Days 55 - 57: Narrabri to Dubbo

Days 55- 57: Narrabri to Dubbo
There was water everywhere in Narrabri and the Pilliga Forest. Long stretches of road had deepish channels on both side;  there was no getting off. I saw several large areas of scrub underwater, with slow flows out into the table drains -- it's supposed to flow the other way around! Some poor folk had pulled off down a farm track for the night, and were now faced with a large pool between them and the bitumen. I'm glad I didn't have to face trying to through that in a campervan.

In the Piliga

Narrabri to Coonabarabran is rolling country as usual, once you get a bit south of Narrabri, with gentle slopes and a good surface. Being a Saturday, the semi traffic was almost non existent, despite the road being the Newall Hghway which is the main drag between Melbourne and Brisbane.

I passed Neptune, Uranus and Saturn in the 1 to 38 million scale model of the solar system which has the siding Springs observatory as the sun. And I passed another Saturn on the far side of Coonabarabran on Monday, and Uranus again, at New Mollyanne.

I stayed with my Uncle Neville and Aunt Dorothy in Coonabarabran, and had church and a rest day on Sunday. I left at 6:35 Monday was passed by Neville 6 or 7 kilometres out of town as he took people to Orange for a medical appointment. It was a 600 kilometre round trip for him compared to my 144. 15 years older than me, he does a huge amount of volunteer driving.

It was very cold this morning, (Monday) with frost in low lying areas. I felt out of sorts. Despite eating enough oatmeal to feed a Scottish village I think I didn't have enough breakfast. I still made good time to Mendooran and had lunch on the same bench where I had lunch when I rode through 5 years ago.

Not everyone appreciates the local evangelist!

I listened to music for much of the day, and got into Dubbo around 4:30. The Talbragar was still flowing with the kind of turbulence that promises you won't survive if you fall in.

I had noticed an intermittent tinny noise that was clearly wheel or transmission related, so visited The Olde Bike Shoppe, and Michael, who had replaced my bottom bracket last time through. He's a really nice bloke, although he did things to my spokes and wheels that I would not have dared! The conclusion is that there is nothing obviously wrong, so I'll continue. There is a bike shop in Parkes.

I'm slowly getting closer to home.