Post Flinders - Barrington Tops & 20 Creek Crossings

Today's plan was to travel from Dubbo to Scone where we would leave the Prado overnight, we would unload the bikes and ride over Barrington Tops and on to Nundle at the Peel Inn for the night, then come back the next day and pick up the car, where we would both head our separate ways from there.

So we've managed to extend our ride by another 2 days, yay for us. We got up early and got going as it was about 3 hours from Dubbo to Scone through kangaroo country. There was plenty of thick fog around this morning, hanging around in the valleys as we approached Scone.

With the bikes quickly unloaded, we loaded up our gear and got changed and took off for some fuel, grabbed some lunch at the supermarket and then headed into the hills. We were surprised to find that they have been tarring Barrington tops forest road almost all the way up to the Dingo Gate. 

Near the top we looked out to the north were we would be heading later today. We could see rain showers passing across the landscape. That had me a little concerned. How full will these creeks be?

We continued up to the Dingo gate, it was damp the further up we climbed. We could see dark clouds ahead on the route we were taking.

It started to sprinkle with rain and the temperature had dropped to low teens, we pulled over so Dave could put on his rain gear. Not me, I was going to find out whether this Klim gortex gear is actually water resistant. The road started looking pretty slippery but with our knobby tyres I didn't have and slips or slides so potentially it wasn't wet enough yet.

Dave said we turn off the main road in a couple of kilometres onto Pheasants creek rd. The single lane road went off into the bush, this concerned me greatly as he had never been on it and being wet it could become very difficult. Luck was on our side and it was nothing hard, but easy going.

We came out on the Tomala road near Tomala Station. We stopped here briefly before riding on. If was pleasant farming gravel road along here with superb views over the valleys to the north of Barrington.

We just had to stop and take in the views. We had our lunch here whilst looking over the valley. Dave puled out the drone and flew around chasing eagles thermaling.

It's a pretty steep drop down the hill from here for a couple of Kilometres, then we turned north on Hunter Road towards Ellerston. Passing by the horse studs we got to Barry Station and the first of crossing, a concrete causeway. I recognised this from multiple videos. This is the causeway that everyone crashes in due to being so Slippery, we rode through the very edge by about 1 foot then onto the grass and creek on the side, that 1 foot I was already starting to lose the front end it was that slippery.

We continued on through the 20 creeks, no problem whatso ever. Yes, that's right no problems at all, was a lot of fun. Anyone says anything else, is scandalous lies. Didn't stop to take any photo's until we were past the last crossing running alongside the creek.

The ride out of the 20 creek crossing is fairly steep, we were riding into the sun and there were a few skippy's about so took if very carefully.

We came to an intersection, Dave said lets go up here and checkout this a cool lookout. It was only a short ride but spectacular views down over Nundle to the west.

Dropping down the hill into Nundle we parked up and grabbed a beer from the bar and sat out the front. We soon unloaded the bikes and got out of our gear and tipped our boots upside down to drain the water from them, then head to the bar for a few more beers. The pub was packed today. Apparently it was their busiest day of the year, the local dog festival was on today.

Sipping a beer with my bro and watching the sunset was simply amazing after the last week of riding we have done.

The rooms at the Peel Inn are great, nice and clean, a little on the small side, but are air conditioned and nice comfy beds. Can't ask for much more, and you get a cooked breakfast comes with the room.

The meals were also top notch, fantastic tender steak was so good. I just had to try one of their deserts too, and wasn't it delicious Creme Brulee. I'm bound to put on some weight this week with all these treats and not much exercise. Oh well you have to live and have fun.

After a fantastic slap up bacon & egg breakfast we packed the bikes and headed down Crawney Pass. There was plenty of fog on the surrounding hills, gleaming in the morning light. The pass was clear at the top.

The valleys and hills around here were bright green, in stark contrast to the last week spent in the Flinders which was a dry as a chip.

We were riding in and out of fog patches for some time. Getting back to the car in Scone I helped Dave load up the Desert X and pack his gear. We said our goodbyes and I headed south towards Sydney whilst he went north to Brisbane. Before leaving I grabbed some fruit for lunch.

I went back home via the Putty road, I think I saw about 2 or 3 cars the whole trip. I stopped at one of the rest areas and had some fruit and muesli bar for lunch, that was enough after that huge breakfast.

Getting home I unloaded and checked the bike. It was looking a little sad, the rear shock was leaking oil and appeared to had no dampening. Great, wonder which days that broke on?

