Frogs With Attitude

The 30km ride to Finley included being passed by dozens of trucks at times where the side of the road was pretty rough, although there were some good stretches of road verge where I had good seal under me approximately 1.4m wide.

Tidy Town wins are treasured in Country Towns.

However, I recall one truckie giving me a warning blast with his horn as he had to pass me whilst facing a truck heading towards us.  I very quickly moved the trike right off the bitumen, but he still managed to pass me with a good safety margin.  I repeated this sudden move to my left into rough grass for necessity just before Finley where I think I might have punctured my left front tyre.  This was a relatively slow leak that had the tyre almost flat by the time I rode into the BP Service Station.

My repair procedure was very simple.  I used the valve tool to remove the valve stem and poured approximately 50ml of Tyre Shield ® into the tyre, re-inserted the valve stem, rotated the wheel slowly a couple of times to redistribute the sealant and then pumped the tyre up again to 65psi and rotated the wheel some more.  I then added more air as the tyre pressure had dropped to less than 30psi within a couple of minutes and rotated the wheel some more.  The tyre has held its pressure for the several days since.  That’s fixing a tyre with this new sealant Tyre Shield ®.

Decided to have lunch in a Finley park to ensure that my left front tyre did not need any more air and sat down to my prepared mixed grain rolls with spread cheese and pre-packed coleslaw.  A local car drove into the car park near me and a local gentleman introduced himself as one of the volunteers distributing free coffee, tea and biscuits at the Finley Fire Station.  He had met me on my early May ride north, after my first tyre puncture just south of Finley and  I recalled our earlier conversation.  He wanted to wish me well on my continuing ride.

From Finley I tried to book into a motel at Katamatite but it had closed so I used Call Connect to find me a Numurkah motel and had to extend my ride for this day by another twenty or so kilometres.

As I continued on my way south through Tocumwal I found the local public toilets clean.  I also had the pleasure of riding up a short hill, onto the bridge over the Murray and I was back in Victoria.  The next three or four kilometres of highway across the Murray floodplain are a bit hazardous, but it is fortunately signposted at 8okms per hour.  However, there are narrow stretches of road between even narrower bridges and  I peddled furiously to be on the bridges for the shortest period of time and  managed to get through without creating any traffic jam or worse still ‘Hank jam’ (squashed Hank), hence I had reasons to smile.

Saint Mary MacKillop's good influence stretched far and wide including places like Numurkah.

It was just before 5.00pm by the time I reached the centre of Numurkah and I was happy to check into the comfortable El Toro Motel and get under a hot shower on Wednesday night.  A good steak (only $15 for a 400gm rump) followed at the Numurkah Hotel.

In the morning it was just going to be a short 40km ride into Shepparton and I was planning on wearing my ‘day’ clothes including long pants for wearing on the train to Melbourne.

What a nice surcharge!

If I had an extra Day I would have continued my ride to at least Seymour and probably Melbourne after an overnight stop at Nagambie.

Bike path into Shepparton. I should have mentioned earlier that both Bourke and Hillston also had good bike paths.

As it happened I allowed nearly four hours to cover the distance to Shepparton and suspect that this last day’s slow ride was probably the busiest in terms of traffic on the road I had encountered anywhere.  Arriving at the Shepparton railway station at around 11.50am I bought my ticket and made a phone call to the only person I knew to be in Shepparton and invited Brian, from Express Car & Truck Rentals in Shepparton that I had utilised during my abandoned ride north, to have a celebratory coffee at the conclusion of my 1800km ride.

Back, at Southern Cross Station.

The luxury of another short ride, only 50kms from Goolgowi to Griffith, enabled me to arrive by lunch-time, but before leaving Goolgowi I visited the Carrathool Shire Council Offices where I had worked for three and a half years, for coffee and a chat. 

