Ride to Mildura – 2010

I am consolidating old ride reports I’ve published on various forums over the years onto my WordPress site. This is a ride report from July 2010 for a trip to Mildura to celebrate a mates 50th.

I thought I might wrap a few words around some of the photos I took on our trip over to celebrate Ian’s birthday in Mildura.

The plan was simple – meet Russell and Jeltje in Wagga at 9am and head west. Lionel called a couple of nights earlier saying he may join us in Wagga if he was going to make it. I had planned on leaving home at 6:30 but I woke early so after having breakfast checking the weather (which was -4 at the time) I ended up leaving way too early 6:15am.

Alway nice to be on the road as the sun comes up.

The problem however when leaving when the temperature is -4 is that it gets a bit chilly!

However, I was nice and warm with my new electric vest nicely warming my torso, my new polypro inner gloves and heated grips keeping the hands warm. But all was not good. My feet where FREEZING, I had a set of Grabber inner sole warmers (http://www.warmers.com/) in, my nice merino socks on, and feet all wrapped in plastic bags in my waterproof boots. There was just too much cold attacking the tops of my feet for any of those measures to counteract. I kept thinking of Mick’s heaters he has out in front of his feet but I’m afraid it didn’t help at all. The electric socks that are on the way also didn’t seem to help.

So whilst I was thawing out and waiting for Russell and Lionel I checked out the planes at the Wagga RAAF base.

So with Russell, Jeltje and Lionel we headed west and with all day to do the remaining distance in we were able to stop regularly for coffees and lunch. Russell even had time to give a waitress a coffee making lesson.

Here’s Lionel at one of our stops, man those lights are menacing!

Out on the Hay plains

It was great to catch up with everyone at the party and the catering team did a fantastic job. Thanks Sue and Rosemary. Oh and those port strawberrys Marlene ….

Happy Birthday Ian

On Sunday I was a bit torn, hang around and go home with Russel, Jeltje, and Lionel or discover some new roads. I chose the latter, and after doing some sums I thought I may catch up with them later in the day. So my plan for the day was to head to Swan Hill then east to Jerilderie

and then follow the Kidman Way north to Griffith.

It was at the crossroads of the Kidman Way and Sturt Hwy that was the only place our paths would cross. I had got the yawns before getting to the crossroads so I planned to stop here for awhile and have a break. I got there just before 2pm and by my calculations I should’ve been close to seeing the others. The girls at the servo hadn’t seen them (weren’t looking), the guy hitching a ride also had seen them. So I sat and chilled for 30mins and looked at Ron Clarkes steel artwork.

After waiting long enough I headed north to Griffith. I later found out that they arrived at Narrandera (55km away) at about 2:30. Damn I must have missed them by a matter of minutes. From Griffith I travelled east going through Barellan the home town of Evonne Goolagong