Day 17 Bathurst to home veeeerrrry slowly

We woke up early because I told David I would go with him on his run.  (I KNOW!! for those that know me well that's incredible) I plan to be a fitter, healthier me by the end of this year! as I am heading into my 50th year I think it's about time.

We headed out into the fog yes it was pretty foggy so a little glad my bike wasn't ready because riding in it would not have been very pleasant.  David was very gentle with me and I am going to enjoy having him as my personal trainer.  For those that don't know me that well, I have walked for exercise before but never run!  I do play netball but that's a different kind of running.  Anyway on the way back to the room we called into the bakery for some croissants mmmm.  The woman behind the counter was showing a bit of attitude (at 7:30 in the morning must have got out the wrong side of the bed!) but Dave charmed her and she was a little nicer.  When we got back to the room we realised she'd only given us 2 croissants not 3!!  So Dave went back to buy another and pointed out to the woman her mistake and she says "I only charged you for 2!" ha ha

At 10am we checked out of the hotel and David strapped my bag to his bike and I walked up to the bike place.  As I was walking up there he texted me to say it was ready woohoo.  But because my bike has two coils they were uncertain whether it would be OK because they only replaced one.  And they also thought that the igniters needed replacing.  And I paid $700 for them to 'fix' it. OUCH!  The first steep hill we hit it totally lost power so we limped it home stopping every 100kms or so to rest it and a trip that should take 4 hours took 8 1/2!!!!  I even rode Dave's 1600 Road Star for 2 sections!!! I love it, it rumbles under you and growls!! ha ha He says when we bring the Venture home from the USA next year I should keep it and sell my Speedmaster!! 

We said goodbye to lovely Leigh at the end of the Golden Highway.  My butt was killing me after riding for so long.  It rained really lightly part the way home but not enough to warrant rain gear woohoo!

We arrived on our doorstep about 7pm no one was at home except the dogs :)

We went down to pick up my Lancer (it spent the holidays at the smash repairer after my bingle a few weeks before I went away) it looks brand new because as well as fixing the damage I got the repairer to fix all the bumps and scratches all over the car.

Tea tonight was baked beans on toast.  Then it was a lovely long hot shower and bed mmm nothing like your own bed and pillow.

So until our next adventure au revoir!

Day 16 Cobar - Dunedoo ooops no Bathurst to pick up my bike!

Another cloudy start to the day and the odd drop of rain but not enough to make us get out the rain gear.  We ahve a stretch stop in Nyngan and then ride on to Trangie where we get petrol and coffee, they have only instant so Leigh doesn't want any coffee snob LOL.  A short ride on to Dubbo and we stop at Hungry Jacks for a stretch, nature stop and coffee. real coffee.  The plan is to stop in Wellington for lunch but we make it ther fairly early and decide to push on to Orange for lunch so I ring my friend Helen (Mad Cows) to see if she is home and could meet us for lunch but she is over in Bathurst ha ha.

Once in Orange we find Subway and Leigh is happy to find they make smoothies.  Glad David and I shared one!!!  A few more drops of rain on the way out of Orange but doesn't amount to anything.

We get into Bathurst at about 3pm and go straight to the Triumph shop....disappointment awaits....even though they have fixed the carbie, spark plugs and replaced the air filter my bike is not right and they think it's one of the two coils so one has been ordered and should be here tomorrow at around 10am so we are going to be late home dammit!! sooo we wait

We go to the hotel and it is so nice to find clean pyjamas and other clothes in the things I had to leave behind mmm cleam jim jams

We go to the RSL for dinner and it is very nice :))

NO photos today sorry :)

Day 15 Broken Hill - Cobar boooooooring!

We get up a little bit earlier this morning aware that we are losing half an hour going back to EDST.  Breakfast is quick and we then get petrol before leaving Broken Hill.

There is a large bank of cloud covering the sun which is very welcome both for the heat and the glare.  The road is straight and relentless though and there is not much change in the scenery.  Lots of large goats, emus and kangaroos.  We even saw a large dead pig.  At one stage a wide load was coming and we were right behind a VERY large semi trailer he swerved, not slowing much and sent his left rear wheels onto the gravel we so thought he was going to totally lose it!! the dust he sent up made it really hard to see for a while.

We stopped at Emmdale Roadhouse to get some fuel and decided to stay for lunch what a lovely oasis in the middle of a stunningly boring trip!  We met a woman from the USA, Kate who rides a Harley Heritage around by herself!  She lives in Australia 6 months and USA 6 months (hates the cold LOL) she gave us some really good tips on places to visit.  We got her email address and plan to keep in touch.

