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Autumn Leaf Rally 2017 Sun Apr 30, 2017 8:30 pm
Gaz
Life time member
Hi all! Tom and I have survived another weekend on the road with a jaunt down to Tumut in southern New South Wales to attend the Autumn Leaf Rally hosted by the Tumut Valley Riders motorcycle club. The 2017 rally badge says it was number 30 so congrats to that club for keeping it going through all those years.
The plan came together a couple of weeks ago when I had my R80G/S ready for the road again fresh from a gearbox overhaul after a couple of years on the sidelines while I messed with the two K bikes. We decided on a "run in the country", studiously avoiding the major city to our south.
Friday morning dawned clear and cool and Tom arrived right on time at 7:00am for lift off at our regular meeting point at the Branxton highway rest stop.
Our route was to take us down the Putty Road then along the Bell Road and up the Darling Causeway to Mt Victoria and then into Jenolan Caves for lunch. I'll include a link to a map of our route at the end of this post but anyone who is familiar with the territory knows that these are really nice winding scenic roads.
The cool morning called for a warming coffee break at the bike friendly Grey Gums cafe on the Putty Road where there was only one other bike - very different from weekends when the place is packed.
As we were now heading up into the Blue Mountains all the warm layers stayed on and we had a good run with little traffic along the scenic Bell Road and up to the village of Mt Victoria (at about 1,100 metres) for our first fuel stop. Onward down the western side of Mt Victoria being careful with the speed on this heavily policed very steep section then turned south onto the Jenolan Caves road. A very winding road with magnificent views of the western tiers of the Blue Mountains before the tight turns of the descent into the valley where the caves are located. We lunched at the cafe at the historical Caves House which is a grand old chalet style building.
Once fed and watered we mounted up for the afternoon run south west across the central tablelands starting with the very steep climb out of the other side of the caves valley then on to Taralga via Edith Road, Butterfactory Lane and the Abercrombie River Gorge (RT, the resealing of the northern side is now complete). We turned westward at Taralga to go via Crookwell and south west again to Gunning followed by the short 11 km section to our overnight stop at the Royal Hotel at Dalton. Yes, Tom and I had the experience of staying at the "Royal Dalton" although on examination of the crockery in the dining room I can assure you it bears no resemblance to the namesake products.
Here's Tom enjoying a drink with one of his long lost mates.
The horses on the corner don't take much looking after either!
Having booked into the hotel we were a bit dismayed to hear that they don't do meals but Dave the publican says "No worries! you're lucky it's Friday, the tucker van will be here shortly."
So here it is, your choice of fish & chips, pizza, hot dogs and much more. Tom and I selected the pizza and got a beer just as the locals started to congregate for Friday night festivities.
With the bikes under shelter in a typical country pub ramshackle back yard we enjoyed a few drinks before retiring.
Saturday morning saw us heading south until we connected with the Hume Highway for the run to Gundagai then off the highway down the Gocup Road to Tumut which was having it's Autumn Leaf Festival. The main street was closed off and full of market stalls so after lunching there we headed out to the rally site which was about 35 kms up the mainly gravel Wee Jasper Road.
Once paid at the gate Tom and I had a wander around looking for somewhere to pitch our tents. The site is just a paddock around a local hall of corrugated iron construction. It was already packed with rally fans and a rock n roll band was pumping out the music at ear splitting levels for the crowd enjoying a few, maybe a lot, of drinks. We ended up finding a fairly level patch outside of the gate along the side of the road as far from the band as we could find since we had been told with much glee that the bands would be churning out the music until midnight.
Once set up we wandered back in to enjoy the campfire - now this is a campfire!
The fire just getting going - note the size compared to the people standing on the right, and later in the evening when you couldn't stand any closer than about 10 metres with the heat output.
We had decided during the evening over a couple of mugs of a very tasty Mudgee port that we would get going reasonably early on Sunday and make a push for home. So up and packed and off up the gravel Wee Jasper Road towards Yass by about 7:30am. The section through to Wee Jasper is basically a two wheel track through the forest with some badly corrugated tight bends, so with a dense fog, looking into an early morning sun and numerous close encounters with kangaroos we had a very challenging first hour and a half. Once clear of the forest we had great riding conditions for our homeward journey up through Boorowa, Cowra, Blayney and into Bathurst for lunch. We then took one of our favourite routes through Sofala, Rylstone and the Bylong Valley to get us home with me arriving at about 5:45pm and Tom would have another 45 minutes to his place.
