A bit of a ride

[Cormanus]

At Kandos I had a very ordinary cup of coffee and refuelled. I was assailed by one of those helpful people who wanted to tell me there were lots of kangaroos about, which was very kind, but he then wanted to talk about every single one that had been run over, and give me the details of its heritage for two or three generations. I was worried he was going to move to a history of the drivers who hit them and so politely made my excuses.

Looking back near Sofala



From Kandos I had a quick trip to the outskirts of Bathurst where I had to resort to the GPS briefly to find the back road Pterodactyl had pointed me at. By this point there was a fair bit of traffic about and it dawned on me the major V8 supercars (The Bathurst 1000) was on over the weekend. I was glad to be going the other way, although it occurred to me I’d like to ride the circuit one day. I’m pretty sure it’s basically a public road the rest of the year.

I wasn’t on the Great Western Highway for more than a few minutes before I turned right onto O’Connell Rd. 9.5 kms later I turned left onto Tarana Rd which I followed through the delightfully named Brewongle. It’s a pleasant enough road with great scenery. A few blind corners and an almost total absence of painted lines make it a wee bit treacherous.







Tarana Road

Arriving in the tiny town of Tarana, I stopped at the pub for lunch.


I ate this very ordinary looking and average tasting chicken burger and was forced again to ponder why people insist on overheating the milk for cappuccino.


At the pub I met a chap with a 250 Honda road racer which he said could do 180 kph at 22,000 rpm. He assured me he’d be in Lithgow in 11 minutes. I’d be lucky to do it in 25. He also told me I should have given the Tarana Road a miss and driven another 11.5 kms and ridden the apparently much better Mutton Falls Rd. In this game, there’s nearly always another reason for ‘next time’.