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Day 24 - Burren Junction to Tenterfield - Wed 4 Nov 2015
The little community huddled around Junction City Hotel woke under heavy skies and with forecasts of rain sweeping in. Many of the massive trucks parked up the night before had not moved. Drivers furtively poked their heads out of dongas, looked round and went back to bed. No work today.
Riders of bikes looked out furtively as well. The wet weather gear had been put away many, many days ago. Some hadn’t even brought it along. Dig it where you can, ‘cause the forecast is heavy duty. We ran some fines which excessively fined the wordsmith for driving the Max inappropriately and then various forms of unruly behaviour as he challenged the call. Brock was issued with an auxiliary fuel tank as he had run out the day before, and Robdog was provided with a new rear assembly which included a number plate as he had pretty much busted the bum off his machine. The Anything But Average award was given to Max for his outstanding efforts (despite a couple of little tantrums) across the trek. In recognition of the wet weather Hector made the close to supreme sacrifice of offering up for auction his original condition London Sightseeing Tour poncho that he had brought along. Joc payed $13 for it (good value) and out of the goodness of his heart promptly gave it to Robdog who had no wet weather gear. He would make good use of the Poncho.
As we moved in towards Narrabri the words of Mossy’s song ‘Tucker’s Daughter’ floated into mind. He sang:
“Hang me for a sucker, On the plains out of Narrabri
Swinging a hoe in a CAL-cotton row, Sweatin’ on the dangers to me”
We were on the plains out of Narrabri, sweating in our wet weather gear as the rain came in steady, worrying about the wet road safety issues. Interestingly in the fields was the evidence of cotton production, albeit recently superseded by fields of wheat. Maybe the cotton price was down. We headed for Narrabri Maccas and sought out a coffee and a feed as we pondered which way to go. We had no real plan other than to go, as we continually had, eastward, looking to finish around Tenterfield. As we munched Maccas the rain seemed to abate and a plan came forward. The Brock man had shot off to a ‘better’ coffee shop and he came back with a route that would be both entertaining, off the beaten track and had a bit of dirt. It would suit us perfectly.
We shot off out of town with wet roads but no rain and made our way to a road that wound its way up through Mt Kaputur National Park. It was twisting, winding and picturesque; two out of the three things that we hadn’t had over the past weeks. It was a nice change. We came out into farmland and woodland, interspersed with small jutting hills. We ended up in the small town of Bingara, which presented some surprises. On the opposite corner to where we stopped to refill the bikes was a pristine 1950’s milkbar, sadly closed. It was attached to the Roxy Theatre, and had a Greek museum next door. Straight to the list of places to come back to visit one day when we had more time (Tenterfield was the same, fantastic railway museum). We pushed off again, forging north as we had drifted some way south to Burren Junction. We aimed for but were stopped in another little place called Ashford, where a fantastic pie shop called Kiki’s Café was located. I don’t think it was Googled or recommended, we just dropped in and it was a ripper.
We pushed off further north and actually went back into Queensland, forging a river at Bonshaw to get back in. Fortunately there were no border controls, and no one fell over! We then whipped up and into the Glenlyon Dam area, having a look at a dam well below its capacity. We came out of there and dropped back into NSW, starting to look for a home for the night. A camp site in a park was investigated by a forward scout; as this was occurring others again checked weather forecasts and rain radar. We had been lucky to stay clear of the rain after Narrabri and were not keen to get wet again. A call was made, head to Tenterfield to look for some comfort.
We got into Tenterfield and again an advance party went in search of a place to stay. If Mary and Joseph had an advance party and Google they would probably done better than a manger. We did good in that we got some cabins at the Tenterfield Lodge Caravan Park. Barry and Di listened to our story and like the Landlord to Mary and Joseph they showed pity on us and gave us a cheap deal on some cabins. Barry was indebted to the RFDS for services they had previously provided to his parents so he insisted on looking after us.
We settled in and started re-organising for the push to Byron and then on home in ensuing days. As we did this the predicted rain came down, making us even surer that the call to go to the park was a good one. For the last time we cooked up a storm of a frozen meal from Scotty’s mum supported by pasta. After tea we had a review of the trip in some ways, looking back at individual highlights and summarising our Anything But Average award to the concise point that we had all performed above average but some were more average than others. The session closed with the Captain showing his true emotion and passion for the trek and for his men, thanking all for their efforts in working towards this point where we were on the cusp of a significant achievement by any standards. Tomorrow we will have crossed our vast country from the western most point to the eastern most point. Not many of our population can say that they have achieved this.
