Mudgee Muster

The Friday pre ride weather reports were in, the weekend was going to be warm and sunny which is just perfect for late Autumn. That was gladly welcomed as the last Mudgee muster it was below 10°C in the mountains and was bitterly cold. Our meeting point was at Richmond for the Sydney crew, but later we would be meeting the Nowra crew out at Oberon.

Heading up the Bells line early around 9:00am there was an unexpected amount of traffic and the rozzers were out handing out performance awards this early in the morning but temps were up around 16-17°C just perfect really.

First pee break around Bell in the Blue mountains and a quick photo op before we crossed over to Mt Victoria and down the pass and onto the Jenolan caves road.

We then turned onto Duckmaloi road towards Oberon and it was a nice smooth run through the hills, where we stopped for a mid morning snack at the wild bean cafe. A toasted ham/cheese/tomato sammich washed down with a nice warm coffee hit the spot.

It was in Oberon we also picked up Dave's crew from Nowra and Geoff and Scotty who had driven up.

Why was Geoff driving you may ask. Well he is is still recovering from his off road crash back on new years eve and still cant bend his leg to get back on his bike. Yes it was a pretty nasty one. At our fuel stop in Bathurst Geoff tried out Bruce's Triumph.

It took a bit of effort getting on and off but you couldn't wipe the smile off his face being on a bike again. Maybe you'll have to sell the MT to me and you can get yourself a Harley mate.

It was decided here to do a lap of Mt Panorama. Why not we only have about a 2.5 hr ride to our destination. We stopped at the top to take in the views.

One lap of the mount was enough before heading out the Turondale road to Hillend. This is a great little ride as it is not very highly trafficked, its a bit narrow and its hilly and twisty. The ride into hillend is also a great bike road and following Craig on his Vstrom into the blinding sun he was setting a cracking pace.

The hillend pub had a fair few people for a Saturday afternoon and we had one quick beer whilst chatting out the front. The tree lined entry into tower was aglow with autumn colours. 

Hillend was a historic gold mining town back in the late 1800's and had a population then of over 8000 with 28 pubs but since then its become a bit of a ghost town with a current population of 80 with one pub.

From here we followed the Hillend Road all the way to Mudgee. This is another good fun motorcycle road, again similar to the turondale road being narrow and winding. After about an hour we arrived at our accommodation for the night, the Oriental Hotel. We had booked out all the rooms upstairs and the house next door. At diner our table was reserved and it looks like they heard a famous motorcycle racer was in town. The food here was great and the accommodation was good and reasonably priced at $50 per head.

We finished up just before midnight but some of the other boys decided to go out for a few more. We were waken at 2.40am by 2 of the boys returning trying to get in when they were staying in the pub. Slomax was not impressed. They will have sore heads when they wake up.

Sunday morning greeted us with rain. WTF, the forecast was for clear weather and so I didn't pack any wet weather gear. Bruce asked how long I'd been riding. 25 years and I haven't learnt a thing haha. But it was light rain and it didn't last long as a cold front had come through.

We made our way down to the Mudgee Brewery for breakfast. Poached eggs on toast with bacon hit the spot nicely whilst we waited for the rain to move on. Topped off by a wake the hell up coffee.

When we finished and came out there was a shroud of mist streaming from my ventura bag as the sun heated it.

The 2 drunken louts from last night failed to appear for breakfast and we ended up leaving them as they were making their way back to Newcastle as the rest had to get to Sydney/Nowra and would run out of daylight waiting around.

So we headed off towards Rylestone on wet roads but thankfully there was no more rain today. By the time we got onto the Bylong Valley way the rain had all dried up making for a more enjoyable ride.

We stopped in Bylong for Stu and Graham to catch up. There were quite a few bikes out today. Some of the surface along the Bylong road was in very poor shape, but there were also some new sections that were pretty good.

Our next stop was in Denman for fuel before we stopped in at Broke for a spot of lunch. It was here we parted ways with Dougie & Craig heading down to Wollombi whilst the rest of us made our way via the Putty Road. Stu said that we should take it easy on the Putty today. Here's how it went.

We stopped at the Grey Gums Cafe but only so that we can all regroup and make sure everyone made it through the 10 mile twisties ok before we continued on. It was a good day on the putty today, nice and warm and no rozzers.

As I sit here and type this on Monday morning(the man flu caught up with me) the cold front that has swept through eastern NSW over night has brought snow to the Blue Mountains, Bathurst and Oberon with temperatures into the negatives with wind chill. Looks like we lucked out with the weather to our good fortune as none of us would have been prepared for negative temps. Another great weekend ride away, thanks Stu for organizing everything. 

Cheers Lads 

Looking forward to the next one

Lap of the Mount

I had a call from my older bro last weekend asking me if I'd like to meet him and the kids at Bathurst for lunch. Checking in for permission with the minister of finance and warfare who was conveniently tied up with the kids at a netball event I was in luck. He said to meet him about 11:30am at Mt Panorama one of Australia's premier car road racing circuit. Sweet I thought, sounds like a fun day out on the bike


First stop was at the historic marker at Mitchell's Pass coming down the other side of the Blue Mountains. The westerly winds were blowing hard today with 50-60kmh gusts, I was getting blown about a bit and the roads were covered in leaf litter and fallen tree limbs.