We make it to Cobar at 3pm and have a lovely swim and then go across the road to the Bowling & Golf Club for dinner which is the BEST Chinese food I've had in a while. We have 3 courses mmmmmm

cloud cover this morning

my view ALLLLLLL day LOL

Day 14 exploring around Broken Hill

Today we rode out to Silverton where the Mad Max 2 & 3 movies were filmed along with several other Australian movies.  There is a museum there we didn't go in though there were lots of photos of the displays on the outside.  We did go to some of the other shops in town though.  The first one had displays of bottles, dolls and various other pieces of antiquity.  And I bought a heart shaped crystal trinket dish (I collect heart shaped boxes, dishes etc), we then went down to the pub where there were photos of movies/actors and behind the scenes which were all very interesting.  We then made our way over to a shop called Beyond 39 dips (which relates to the dips in the road out to Silverton from Broken Hill yes there are 39 of them!! anyway in this shop I buy some beautiful earrings and so does Leigh and we find a large, laminated map of Australia already packed in a plastic tube and we buy it and post it to ourselves.  On the way out of town there is a group of Mad Max devotees who have met this week to talk all things Mad Max and they have some of the vehicles from the movie on display it's pretty funny!

We ride back into town and go to the Broken Earth Cafe for lunch it sits perched up on the mallock heap of the old mine site.  Broken Hill was so called because of the boomerang shaped silver lode which is 7km long and goes into the earth at both ends and protruded above the earth in the middle and the pastoralists used to call it The broken hill.  Lunch is yum Leigh has haloumi, Dave has risotto and I had lamb and sweet potato curry.

Dave has found another retro gem in Bell's Cafe and we go there for dessert they have the best milkshakes and sundaes as they use all their own flavourings.  Mars Bar sundae for Dave, cherry ripe sundae for me and peppermint crisp sundae for Leigh.  Back to the room for a quick nap and then Dave and I go to check out the Art Gallery in the main street.  It's quite big and has some very impressive paintings and sculptures in it.

We went to The Muso's Club for dinner.  It was OK then we decided to ride out to the sculptures on the hill.  It just looked like they had placed some rocks at the lookout.  But it was a nice ride and the sunset was very cool.

check out the saddle LOL

the gun sheath ha ha

this bike is road registered!!!

our hotel is the L shaped building about the middle

Panorama from Broken Earth Cafe

Mars Bar Sundae at Bell's Cafe

Mother & Child sculpture

saxaphone light fitting at The Muso's Club

sunset at sculpture lookout

Day 13 Renmark - Broken Hill came to a complete stop oops!!!

When we left Renmark this morning it was already fairly warm, I was going to just wear my T-shirt and leather vest but David said it might be a bit cool I'm glad I took his advice because once we got going it was a little chilly. 

We stopped for petrol at Cullulleraine and quickly got back on the road.  I was talking to the woman at the service station and told her we were on the way to Broken Hill and planning to stop at Coombah and she said you'll pay through the nose there!!  (well it is in the middle of nowhere so we sort of expected that!).

We then stopped at Wentworth for morning tea which we had at the bakery.  Neenish tarts yum!!  While we were at the bakery I was talking to the baker about the 2 rivers and he asked if we were going to check out the junction of them.  I had forgotten that Wentworth is where the Murray meets the Darling so after our morning tea we went to check it out funnily enough from the tower in the park we could see a definite line between the two.  We are glad we went to check out the confluence of the two rivers ha ha.

Our next stop is Coombah roadhouse which is 137km from Wentworth which was about 70km from Cullulleraine and Coombah is about 125km from Broken Hill OK you do the maths!! now add to this equation no petrol at Coombah due to an electrical fault and voila what do have? yes us running out of petrol 50kms short of Broken Hill!!

Let me for a short moment take you back to Coombah as there is a story there!  When we arrived the petrol pump is locked so I went into the 'building' to ask if we could get some petrol only to be told by a shirtless, dyed blonde haired young man that we can't pump petrol today there's an electrical fault.  I came out to tell David this and while I was telling him observed some young womne trying to access the toilets yes they were locked too!!  I said to them "that's friendly!" they laughed.  then we went in to order something to eat and there was no sign of any board to order anything next minute the shirtless one who was playing something on his phone stood up and pulled out 3 boards and turned with his back to me to put them up so we could see (showing off his plumbers crack OMG I was almost sick) so we ordered plain hamburgers which actually turned out to be quite nice and not very expensive really.  The place was very run down and untidy and the young man then said to David "I'm taking this place over"  Dave said "Got big plans for it then?" it was all I could do not to laugh out loud!!!  So we left there with some trepidation as to whether we would make Broken HIll with what was left in our tank.

Dave had to turn to reserve 100kms out from Broken Hill so I was pretty sure we wouldn't make it so when we were 50kms out and the bike started to cough and splutter and then finally gave up I was so not surprised it was amazing how far we coasted for and then pulled over to the side of the road.  We dceided to see if anyone would pull over with petrol in thier car, a man called Jim pulled over and told us he had just taken some petrol out of his car before he left doh!! anyway a few people stopped but had no petrol and none of us had any phone reception (I did toy with the idea of ringing the eergency operator and getting him/her to contact the NRMA for us) but eventually Leigh left and went to Broken Hill to get a small can of oetrol to bring back.  She was gone for about an hour pretty quick really and when she came back she bought cold gatorade with her ahhhhhhhh that feels better.