Round trip for me was about 1,350 km, Tom a bit over 100 km more.
This link should show you our route.
The plan came together a couple of weeks ago when I had my R80G/S ready for the road again fresh from a gearbox overhaul after a couple of years on the sidelines while I messed with the two K bikes. We decided on a "run in the country", studiously avoiding the major city to our south.
Friday morning dawned clear and cool and Tom arrived right on time at 7:00am for lift off at our regular meeting point at the Branxton highway rest stop.
Our route was to take us down the Putty Road then along the Bell Road and up the Darling Causeway to Mt Victoria and then into Jenolan Caves for lunch. I'll include a link to a map of our route at the end of this post but anyone who is familiar with the territory knows that these are really nice winding scenic roads.
The cool morning called for a warming coffee break at the bike friendly Grey Gums cafe on the Putty Road where there was only one other bike - very different from weekends when the place is packed.
As we were now heading up into the Blue Mountains all the warm layers stayed on and we had a good run with little traffic along the scenic Bell Road and up to the village of Mt Victoria (at about 1,100 metres) for our first fuel stop. Onward down the western side of Mt Victoria being careful with the speed on this heavily policed very steep section then turned south onto the Jenolan Caves road. A very winding road with magnificent views of the western tiers of the Blue Mountains before the tight turns of the descent into the valley where the caves are located. We lunched at the cafe at the historical Caves House which is a grand old chalet style building.
Once fed and watered we mounted up for the afternoon run south west across the central tablelands starting with the very steep climb out of the other side of the caves valley then on to Taralga via Edith Road, Butterfactory Lane and the Abercrombie River Gorge (RT, the resealing of the northern side is now complete). We turned westward at Taralga to go via Crookwell and south west again to Gunning followed by the short 11 km section to our overnight stop at the Royal Hotel at Dalton. Yes, Tom and I had the experience of staying at the "Royal Dalton" although on examination of the crockery in the dining room I can assure you it bears no resemblance to the namesake products.
Here's Tom enjoying a drink with one of his long lost mates.
The horses on the corner don't take much looking after either!
Having booked into the hotel we were a bit dismayed to hear that they don't do meals but Dave the publican says "No worries! you're lucky it's Friday, the tucker van will be here shortly."
So here it is, your choice of fish & chips, pizza, hot dogs and much more. Tom and I selected the pizza and got a beer just as the locals started to congregate for Friday night festivities.
With the bikes under shelter in a typical country pub ramshackle back yard we enjoyed a few drinks before retiring.
Saturday morning saw us heading south until we connected with the Hume Highway for the run to Gundagai then off the highway down the Gocup Road to Tumut which was having it's Autumn Leaf Festival. The main street was closed off and full of market stalls so after lunching there we headed out to the rally site which was about 35 kms up the mainly gravel Wee Jasper Road.
Once paid at the gate Tom and I had a wander around looking for somewhere to pitch our tents. The site is just a paddock around a local hall of corrugated iron construction. It was already packed with rally fans and a rock n roll band was pumping out the music at ear splitting levels for the crowd enjoying a few, maybe a lot, of drinks. We ended up finding a fairly level patch outside of the gate along the side of the road as far from the band as we could find since we had been told with much glee that the bands would be churning out the music until midnight.
Once set up we wandered back in to enjoy the campfire - now this is a campfire!
The fire just getting going - note the size compared to the people standing on the right, and later in the evening when you couldn't stand any closer than about 10 metres with the heat output.
We had decided during the evening over a couple of mugs of a very tasty Mudgee port that we would get going reasonably early on Sunday and make a push for home. So up and packed and off up the gravel Wee Jasper Road towards Yass by about 7:30am. The section through to Wee Jasper is basically a two wheel track through the forest with some badly corrugated tight bends, so with a dense fog, looking into an early morning sun and numerous close encounters with kangaroos we had a very challenging first hour and a half. Once clear of the forest we had great riding conditions for our homeward journey up through Boorowa, Cowra, Blayney and into Bathurst for lunch. We then took one of our favourite routes through Sofala, Rylstone and the Bylong Valley to get us home with me arriving at about 5:45pm and Tom would have another 45 minutes to his place.
Round trip for me was about 1,350 km, Tom a bit over 100 km more.
This link should show you our route.
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Gaz
1990 K75 6427509; 1987 R80G/S PD 6292136; 2010 G650GS ZW13381;
ROB the Red Old Bike 