The little community huddled around Junction City Hotel woke under heavy skies and with forecasts of rain sweeping in. Many of the massive trucks parked up the night before had not moved. Drivers furtively poked their heads out of dongas, looked round and went back to bed. No work today.
Riders of bikes looked out furtively as well. The wet weather gear had been put away many, many days ago. Some hadn’t even brought it along. Dig it where you can, ‘cause the forecast is heavy duty. We ran some fines which excessively fined the wordsmith for driving the Max inappropriately and then various forms of unruly behaviour as he challenged the call. Brock was issued with an auxiliary fuel tank as he had run out the day before, and Robdog was provided with a new rear assembly which included a number plate as he had pretty much busted the bum off his machine. The Anything But Average award was given to Max for his outstanding efforts (despite a couple of little tantrums) across the trek. In recognition of the wet weather Hector made the close to supreme sacrifice of offering up for auction his original condition London Sightseeing Tour poncho that he had brought along. Joc payed $13 for it (good value) and out of the goodness of his heart promptly gave it to Robdog who had no wet weather gear. He would make good use of the Poncho.
As we moved in towards Narrabri the words of Mossy’s song ‘Tucker’s Daughter’ floated into mind. He sang:
“Hang me for a sucker, On the plains out of Narrabri
Swinging a hoe in a CAL-cotton row, Sweatin’ on the dangers to me”
We were on the plains out of Narrabri, sweating in our wet weather gear as the rain came in steady, worrying about the wet road safety issues. Interestingly in the fields was the evidence of cotton production, albeit recently superseded by fields of wheat. Maybe the cotton price was down. We headed for Narrabri Maccas and sought out a coffee and a feed as we pondered which way to go. We had no real plan other than to go, as we continually had, eastward, looking to finish around Tenterfield. As we munched Maccas the rain seemed to abate and a plan came forward. The Brock man had shot off to a ‘better’ coffee shop and he came back with a route that would be both entertaining, off the beaten track and had a bit of dirt. It would suit us perfectly.
We shot off out of town with wet roads but no rain and made our way to a road that wound its way up through Mt Kaputur National Park. It was twisting, winding and picturesque; two out of the three things that we hadn’t had over the past weeks. It was a nice change. We came out into farmland and woodland, interspersed with small jutting hills. We ended up in the small town of Bingara, which presented some surprises. On the opposite corner to where we stopped to refill the bikes was a pristine 1950’s milkbar, sadly closed. It was attached to the Roxy Theatre, and had a Greek museum next door. Straight to the list of places to come back to visit one day when we had more time (Tenterfield was the same, fantastic railway museum). We pushed off again, forging north as we had drifted some way south to Burren Junction. We aimed for but were stopped in another little place called Ashford, where a fantastic pie shop called Kiki’s Café was located. I don’t think it was Googled or recommended, we just dropped in and it was a ripper.
We pushed off further north and actually went back into Queensland, forging a river at Bonshaw to get back in. Fortunately there were no border controls, and no one fell over! We then whipped up and into the Glenlyon Dam area, having a look at a dam well below its capacity. We came out of there and dropped back into NSW, starting to look for a home for the night. A camp site in a park was investigated by a forward scout; as this was occurring others again checked weather forecasts and rain radar. We had been lucky to stay clear of the rain after Narrabri and were not keen to get wet again. A call was made, head to Tenterfield to look for some comfort.
We got into Tenterfield and again an advance party went in search of a place to stay. If Mary and Joseph had an advance party and Google they would probably done better than a manger. We did good in that we got some cabins at the Tenterfield Lodge Caravan Park. Barry and Di listened to our story and like the Landlord to Mary and Joseph they showed pity on us and gave us a cheap deal on some cabins. Barry was indebted to the RFDS for services they had previously provided to his parents so he insisted on looking after us.
We settled in and started re-organising for the push to Byron and then on home in ensuing days. As we did this the predicted rain came down, making us even surer that the call to go to the park was a good one. For the last time we cooked up a storm of a frozen meal from Scotty’s mum supported by pasta. After tea we had a review of the trip in some ways, looking back at individual highlights and summarising our Anything But Average award to the concise point that we had all performed above average but some were more average than others. The session closed with the Captain showing his true emotion and passion for the trek and for his men, thanking all for their efforts in working towards this point where we were on the cusp of a significant achievement by any standards. Tomorrow we will have crossed our vast country from the western most point to the eastern most point. Not many of our population can say that they have achieved this.
