Shortly after 7am today I started my fun filled assault on the FarRally at Illabo NSW after a lovely ride through the early morning chill and fog between there and Gundagai. I quickly followed tht with pics at Erongilly, Gundagai, Little Billabong, Holbrook, Morven and Culcairn. I had my "Iron Butt Ride" head on, efficient, clinical but realized while in front of Culcairn Post Office that I only had 800k’s or so to do today so there was no point rushing.
Then I smelled coffee and pies and made myself at home in the Bakery across the road. Good coffee, good pies, good cakes, a couple of deep breaths and the IBA head was off, the Queensland Blue was on.
Today's route was to be a bit of a trip down memory lane for me, passing through a number of locations I'd spent some time in a much earlier part of my life. This included a pic outside the Oaklands Hotel which was immediately plonked on facebook to an equal dose of delight from my long term buddy Chris and chagrin from my travel organizer and most favourite wife ever.
Being a bit of a city boy, one thing I really did enjoy during this part of the trip were the lambs. Not in the kiwi sense though. There were little lambs everywhere, tails wagging, chasing their mums running from the sound of the bike and a surprising number of twins and triplets, good Merino stock I bet. Cute and smileworthy!
The next stop was Berrigan for a pic and a visit to a newsagent where I bought the Rallymaster a good luck card suitable for fingerprints. The lovely lady in the newsagency thought it bizzare that I insisted on a receipt with the time on it but was happy to write one and sign it for me, ready for another fingerprint. Strange things one has to do in a Rally.
Things were flowing smoothly, Finley for a pic at the turnaround, then Jerilderie for a fuel receipt that might come in handy and another pic then on to Narrandera, where the mind started to let go and overthink the task. I was about to ride past some locations that were in my original plan and decided to check the numbers. Shouldn’t have done that, I didn’t resolve anything and decided to stick with the plan, now a little unsettled. I stuck Temora in the GPS and was surprised that it announced a 121km trip, m plan said 132km. I might need that 10ks!
So I rode through Grong Grong, and at Ganmain turned left as directed by the GPS, disregarding the fact that my planned route included Coolamon. Shouldn’t have done that! After a while I was heading west instead of east and the GPS was directing me into dirt roads or roads that didn’t exist. Instead of saving k’s I added way too many (insert mild profanity here).
I got to Temora just before dark, grabbed a photo at the Post Office, got some fuel and high tailed it towards the biggest rising moon I’ve seen and Stockinbingal, but not before I called my wife to let her know I was going to stop in Cowra for the night. She offered to sort out a motel for me, bless her! This was followed by a transport leg to Cowra via Macas at Young after realizing I hadn’t eaten since the pie at Culcairn.
I arrived at Cowra after 8pm and took my time. By my calculations I had nearly 11 hours to spend there before I needed to leave in the morning. By then I would have the news about which pics that I had taken during the day attracted a negative point value. A toss of the coin, if black the extra k’s I did while lost would ensure a zero balance couldn’t occur, if blue I was still OK. I wasn’t in a hurry to find out. So a couple of G & T’s were in order and a check through the paperwork which revealed in full my dire situation, not the least of which resulted from the excess k's getting lost.