Sydney to Blayney
17 October 2017
Click on the image for a detailed map
When you check every internet forecast and all you can find is ominous threats of solid rain, you have to expect you’re going to get wet. We loaded the bikes, hauled on our wets and headed out. It was dry most of the way north to Colo Heights, although we got caught in a brief shower just before stopping there for fuel. The rain gods continued to regard us with some favour as we made our way north along the Putty Road. We stopped for coffee at the Grey Gum Café before heading off into the famed "10-mile" a magnificent section of road loved by Sydney motorcyclists. For good reason. Mercifully the rain continued to stay away.
As we made our way westward through Jerry’s Plains to the top
of the Bylong Valley things changed. The rain started in with a vengeance and it stayed with us for a good deal of what turned out to be a pretty miserable day.
I’ve ridden the Bylong Way only once, and it was a glorious day then. It’s a great road. It was OK in the wet too, but my Frogg Toggs again turned out to be completely and utterly useless so I was properly soaked and a bit miserable by the time we stopped for a late lunch at Rylstone.
We were gearing up to get under way again, when a bloke came up to us and said, "Do you reckon you could give us a hand?"
We looked at him.
"This sheila fell off her Harley over the weekend and I’ve got to get it into a trailer to get it home."
"Righto," we said and set off down the street.
Cormanus, the fool, forgot to put on his nearly useless wet weather jacket and so got even more ridiculously wet as, of course, the rain really set in while we were slipping around in the mud trying to fit a Harley into a trailer slightly too small for it. We got it in somehow and left the bloke to lash it all together for the trip to wherever he was going.
I should report — happily — that neither the sheila nor the Harley were particularly harmed in the accident.
The rain eased as we made our way south to Bathurst—home of Australia’s best known annual motor car race—and had stopped by the time we got there.
Bravely we pushed on and, of course, the rain started again. By the time we reached Blayney just under 40 kms south, it was pelting down and we pulled into the Exchange Hotel where the nice young man said there was indeed a bed and a fire as well. We showered and spread our wet kit all over the room. I went for a walk and found a kitchen where a very large young man was cooking toast and god knows what else. He certainly looked at me. I think he grunted.
Taking our sodden boots we went downstairs, put them in front of the fire and had a drink.
The following can be said for the Exchange at Blayney: the staff were friendly; the fire was hot; the beer was cold; and the chicken parmigiana recommended by the staff was indeed excellent. And it was dry — the pub not the parmy.
On the other side of the ledger, the place needed a seriously good clean. The bathroom was, can I say, a very long way indeed from being appealing.
Still, did I mention it was dry? And I slept OK.
Protecting my camera from the rain meant I took not a single photograph.
