17/04/23 CWCT Day 4: Gulgong to Birriwa to Dunedoo

I had the first leg of cycling, with a plan to meet Roger for swapsies at the point that my little dirt road crossed the Castlereagh Highway.  We got an early start on packing up camp and then Roger perused a museum or two while I headed out on the road. Gulgong calls itself the "$10 Town," which didn't make sense until Roger found out that the pictures on the old paper $10 note were images from a collection of original glass plate photographic images of early Gulgong. Unfortunately we only found out this interesting information as we were leaving, so all we could do was add Gulgong to the list of places to come back to.

I may not have gone to the Museum, but I found some old gutters on the way out of town anyway.

 

For 13km I cycled along a pleasant bitumen road through pleasant countryside, having a pleasant time, nothing to get overexcited about.

I obeyed advisory signs.

Then I turned off the bitumen and started up a long hill which had more false summits than any hill I'd ever ridden a bicycle up before. I took a lot of 'photo breaks' and enjoyed the view, which stretched over long valleys to distant mountains.

Brand new shearing shed with view looking back toward Gulgong.

 

And views out toward the next valley, where I was going.

I passed a mob of sheep dozing beside a dam, and caused sheep chaos as the mob got up to run away but ewes and lambs couldn't find each other and all ran around yelling at the tops of their voices. It was very entertaining.

 

I left the little dirt road for a littler dirt road called Birriwa School Bus Route South (what a mouthful for a road!) and hereafter referred to as BSBRS because there's no way I'm typing the full name all the time.

NavDec.

 

BSBRS was full of potholes and washouts and big ruts, with very little room to move if a truck came by, which it did.

 

I texted Roger: "Don't come down BSBRS Road. It's not worth it."  Of course it was a lottery if he would receive it given that his phone was broken, but it was worth a try.

Apart from the rocks and washouts and ruts and and corrugations and potholes,  BSBRS was  a beautiful road to cycle.  It trended downhill through tunnels of trees with wide open views across sheep paddocks.  As I neared the highway the valley opened out I passed Mayfield where, according to the CWCT notes,  I could have called yesterday and arranged to visit today for lunch  or afternoon tea.

 

Opportunities missed.  That will teach me to read the notes before I ride, not after.

 

Unfortunately Roger, under the innocent assumption that a school bus route could be expected to be traffic-able, and in the absence of messages to the contrary, had attempted BSBRS from the highway. This did not work well and he had to continue for 4 nerve wracking km, prevented from turning around by washouts and general dense bush. He waited for me at the first turn-around point he could find. Meanwhile, I faffed around 100m up the track taking photos of autumn leaves.

Bike with autumn leaves.

 

Eventually we made contact, and then it was Roger's turn to ride off into the sunset countryside while I went off to Dunedoo.

I waited at the entrance to the Dunedoo Caravan Park for a manager who finally arrived in a flustered whirlwind of information regarding Dunedoo's failed attempt to build a Big Dunny as their tourist attraction (because a big dunny where tourists can pay for the privilege of using 5-star toilets would be an obvious choice for a tourist attraction... Wouldn't it?). She also touched on someone's attempt to start an Air Bnb without providing crockery, cutlery, or linen, and the difficulty of finding a local physio to treat her sciatica.  The word whirlwind deposited me at the door of a cabin with unique points such as besser blocks standing in for posts.  But it had phone reception, which was more than could be said for certain grander cabins at other caravan parks in our recent past.

Good enough.

 

Roger arrived, having blown all his cares away with a ride that was substantially more down hill than up.  The Caravan Park came to life as caravans rolled in for the night and all the workers who lived in the dongas returned from work.  A group gathered around a fire pit outside our kitchen window, huddled in their hi vis jackets for extra warmth and smoking 'herbal cigarettes' for extra chill. 

Bespoke fire pit with 'herbal' motif.

Out on the highway, trucks stopped with a great palaver of brakes, exhausts and slamming doors, allowing their drivers to take advantage of the $3 hot shower honesty box at the ablutions block.  Comforted by the knowledge that the truckies leaving Dunedoo were squeaky clean, we shut the windows, turned on the air conditioner to drown out all the noise, and went to bed.