G'day All ! I've finally got to the keyboard to list some of the highlights of our 3rd Snowy Mountains Run.
Arrived home about 4:00pm yesterday afternoon after a fairly tough day in the saddle - more of that later.
Thursday morning at Branxton at 7:00am was still fairly dark and grim as the rain had been coming down for the last 24 hours. Nevertheless Rickmeister and myself along with two non forum friends Stuart (R1200GS) and Jacko (F700GS) headed off into the gloom expecting to ride out of the wet weather as we headed west to Merriwa to meet Smithy and Pegasus. Things were going well until we came up on a very long and very wide truck load travelling very slowly and nowhere to pass - so it was 1st & 2nd gear all the way to Denman. We managed to get past as the truck moved through the town area but this had made us 30 minutes late to the rendezvous and a concerned Smithy phoned up just as we were coming down the hill into Merriwa.
With our number now at 6 we pushed on through the rain which doggedly hung on all the way to our fuel/coffee stop at Gulgong. We found some level ground to park at the top end of town.
Fuelled up we then rode toward Mudgee and took the road up into the high country to Hill End where we decided to have lunch at the pub. Hill End was the centre of a gold producing area in the middle of the 19th century and apparently had a population of 30,000 - which steadily wound down as the gold ran out towards the end of the 1870s.
Five of us parked outside the pub.
and one hiding over the road (I think he liked the flat ground).
Fed (again) and watered and now out of the rain although the roads were still damp, our route dropped a few hundred metres in altitude running south to Bathurst and then south west down the Cowra road until we turned off into the small town of Woodstock. This turn took us onto a quiet sealed country road down to Wyangla Dam where we stopped briefly to stretch the legs.
The carefully considered route would have taken us over the dam wall road and onward toward Boorowa however the authorities had closed the road across the top of the dam wall and thoughtfully placed a "No Through Road" sign about 50 metres before the barrier. I suppose if they had placed the sign back at the last road junction approximately 20 kilometres back they would not have had the fun of seeing all these visitors turning around muttering to themselves.
Nevertheless we arrived at our familiar Irish Pub in Boorowa in plenty of time to relax with a few coldies and tell stories before dinner.
The next morning Andrew (Pegasus) expressed a desire for a stop at the famous "Dog on the Tuckerbox" memorial near Gundagai since Andrew had rarely ventured down around these parts before, so we headed there via the same picturesque country roads that we traversed last year through Harden and Jugiong before hitting the Hume Highway for the short section to Gundagai. I must say I never get tired of those early morning sections through farmland on the sealed country roads in that area.
Andrew, second from the right, looking very pleased to see the little dog behind him.
We were (un) lucky enough to have a few delays for road works between Gundagai and Tumut but then the fun really starts as you climb up to the top of the Snowy Mountains for the run south east over the alpine plateau. Really great roads and scenery rushing past up to our lunch stop at Adaminaby. This town was relocated to its present site when the Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme was constructed.
You can read about it here.Once into our campsite at Jindabyne we were able to down a few more coldies - as you do, before enjoying a pasta, pizza and red wine evening at a restaurant over the road.
The loop ride devised by Bill for Saturday was fabulous. Across some of the Monaro high plains then down the eastern escarpment of the Great Dividing Range through rain forest to Wyndham to turn north through the rolling foothills up to Candelo for lunch at the pub.
Parked in the shade across from the pub after lunch.
We rode a few kilometres north from Candelo to meet up with the Snowy Mountains Highway near Bemboka for the climb back up the escarpment via this different road and onto our base at Jindabyne via Nimitabel and Cooma, with a short stop at Pipers Lookout on the way up the mountain.
Dinner in the campsite consisted of pizza and red wine while watching the rain and gusty winds that had returned as the evening wore on.
Early Sunday morning the phones started chirping with a severe weather warning of damaging winds and rain for a large swathe of southern New South Wales. This hastened our packing and departure in an effort to get away from the approaching storm front. The group heading for the Hunter decided to take the safer but boring highway route straight to Sydney but it was still a hard days riding battling the turbulent winds of the weather front which chased us all day.
A big thank you to Bill for again planning this ride and encouraging all to participate. I had a great time.
Cheers
P.S. Almost forgot - thanks to Forum Member Redrockmania who was apparently on a fishing trip in Jindabyne and left a note on my bike wishing us a good ride.
Re: Snowy/Southern Run 2018 Mon Feb 05, 2018 12:48 am
ROB the Red Old Bike 
