Phew, what a ride! Here is the rest of it. Hope it's not getting boring!
The sign says it all. Extra tricky when wet, and very, very steep with lots of hairpin turns!
Here's one of the hairpins. It's a lot steeper than it looks. Damned dicey parking the bike!
A nice wet 15 kph corner coming up. That's about crawling speed for you US people! Note how the road pitches in the wrong direction first! That's to keep you on your toes! The 'safety fence' is some rust steel wire mesh and a heap of termite eaten wooden posts that must be a hundred years old!
This is Caves House. Built back in the 1920's or therabouts when the limestone caves were discovered. Fascinating place. Google 'Jenolan Caves' for more info.
If you can't go over it or around it - Chisel your way through it! Uses partly natural cave structure and a lot of hammer and chisel work!
More wet twisties. This would have to have been the slowest run I've ever done through here. It is a very narrow road though. They close it from 1145 to 1315 each day to allow the tourist buses to come down. No traffic is allowed 'out' via the uphill northern exit road at that time.
The O'Connell pub and lunch at last. This is the small town where my Border Collie 'Kipper' came from. Nice to stretch the legs and rest my weary bones! Too old for tight bends in the wet. It's hard work!
Typical 'healthy' pub lunch - This one's for you DJ!
After lunch I travelled on to Bathurst, home of the famous Mount Panorama race track, the Bathurst 1000 motor race, and where a bloke named Peter Brock was 'King of the Mountain' 9 times. Peter Perfect they called him. Retired a while back and was killed in a 'fun' race last year.
We name our corners after our beer of course. Excellent race track. Did three laps at a very sedate speed. Very steep here. And narrow.
Back on the open road again, and heading to Tuena. Bathurst was the 'top' of my big loop north, so I was now heading home.
Oops - More dirt. This stretch was really interesting, with a lot of these tight gravel corners! Makes for careful riding. What was that about me wanting a KTM? Yes please!
It is very dry around Tuena. The drought has hit hard. These hills should be covered with lush green grass at this time of the year! Farmers are doing it tough.
More gravel and some rain to make things even more interesting! Ok - I'm sick of the gravel now!
There is a small (8 windmills) windfarm near Crookwell. Damned things must be breeding as they seem to be popping up everywhere! I think they have lost some of their novelty value these days.
Yuk! - I think I have a big cleaning job to do on the weekend. The R seems to throw a lot of dirt out from the wheels that then sprays all over the jugs and everywhere else. My riding gear looked a bit frightful as well!
Spotted this emu near Goulburn. It ran along the fence beside me, so I decided to stop and grab a quick pic. Figured it would do as a last photo for the trip.
Hope you enjoyed my tour of the roads to the North of my home. I'll take you in a different direction next time. Still not sure I like stopping to take photos. Guess it depends on what sort of ride rythm you are in. If it's flowing, smooth and fast, I'd rather just ride. Still, I enjoyed looking for photo opportunities and interesting views. Hope you found it just as interesting.
Cheers all. Mick.
