Gunning

Woke at 4am this morning to watch the MotoGP of the Americas and another skillful win by Marc Marquez on the Honda. My boots were very worse for wear after the stream crossing and needed some duct tape support the complete the road trip. Should be less than 1,000km now till home, and I still have plenty of duct tape.

Today's route loosely followed one of the rides recommended in my Bike Atlas. Leaving Kandos, I had heavy fog for the first 20km before breaking out into bright sunshine at Hill End. A tiny remnant of the gold rush (the diggings are still visible), I'm guessing it's a dormitory town for Bathurst. 

Bathurst was in full swing, and I headed for the bike route through Oberon to Goulburn. The route has been fully sealed, and alternated between cropping, pine forestry and native bush. Different from yesterday but still surprisingly beautiful. I stopped in Taralga at a very hip cafe for a country town - must be the Grey Nomads lifting the culinary standards. So many restored or preserved buildings from the 1800's.

With a small distance target, I spent the day tooling along on country roads at 80 to 90 km/h, letting the local traffic pass me. The last run to Gunning took in a bit of the Hume Highway, where I was able to get off and parallel run. Some nice cloud porn of the towering afternoon cumulus.

Waiting for a reunion with Bruce, riding down from Gosford. Alex will join us from Canberra in the morning (says he's going to 'woose out' and bring his car if the forecast rain comes). Motel again for convenience and a dry start at least. Washed the bike - no sign now of last 9,000km. Trip meter seems to have called it a day, +330km today.

The Antipodean Mariner