It was good to catch up with Jenny Campbell again, didn’t have much of a chance to talk with her two nights before at the Hillston Community Centre.  Jenny has a funny sense of humour that can ‘crack up’ her staff and colleagues, but at the same time she is a knowledge bank of information, particularly on the operations of local government, and has given me excellent professional advice on a couple of occasions in the past.  At the time I don’t think I acknowledged how important her advice and perspective had been when she freely provided it.

However, I missed out again on catching up with Jim Ashton, my ‘old’ boss at Carrathool Shire Council.

The ride to Griffith was very familiar as I would have averaged the trip into Griffith twice a week while working in Goolgowi.  But, of course you don’t really appreciate the subtleties of the landscape as much in a car.  Certainly there were hills, the kind you have to change gear for when riding a recumbent trike that I hadn’t noticed before.  I also couldn’t pick the stretch of fence line on the western side of the road that I recall had been almost covered by wind-blown sand that had allowed sheep to easily walk over it during one particular heavy sandstorm in 2002.

I always thought that he large roundabout at the intersection of the Mid Western Highway and Kidman Way had potential, for example, to install a solar powered sculpture in the middle.  In any case it was, once again, worthwhile to ride around the roundabout.

I was also very pleased to be able to ride past farm 1763 (I think) where I had my third and last puncture on my previous ride ‘up’ the Kidman way and, because of insurmountable tyre problems, I abandoned my trip north.  I still hadn’t had a puncture riding south thus far because of the better wheels, tyres, tubes and valves and the excellent Tyre Shield ® sealant I had poured in the tyres in Buderim 1,500kms earlier – more about that later.

 In Griffith I checked into the same room at the EconoLodge Griffith Motor Inn on Banna Avenue that I had stayed for three days a month or so earlier.

I attended to some business with my Griffith based accountant and revisited Toms Cycle World to have my ‘unflatenable’ tyres and valves looked at.  I knew that the valves had to be replaced because I had not been able to blow the tyres up with my hand pump since Buderim as the sealant had been too good in blocking the valves.  To use the sealant I suggest you also use the compressor based capacity at service stations to clear the valves of the sealant after you have poured it into the tyres.  The tyres were apparently given new valves and the all clear after I asked for them to be pressurised to 65psi.

A 9.20am start from Mt Hope on Saturday saw me arrive at the Hillston Motel at 3.15pm.  The 90km ride included crossing the Indian Pacific railway line some 30kms south of Mt Hope.

A little later I encountered Mrs Chris Sobey from Wagga.  Chris, a demure 70+ year old lady was sitting on a low camper chair reading about tenmetres back from the road, just past the Cobar- Carrathool Shire boundary.  When I stopped my trike to find out who it was Chris got up from her chair.  As my relatively silent trike came to a stop we were both just as surprised by each other’s presence and we shook hands.

Chris was on her ex-postie motor bike, apparently riding at 60kms per hour on her way to Bourke to join friends on a bush walking trip, when the motor bike broke down.  Being totally self-contained Chris camped the night and was waiting for her friends who were due to pass this way on the Saturday morning to catch a lift with them on to Bourke.  She intended to come back for the bike later.

                                       On most previous occasions when I travelled on this part of the Kidman Way, I had to stop at Ron Clarke’s Kidman Way statue some 35kms from Hillston.  Hence I made the same stop on the Trike. 

This sculpture was erected to commemorate provision of $20.7 Million to complete the bitumen sealing of the Kidman Way.  The plaque was: Officially Unveiled by Hon. John Anderson MP Minister for Transport & Regional Service [on] 22^nd May 1999 at the behest of Cr Athol Roberts Chairman of the Kidman Way Promotional Committee and Mayor of Carrathool Shire Council.

The purpose of my Saturday 28 May arrival in Hillston was to attend the 21^st celebrations of the Hillston Community Centre that evening.  At this excellent function I managed to catch up with some of my former Committee of management members including Alison and Paula (not Pauline) and Lois as well as Cr Cashmere and ex-Councillors Strong a Williams and their respective wives and Jenny from the Shire Council. There were probably around 200 other Hillston residents in on the celebrations.