Cheers Dave, thanks for organising a great trip away to the Flinders Ranges. One of the best trips for a few years. Nothing for it but a celebratory home coming beer. If you got this far thanks for reading.

Cheers

Barrington Tops Ride

So last weekend our Fearless tour captain organised a overnight ride up over Barrington Tops staying in Gloucester for the night. After all the problems I've had with Dad in Hospital the last 4 weeks I desperately needed a ride. I also was very keen to ride the Barrington Tops road as we always steered clear whilst owning road only bikes. Now with these adventure bikes there are so many more roads and pubs now open to us to explore.

Unfortunately for me my daughters softball grand final match's lined up on the same day. Damn why does this always happen? So plan devised to watch her first game and then get going, the wife could watch the next ones. Sorry little darling but motorbikes......

So I was running late by about 45min, I'd told the others not to wait and we would catch up. We got snapped by John Keogh from Keoghsvision on the colo hairpin along the way. I finally met up with Flyboy at Colo River where he had been waiting for me. 

From here we quickly continued on to see if we could catch up with the other boys. I lead Flyboy through the 10 mile twisties on the Putty Rd so he could use me as a reference and we could both motor along a bit quicker. Except there were 3 road works sections with traffic lights that we had to stop at, D'oh. But otherwise a fun run through the twisties. A guy caught up to us at the lights on a little 400 sports bike, we kept dropping him off and he would catch up again at the next set of lights.

A quick stop at the end of the 10 mile and a message came through from our tour captain, saying that the route plan had changed from the previous day back to the original route plan and we'd meet for lunch in Scone. I was good with that so we kept going to Jerrys Plains for fuel via the back roads.

I got to ride the Desert X along for about 50kms. It was a nice ride, plenty of overtaking power in top gear, narrow and easy to grip onto the tank and it carried its weight down lower than the AT. A horrible first gear feels like your going to stall and needs some clutch slipping/revs to keep it going, the AT is all torque straight off the bottom end. I wasn't a fan of the first gear faffing but the rest of the bike seemed quite good. The screen is also too tall and creates wind buffeting around your helmet visor area, especially annoying when your visor is cracked open it just vibrates madly.

Fuel in Jerrys Plains, then we headed for Denman following on to Muswellbrook and then Scone. It was pretty hot out today (38°C) so we made a bee line for woolies and 2 bottles of icey cold powerade before grabbing some lunch with the guys.

Next up was the plan of going via Gundy pub. We didn't end up stopping at the pub as it was crazily crowded with people and it was so hot so we kept going to Moonan Flat Pub where we had a refreshing ale before heading up over the mountains. Nice spot Moonan Flat.

It was 3pm now and time to head off, the temp was still up around 37°C but we were reassured with the knowledge that Barrington Tops is 5500ft and would be much cooler up there.

We climbed up the fairly steep incline for about 15kms or so with magic views over the valleys below. Pity I didn't stop to take more photos but was enjoying the ride. The road was in pretty good condition with a few corrugated corners but otherwise good easy riding. First stop was at the Dingo gate and the photo of Flyboy and his Desert X with stunning views behind.

After the Dingo Gate, which I didn't get any photos of but Flyboy did we stopped in at the Firs, which is literally 50m off the main track in a pine forest that spans both sides of the road in an unusual square pattern. Looks weird from google maps.

Here's a few pictures from within the forest.

From here the road flattened out somewhat with smaller elevation climbs or declines with some big long straight sections. You could get some big speed up on these straight bits of dirt road but had to watch out for errant 4wd's coming the other way.

I decided to stop and get a picture of the National Park sign just for something to do. After this was just undulating long straights and bends that worked its way to the Cobark Lookout where we stopped briefly. The temperature had dropped down to 23°C up here now and it felt like someone had flicked on the Air Conditioning. It was so good after the heat.

The road turned back to tar just down the hill a little bit and it was quite a fun decent down through the valleys. A few loose gravel spots on a few corners. We were soon enough staring down the bar of the Roundabout Inn in Gloucester. Man that first beer tasted soo good. 

The roundabout Inn is biker friendly with lock up parking for bikes which we didn't bother using, rooms are a little small but otherwise comfortable with A/C and fridge $100 for twin share, excellent value. Nice pub will stay here again. 

We awoke to fog the next morning, but that soon burnt off to another 38°C day, Flyboy and I decided we would head home down the freeway and get out of the heat. Another top ride away and some new roads and pubs explored. 

