby this weekend.  The Midstate Tourers were hosting their Dice Roll Run, which is always a lot of fun.  We have joined in this run a couple of times before. You can see last time here. How it works is each time we stop, you roll three dice and at the end of the day whoever has the highest number wins.  Simple.  They also have a prize for the oldest bike, which we won in 2010 on Olga.

Seven bikes from Bathurst headed off to Parkes early yesterday morning for the start.  As usual, I took loads of photos from the sidecar.

Friday morning was our coldest so far this year and yesterday wasn’t much better. Here we are, about to enter the gloom of the fog.

It was not as cold as on Friday, but still a little chilly.  Yes, I have a thermometer set up in the sidecar, along with the intercom, GPS and phone charger.

Fortunately, there wasn’t too much fog, but plenty of frost.  At least you know to expect a nice day after a big frost.

It isn’t too bad travelling in this weather.  Over the years we have collected lots of good merino thermal gear.  I had on merino long johns under my jeans, a merino T-shirt, merino skivvy, merino jumper and padded bike jacket.  My socks are woollen too.  All the merino clothing is fairly thin, so I don’t feel too much like Michelin Woman.  We get most of our merino gear from a company based in Forbes, just a couple of hours up the road.  No we do not get commission, but it is rather sad when you see them that they remember your name, as you have bought so much stuff.  We just love the feel of the fabric, not at all scratchy, and not at all pongy if you happen to get a bit too warm, unlike most other thermal clothing.  Just to be nice and snug, I even have the rubber backed picnic rug wrapped around my legs. I hate feeling cold.

We had to have the obligatory early morning shadow photo. Mick is waving “Hello”.

It was glorious riding along seeing all the autumn trees. The main street of Orange was especially colourful.

Our mate, who collected his new sidecar a fortnight ago, joined in the fun.  They did so well on their first big ride.  We just poked along behind them all day and were always happy to be the last to arrive at each destination.

Our first stop was at Yeoval, a tiny town where my Dad lived up until he was about 8.  It’s main claim to fame these days is that it holds a “Mulga Bill Bicycle Festival” - something that is on our “To Do” list.

Although we have done lots of riding all over this area, we still ventured on a couple of new roads.  We really enjoy going on a run like this, where someone else does all the organising and it is a bit of a mystery tour.

Our lunch stop was at Geurie, between Wellington and Dubbo.

The weather warmed up nicely.  It reached 20 degrees C, which was very pleasant.  Some of the layers had to come off.

Our next stop was at Stuart Town.  It is famous as originally being “Ironbark”, as in “The Man From Ironbark”.

Each break was a decent length, so as soon as we arrived, I decided to have a bit of a wander around, something I’ve never had the opportunity to do before.

There are lots of interesting old buildings.

 

The old Railway Station looked interesting, so I wandered on up, not sure if it was still a railway station or a private dwelling.

By the looks of the cobwebs in the entrance foyer window, I guessed it was vacant.  I had a lovely sticky beak.

 

 

I thought I’d better go back and see what everyone else was up to.  Nothing worse than everyone pacing up and down waiting for me to take happy snaps.  I needn’t have worried.  They were still busy drawing raffle prizes.

Our final destination for the day was Molong.  This is always a pretty ride.  However, our hearts were in our mouths when we saw a big bunch of bikes stopped in the middle of nowhere.  We thought the worst, that someone had come off their bike.  Imagine our relief as we got closer and saw the true reason for the delay.

We waited patiently.

The problem was soon solved.

A cute country church along the way.

Once we arrived in Molong we checked into the pub for the night.  We had a great evening, were well fed and had lots of laughs.

This morning we just meandered back home.  We took a couple of more minor roads through the orchards, vineyards and lots of colourful trees.

We also enjoyed the native scenery.

A feature riding home, back into to beautiful tablelands were the windswept clouds.

The scenery was looking a lot more like winter by the time we returned home.

Everyone had a great time, so we will have to plan some more rides in the near future.  We may just have to resurrect “The Winter Solstice Ride” which we haven’t done for a few years.