The Hillston Community Centre appears to be one of the success stories for this ‘Can Do’ town of 1400 people.

My stay at the Hillston Motel was very comfortable, even though I managed to lock my key in the room and had to make a very late request to have someone open my room door.

‘Cobar’ sounds like ‘crowbar’ and the town reminds me of something hard and enduring, even on this, probably my 20^th visit to this great Outback NSW town.  Cobar is located  on the cross roads of the North-South Kidman Way and East-West Barrier Highway that takes you west to Wilcannia and Broken Hill and to Nyngan in an easterly direction.  

Mining in Cobar has suffered from the booms and busts associated with the price of minerals, in particular Gold and Copper, in the past.  But apparently the town has had 10 years or more growth to date and is now in a boom phase.  When in Cobar stop at the Great Cobar Heritage Centre – and the accredited Visitor Information Centre located there. The Centre provides some great insights into Cobar’s heritage and the mining industry.

I caught up with the local Tourism Manager, John Martin, at the Centre and had dinner with him that evening.  The Kidman Way is never far from John’s mind and he was about to apply for funding to support the next edition of the Kidman Way brochure, edition 12 or 13.  That’s how long John has been directly involved marketing and promoting this north-south stretch of highway through outback NSW. 

On reflection, I started to recognise being drawn to this part of my cycling route by the power of the Kidman Way promotion that I had been involved in.  “Love the Kidman Way” had been said to me by several different people towing caravans who occasionally use this route to travel to northern Queensland. 

I have heard it said that Sydney Kidman had a butcher shop in Cobar before he started investing in the vast tracks of land he owned. 

“Stretching over 900km from Jerilderie in New South Wales is the Kidman Way – a journey into the vast expanse of lush Riverina countryside, flat tumbleweed plains and rocky ranges.  It is a place where legends were born and adventures can be found at every stretch of the road.”

Anyway I was cycling on the Kidman Way and started to really enjoy doing it the slow way.

A good stretch of the Kidman Way from the previous day.

The headwinds of day 10 increased on on day 11 west to Bourke  and the 98kms took almost nine hours to complete.  There were some minor rises in the landscape but they were no obstacle compared to the constant 15-20kms per hour or more westerly that slowed my riding speed to probably less than 15kms per hour.  

The 11kms to go from here still took almost one hour.

The feature of Mt Oxley to the south, about 20kms from Bourke looked familiar and once in Bourke I had no problem finding the Darling River Motel or the local IGA etc.  However, just on the outskirts of Bourke near the electricity substation on my approach on the Kamilaroi Highway from Bree, there were a number of vehicles with various flashing light colours that I caught up to as they were travelling very slowly towards the centre of town.  They were moving so slow that I and a couple of vehicles decided to pass a couple of unmarked vehicles, an ambulance and fire truck and one lonely walker and police vehicle at the head of the convoy.   

Riding past the convoy...

 I tried to take some pictures with my iPhone but almost missed the lot and thought no more of the convoy until I noticed a high ranking policeman at the IGA Supermarket and asked him what the event was coming in convoy into town.  He said: “It was for a guy walking around Australia”. 

Of course until that moment I had been feeling pretty chuffed with my own ride of at least 1000kms by the time I got to Bourke.  Get it in perspective Hank.

This trike was going to be parked the right way at the Darling River Motel.

Anyway, for my purposes at Bourke I was just about at the start of the Kidman Way and about to head south on this very familiar stretch of road that I had helped to promote for several years.  This promotion was supported by Bourke, Cobar, Carrathool, Griffith, Murrumbidgee and Jerilderie Councils and not a skerrick of promotional funding support had come from the state or Federal Governments in more than 12 years since the road was first promoted as the Kidman Way.