Day 14 - Bathurst to Newnes

Wow! What a day!

The objective for today was to ride the Bridle Track to hill End and then find my way to Capertee and head into Gardens Of Stone National Park. I, of course got lost trying to find the Bridle track, until i realised i had mis read my directions. Once i was on track it was a nice 20km of tarmac twisties in the hills NW of Bathurst until i hit dirt and found this sign which bought my anticipation levels up a notch

Next was a road closed sign, and then another....

I'd already heard about the closures but had been assured that the road was still passable on a bike so i pressed on. The track was very narrow and rough. It had obviously seen no maintenence for quite a while, was very rocky and had deep water ruts criss crossing the steeper parts. Before long i found the scource of the road closure.

I worked my way up and over the mountains carefully and passed a bunch of camping areas that looked promising despite the river being partially flooded. About now i realised that i had to cross the river at some point and the high water levels started to play on my mind.

The track soon flattened out and it was wet and muddy in places down close to the river. i soon came to the crossing. it didn't look too bad although the was quite a bit of current flowing so i decided to play it safe and walk across first as i couldn't see the bottom due to the muddied water.
It was about knee deep with a solid base so presented no problem so i pressed on to Hill End.
Hill End is an historic gold mining village and still has a lot of very old buildings which i gound interesting.
Next it is a 30km run down the mountain to Sofala, another historic old village and then onto Capertee.
I stopped in Capertee for a break and got directions from the bloke at the servo. he said i'd be better off heading south the Ben Bullen before entering the national park because the best views were down there and some great riding was promised. This also meant i had no directions and would be flying blind as to which tracks to take.

I headed south To Ben Bullen and into the sandy fire trails. Servo bloke new what he was talking about regarding the trails as they were fantastic. I had to keep reminding myself to steady up and that i was on a fully laden adventure bike and not a lightweight enduro bike and that an accident out here would not be a good thing. As i went deeper into the bush the trackclimbed and became a lot more technical. Everything was going fine until this happened..

On a particularly snotty hill climb i chose a bad line and ended up needing to cross a big deep rut.
With all the weight on the back of the bike the front wheel reared up, which meant i had to back off the throttle, which meant we lost our momentum, which meant we were going down. I bailed off but the bike ended up in an ugly position and was spewing fuel from the fuel tank vent. With a full tank of fuel my bike weighs  about 185kg, add to that 35 kg of luggage and crap and you have a bike that you arent going to pick up in a hurry, especially when it's virtually upside down on the side of a steep hill. I tried but the bike wanted to slide down the hill on it's side more than it wanted to be picked up, it kind of screwed around on it's side until it was facing back down the hill.
I decided the only way out was to partially unload it as i still wasn't even close to getting her back upright. Eventually i succeeded though and i managed to get it right way up and i coasted back to the bottom of the hill to try again. Second time around i made a more sensible choice of line and we cruised up with no dramas. There was a fair bit of damage to the bike but you get that.

After reloading the bike i set off again hoping not to find any more climbs like that one but of courese there were several more just like it.There was a nasty looking storm brewing up and i decided i needed to be out of these hills before the storm hit and motored on looking for a way out.
I did find some great views though. Such a breathtaking place!!

After one last mammoth downhill and another small spill i found my way out of the bush and onto a smooth country dirt road. I had no idea where i was so just went with it. What a decision! It turned out i was on the bottom side of all the cliff faces i'd been riding along the top of before. Every turn presented a new cliff face and rocky outcrop. This was Amazing! I was stopping every few hundred metres to take photos



Before long i encountered a lady taking photos of the storm, which by now was immenent and extremely dirty looking and i stopped to ask her where i was and where the road went. She replied that it only went another 6km to a campground near the township of Newnes.
That was all i needed to hear, I'd resigned myself to the fact that i was going to get wet but this presented an opportunity to get camp set up before the storm hit so i put the hammer down and headed, full tilt toward the campground. I feverishly unloaded the bike and got the tarp and tent up just in time for the heavens to open. Against all odds i'd managed to stay dry!

The storm was pretty nasty but the views were awesome

Not a bad looking campground either, right at the base of an enormous cliff face.

I'm not sure what tomorrow holds just yet. I had planned to head north to Coonabarabran but the  roads west of the Dividing Range were boring me so i may try and find an alternate route or even head back to the coast for the last leg of my trip