For a moment we were on the same wavelength … Oh Crap! I wrenched on the bars and gave it the gas, he was busily carrying out his own avoidance strategy. The roo quickly changed direction and slid into the location I was occupying only moments earlier.
Nothing focuses your attention like a roo jumping out. Especially on a lonely backroad in western Queensland with very little traffic.
I love it out here, open road, big sky, and just the road for company interrupted by the occasional car, truck, or road train. This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and I’m not sure whether I can explain it. When searching great bike roads, these don’t come up on the list, there isn’t a ribbon of twisting tarmac or mountain pass. But these are the roads where you just sit and let the countryside wash over you while getting lost in your own thoughts. This is where I like to do my thinking, this is where helmet time happens.
So, when the chance to take a four-day weekend came up to ride, I jumped at it.
It was a simple plan, drop Deb off at Katoomba for a weekend with the girls and continue north. The rough plan strung a series of murals for a bike rally I’m participating in and some painted silos and water towers along the way to add to my collection. I have no accommodation booked, no daily target distance, I just have to be home on Monday.
There is something liberating about travelling alone. Leave when you want, stop where you want, detour where you want. Whereas in a group you aren’t stopping at random stuff just to check it out or to take a photo.
It was good to finally shake the city traffic as I headed west of Katoomba heading for the first silo at Portland.
From Portland, a run over the Bylong Valley Way and on to the Merriwa silo before dark. It’s been a while since I’ve done a run over this road and a lot of the damage has been fixed but there are still a couple of rough sections (really rough!). Its touch and go whether I’ll make it to Merriwa before dark and as I get closer the sun is starting to disappear over the horizon it leaves beautiful hues of purples and oranges silhouetting the trees – just too beautiful not to stop.
Rolling into Scone after dark I jag the last room at the pub and spend the next few hours chatting to a couple of Sydney adventure bike riders exploring the dirt roads in the area, before wheeling the bikes into the beer garden for the night and hitting the sack.
Secure parking is great, but the downside can be waiting on someone to unlock the gate. So I found myself sitting in the bar garden at 7am drinking bad coffee waiting for the gates to open at 8. That’s an hours riding I have lost. An hours less riding before it gets dark at the other end of the day.
Today’s goal was 4 silos and few murals.
Gunnedah’s silo depicts the famous poem “My Country” penned by Dorothea Mackellar in 1906 at the age of 19 whilst living in England and missing her homeland. Her family had properties around Gunnedah. The silo includes the second stanza which is the most well-known and iconic. Here is the full poem –
My Country by Dorothea Mackellar
The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!
The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze …
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
I had toyed with a longer run up through Dalby and Roma which would add a further 700km to my weekend’s overall ride (and another 9 murals) but when I got to Yelabon I opted not to continue to Dalby as I wanted to keep this a more cuisey ride, so I retraced my steps back to Goondiwindi and onto Thallon.
Heading west into the setting sun, squinting through a thick coating of bug guts on both my clear and sunshade visors (as I often run with the clear visor up), I was beginning to think I wouldn’t see a roo jumping out in front me. Maybe I should give the visors a quick clean.
Visors cleaned and ready to jump back on the bike and I hear the exhaust brakes of the b-double I just overtook slowing to make sure I was okay. With a thumbs up, a puff of diesel smoke from the stacks, and he was on his way. Thanks mate.!
Then 10 minutes later I’m dancing with the roo…
Rolling into Thallon minutes before the sun disappears behind the horizon and after a couple of close dances with roos I decided if the small pub had a room, I’d call it a day. So I did.
Sunday morning I head north to St George before turning and heading back south. On the outskirts of St George my phone goes off with missed calls and messages from Deb checking on me as I’ve had no phone service and I wasn’t able to check in with her last night. A downside of such a connected world and when that link is severed.
St George seems like a lovely place and somewhere I need to return one day and spend more time as 10 minutes really isn’t enough.
Out here you expect big trucks and there’s been a lot of road trains but I’ve never seen a b-quad before. He was parked, so I stopped for a quick photo and chat. This guy is hauling 70 tonnes of carrots. That’s a lot of carrots!
When I got home I mentioned this truck to my sister-in-law, who’s quick comeback … have you seen the tipper I drive? It carts 240 tonnes! Okay you win! Those mine trucks are huge! But these are still big beasts out on the open road and the 14 really doesn’t expel much effort to slide around them.
Lightning Ridge is a place I’ve wanted to visit but never quite got to … riding into town today and Lightning Ridge isn’t anything like I was expecting. And it was busy … people everywhere!
Lightning Ridge had lots of cool murals around town, which certainly adds to its character. Walking around the local art gallery in big dusty, squeaky motorcycle boots it was hard not to be noticed … or was it full leathers with the three days on the road look … hard to tell …
I was burning daylight, so it was time to hit the road.
There’s always random stuff along the way on these types of roads from old machinery, painted bikes, hay bale sculptures, interesting mailboxes, or artwork. Here’s a few from Sunday’s ride.
STAY RIGHT THERE! – later that afternoon while filling up in Narromine I was chatting to a family who were side-swiped by an Emu in their Mazda 6. It took out their mirror and the drivers door wouldn’t shut right and just kept running. These guys can turn so fast and can really move. Emu 1 – Mazda 0.
Jimmy Little a celebrated and beloved Australian Aboriginal musician, actor and advocate
The Oxley highway is one of the premier motorcycling roads in Australia … but not this end. Heading towards Warren I was having trouble maintaining the 110km/h speed limit as the road was so lumpy from all the heavy vehicles. Slowing to 40km/h for roadworks I see a patch of freshly laid bitumen. But this wasn’t bitumen it was a deep layer of road-base that the big bike immediately dug into setting up a very unsettling weave. Washing off speed slowly with careful application of the rear brake, and very slow deacceleration I kept the whole show upright. Just glad I didn’t have any traffic behind me.
I hear a little voice behind me as I’m setting up for a photo in Warren – Hey Mister, do you know how you can fit 3 people on your bike? I spin around and a little kid rolls over to me on his scooter. No how? And he points to my pannier and then thinks about it and says … and you can fit someone else here, as he walks around and points to my other pannier, and then he reaches up with his little hand and taps my top box, and another one up here. Then he was on his way.
With the dark and cold closing in I find a room at the pub in Wellington and pull up stumps. It seems funny to be stopping at Wellington as I’m only 350km from home and normally I’d just keep going. But this isn’t a ride for pushing on, I’ve done around 900km today and I don’t have to be back until tomorrow.
Being so close to home this feels like my back yard and it’d easy to just take my normal route, but there are a few more murals and I detour via Yeoval and Bathurst before heading home via Trunkey Creek and Crookwell.
Then I’m pulling into the driveway 2,800km under my belt for the weekend and a much squarer rear tyre.
Zed14 
Your comment resonated with me about riding alone. On the one hand you can stop and do what you want which I really like, but if and when it goes bad I’d really like to know that I had mates there that could call for help when it went bad. The down side with group rides is all those things you mentioned. Not stopping to look at stuff, no detours etc which can be frustrating on some levels.
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I’m probably less worried about the what ifs but more the built in social component. But saying that it’d only be with a few others. I don’t like big groups.
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