Historic Mitchells Pass marker 1832

Victoria Pass

I continued on out to little hartley and turned off down the Oberon road. I had plenty of time till I had to be there so I thought I'd ride down through Jenolan Caves as it had been some considerable time since I'd been this way.

Blue Mountains

I stopped to put the gopro on, but low and behold it turned itself off after a few seconds, then when I got to the cave noticed it was off so no footage. It went flat within 10 seconds of turning it on. I think its time for a new gopro.

Jenolan Caves main entrance

From the inside looking back out

The inside of this cave is absolutely huge. It's so big there is a building built inside up on the top of one of the rock outcroppings. Stalactites hang down from the ceilings on one side of the cave.

The R1's exhaust sounded pretty fucking magic giving it a few revs inside the cave. Just after I arrived a group of about a dozen dirt bikes showed up on a group ride.

There are many different smaller caves that lead of out of the main cave. I'd like to come back here with the kids one day and explore these.

After leaving the caves I rode up the steep incline out of the valley, the wind had picked up again. It was blowing that hard I had to slow down to 80kmh in a few spots as I was getting blown about. I stopped in for fuel at Bathurst around 11:30am. A large storm was blowing in quickly. After refueling I messaged Flyboy and headed straight up to the mountain.

Just as I arrived I noticed their Suv in the motor museum car park so I pulled up and said hello. They were unloading the push bikes so they could ride them around the mountain circuit. Better them than me I thought. Just then it started to spot with some rain, but as soon as it had started it was over again and the storm had blown off to the east.

I stopped for a pic of the start/finish straight as those mtb's flew by at a blistering 12-15kmh. I pulled up next to them before darting off up the mountain for a few photos.

The famous Mount Panorama skyline

Bathurst with passing storms

I reached the top of the skyline and looked back, the mtb's would still be climbing mountain straight, so I have plenty of time to stop for more photos before I lap them, heh heh.

Bathurst from Skyline

Coming down the mountain through the dipper and esses is a lot of fun, but you could easily be doing license losing speed up here. It's a public road most of the year and it has a heavy police presence year round for obvious reasons, so I was on my best behaviour.

Conrod Straight

I came around the start line again and headed back up the mountain. As I was going slow I was curious to see how far around the mtb's would be, I found them riding up the steep hill towards the cutting the 3rd corner on the track. Pulling up next to Flyboy I checked the speedo, yep 6 kmh, it is a very steep hill in their defense. He speed up to 16kmh after I gave him a ribbing and then he tried to grab hold to get a tow but I speed off and left him in my dust. Haha. A few more photo stops and they caught up at skyline.

Flyboy, Flygirl and Batman

More storms over Bathurst after one lap

By this time they rode off down the hill. I checked my tyre's temperature, the front was a little warm but the back was no longer warm. I thought this could be interesting coming down the twistiest part of the track with cold tyres.

The first right hand bend and the rear tyre was sliding, then the very next left corner into the dipper the rear was sliding again. I little disconcerting, lucky the front didn't slide. I caught back up to them down near the end of conrod straight. They can go down hill pretty damn fast. Bet they were breaking the speed limit, bloody hooligans. You wouldn't see me doing anything like that.

Back at the motor museum about an hour later we decide to have a look around the museum. Neither of us had been inside for years and the kids had never been.

The size of the museum had doubled since I was here last more than 15 years ago. I was surprised to see that they had a lot of bikes in here. There was an excellent display of Greg Hansfords race bikes. Sadly Greg was killed in a touring car race at Phillip Island back in the 90's.

The front 3rd was a mixture of cars and bikes, but the middle 3rd was dedicated to bikes which was a pleasant surprise. The last bike racing that I remember here was back in 1988 before it was abandoned for being to dangerous. I wonder if these people have heard of the Isle of Mann.

Wayne Gardners 1987 championship winning 500cc two stroke beast was on display with wayne's rothmans leathers of the day.

I noted that his Moriwaki Superbike and race leathers were also on display here. He raced this bike famously in Britain, Daytona and Japan where he won the suzuka 8 hours and humiliated the honda factory team.

The exhaust engineering seems to be pretty shonky on that pipe

The list of race winners has some pretty famous names on it especially the last year 1988, one Michael Doohan.

Moving on into the last 3rd of the museum this was dedicated to the V8 race cars that had made Bathurst famous.

Peter Brock lauded as King of the Mountain by many famously won 9 bathurst 1000 races the most in it's history. His 1978 X9 Torana is on display as well as one of the early race winning Commodores(Taxi).

After finishing up looking at all those beautiful bikes and cars we headed into town for some grub, at the Oxford Hotel. I thought I'd just get a small burger for lunch. When it came out it was anything but small. I think it was almost as big as my head.

I said goodbye to the family as they made their way home back towards Brisbane. I decided that I would ride back through Lithgow and take the Bells line of road home through the mountains. I was soon regretting have such a large lunch, especially seeing as I had a late night before as I began to get very tired riding along here. I thought I needed a coffee to keep me alert and awake.

The scenery along the Bells Line sure is great every time you travel along this bit of road.

I was about an hour from home but desperately needed to stop for a coffee as I was feeling unusually fatigued. I stopped in at Bilpin. One shop had a nice deal for coffee and home made apple pie. I didn't need the pie but boy it sure was good. The coffee did the trick keeping me alert for the last leg home. All up a great days riding if only a short ride. Thanks bro.

Cheers