We then rode into Broken Hill and filled up and then tried to find our accomodation.  It's a guest house right in the middle of town an old pub all the downstairs is now shops and the upstairs is the guesthouse.  We have pizza and beer for dinner and have lovely cool showers.

yes we ran out of petrol! we were stuck here for about an hour with the heat, flies and no phone reception

saw lots of this

and heaps of this today!!

Day 12 Mt Pleasant - Renmark via 5 ferries

Another super sunny, lovely start to the day that turned into a very very hot day!!!

Five ferry crossings.  Swan Reach, Morgan, Cadell, Waikerie and Lyrup.

We rode through Eden Valley to Swan Reach a lovely ride down from Mt Pleasant.
We got fuel and had coffee at the roadhouse near Blanchetown and then went down to check out Lock 1 of the Murray River System.  The 1956 flood level at the lock was 5.2m.  We looked at some old photos and in 1950 there must have been a dozen or more palm trees planted on the lawn beside the lock and today only one survives it is about 10m tall!!  My day would have been complete if we had seen a boat come through the lock.

From there we rode over to Morgan and our longest wait of the day, we were in a long line of cars waiting but fortunately we were able to wait in the shade.

After Morgan we then rode onto Cadell our shortest wait of the day the ferry operator was about to close the gate and heard us coming when we got to the other side we saw a lovely Harley parked beside the ferry shed and asked if it was hers, it was so I gave her the thumbs up and off we rode :P

We rode into Waikerie our lunch stop after riding through acres and acres of citrus trees and vineyards it was sooo beautiful.  We pulled up next door to the Waikerie Club in the shade and went in to have lunch but they don't open the bistro on Sundays!!! what the??? so we went to the pub and had a burger/beer special mmmm a pint (Schooey for NSW) of Super Dry yum after we had lunch we came out to find Dave's bike absolutely covered in black ants.... they were everywhere!!!
The Waikerie ferry operator was also a rider he had a Triumph (that man has taste!)

We rode over to Berri and oh my was it hot!!we stop by the river side and get some cold drinks. Leigh dangles her feet in the river to try to cool off I didn't want to take my boots and socks off cause I knew I would NOT want to put them back on ha ha

Our last ferry was Lyrup.  There was two riders parked in the shade next to the ferry one on a Harley and one on a BMW.  The poor BMW rider's starter motor had blown and he was waiting for the NRMA (or the SA one LOL) I felt his pain :(  Gavin the operator was pleased to see us as being in a very small place and the last ferry on the Murray it gets a bit quiet ha ha

We arrived at our hotel in Renmark at about 3:30pm first priority was either a cold shower or a swim and HALLELUJAH!!! as we rode in the driveway what is the first thing I see but a pool, just looking at it makes me feel cooler!!  Once we have off loaded the bikes and started some washing we are in there cooling off woohoo!!!!!  Then we go over the road to Woolies to pick up some stuff for dinner and brekky.  I decide to leave my wet swimmers on and when we come back outside and it's still really hot I said "mmm it's nice having wet pants!" LOL  David and I have another swim to cool off and we hang the washing on a clothes airer and it is drying very quickly!!  Dinner is cuppa noodles and some yummy fruit salad.  What a lovely day Looking forward to Broken Hill and exploring the nearby surrounds for the next 2 days.

riding along

coming down from Mt Pleasant

Church in Sedan

Swan Reach ferry

Lock 1 at Blanchetown

Morgan Ferry

Cadell Ferry

Waikerie ferry

bikes on the Waikerie ferry

Waikerie ferry

Lyrup ferry

Day 11 Hahndorf - Mt Pleasant via 6 ferries.

Today was all about playing on ferries :)
We got going just before 8am great work team!!  It was lightly spotting rain as we left and the road was a little wet but soon dried out and even though we had another few episodes of showers through the day we didn't need to wear our rain gear at all, in fact, the rain was welcomed due to the high temperatures.

At Mannum there were two ferries we caught the first one over and then we stopped to check out the museum which told the story of the river trade on the Murray and the great flood of 1956 which in the information centre was at about 2.5m.  We bought some sandwiches at a takeaway shop and sat near the car ferry to eat and watch the ferries go by.  It is a long weekend in SA and there was a working engine and blacksmith shop at the museum and if we wanted to we could have had a ride a a steamship "Marion"

After the last ferry ride at Walker Flat we had an ice cream it was pretty darned hot!!

A short ride and we arrive in Mt Pleasant at Happy Hour time woohoo

we have dinner at the pub leek and potato soup then steak for me, Korma curry for Dave and Nachos for Leigh so stuffed no room for dessert.  More ferries tomorrow :P

First ferry today

second

third

fourth

fifth

sixth

pretty fancy pants for Mt Pleasant hotel