Oxley Highway Overnighter

When is a group ride not a group ride? Well when you ride with us of course. A good friend Steve in Brisbane organised a ride to Walcha on the Oxley hwy last weekend. He was to meet us at Walcha on Friday arvo and the rest of us Sydney siders were to meet up at Wilberforce at 9:30 to start the trip. That's where the wheels fell off the group ride right there. Wayne's bike broke down on the way and Ant was running an hour late. A text told us to keep going and we'll meet somewhere along the way. 

So we pushed on up the Putty road to singleton on our group ride. Yep there was me and Geoff. I suppose that could be considered a group. We got stopped just north of Bulga as the coal mine nearby the road was conducting some explosive demolition.  After about a 25minute wait we rode through the area after the blast and you could smell the acrid after effects of the explosives. It was very strong on the nassal passages.

After a quick morning tea in singleton we continued on through to Dungog via Gresford. The road along here was very badly chopped up. It would be a fantastic road if it had some money spent on it to fix it up. The scenery on this section is quite beautiful.

We had just stopped to take in the view when 2 highway patrol cars drove past whilst we were stopped. I count that one as a win. We continued on into Gloucester for fuel and a break. We found out here that the guys were on the way but were a fair way behind. Then I noticed Geoff's new shirt still had the size label stuck to the front of it, he'd been wearing that most of the day like that. We both pissed ourselves laughing before removing the offending tag. It was time to continue on up onto the thunderbolts way to Walcha.

It's been a while since I've been up here and the road is pretty much how I remember it except it's gotten a lot rougher. There were 2 vehicles crashed off the side of the road here and I can't help but think has the road condition had anything to do with the crashes. Some sections were quite good and had been resurfaced but its generally a pretty bumpy trip especially the section that climbs up to Barrington Tops and the look out.

We finally got into Walcha around 4pm and refueled ready for the next day. It was time to hit the pub up for beers and diner. Steveo was already there waiting for us. He'd made good time from Brisbane. Then about an hour later the rest of the group actually arrived.

Day 2 started out with a bit of fog and a chill in the air. It was time for some breaky at the local cafe. The bacon and egg roll was expensive but it hit the spot just right. We didn't get underway until about 10am as one of the ducatis battery's packed it in due to the cold. Rick and Stewie got underway as they were doing the full loop around waterfall way and the oxley. I wasn't feeling like doing that ride and opted for just doing the Oxley to Wauchope and back.

Fog & Chilly

Thunderbolts Sign

Ricks Tuono

We  got underway late but that was ok because we knew that being almost winter that there would be wet patches on the road in the shade where the sun doesn't get on the road at this time of year. Jason and i briefly stopped and got some pics of the guys riding. It wasn't long before we arrived in gingers creek where we stopped for refreshments.

Safety first Jason

Me on the Oxley

Bikes at Gingers Creek

Gingers Creek Store

After Gingers I'd put on the gopro to get some footage of this fantastic road. You might say it's one of the best motorcycle roads in the galaxy. Its best viewed in 720p.

Coming out of the last few km's of twisties on the Oxley I saw a couple of wallaby's sitting on the side of the road. This brought the speeds back down as I didn't want to hit one of those. From here on back to Walcha the road really opens up into big straights and sweeping bends over the hills here. This reminds me a bit of the snowy mountains highway. It can be tempting to open a bike up along here, which may or may not have happened.

Big sweeping bends and long straights

 On the way back I wanted to stop in at Aspley falls and have a look. It was late in the afternoon and I was taking photos into the sun so they didn't work out so good. Oh well there's always next time. The falls themselves were pretty spectacular.

Aspley Falls Entrance

Aspley Falls

That was the end of day 2, with another enjoyable night spent at the bar with some good company listening to Geoff(the life coach) give out advice to all who would listen. After a quick brekkie and coffee we hit the road around 9am. It was rather cool out this high up but still a good ride, at least we weren't riding into the sun like on day 1.

We stopped for a quick refuel in Gloucester then again in Singleton. It was here that I'd noticed Geoff's tyre was really shagged and we still had about 220kms to go to get home. Everyone gathered around to laugh at Geoff. At least the putty road has lots of bends on the way home so he won't use the centre of that tyre all the way.

Bikes on the putty, nearly home

The new leathers were great out on this ride and were very comfortable when riding. I had a fantastic weekend and must thank Stevo for organising it and the rest of the guys for making it a memorable trip. Looking forward to the next ride now.

Heres the map link for our ride.