V8 Ball

November 2002

When ol' No1(Stephen Dearnley) visited for the V8 Ball he mentioned that the Northern Beaches Group were coming our way on 16/11. With a lunch stop planned at the O'Connell Hotel he invited any interested Bathurst members to join them for lunch. Well, join them we did, with a large number traveling out from Bathurst for a quick lunch. Considering our normal ride day was the following day the number was surprising with everyone taking the opportunity to make the way home via alternate routes.

Our scheduled ride for November was set down as a trip to Gulgong. Expecting a hot day we set-out from Bathurst happy that so far it was mild and pleasant. Unfortunately the drought conditions have made the usual scenic trip through Peel, Sofala and Ilford a fairly barren dry experience. Even the road-kill which is normally bad enough on this road had increased as the wildlife came in search of the little grass remaining.

Out onto the Mudgee road and heading towards Windemere Dam the effects of little or no rain in the area can be fully appreciated when riding past the dam foreshores and seeing the 50-100 metre gap between the high water line and current dam level. Only when nearing Mudgee and some of the drip-watered vines that mark the entry into our nearest wine growing region is there any sign of green at all.

A stop in Mudgee for morning tea and on to Gulgong where it was decided it was a little to early to follow-up with lunch so we did the loop back to Mudgee via the Ulan road past the large number of wineries on that side of Mudgee. We had a pleasant lunch at the Lawson Park Hotel and headed back to Bathurst via Lue, Rylstone, Ilford, Cullen Bullen, and Portland.

It was another great day's riding with 13 bikes making the trip in what ended up being cooler conditions than we had expected.