Day 1 - Tuesday 8/2/11

Hi, thanks for checking out this blog, which is the latest instalment in my quest to ride all of the routes detailed in the Lonely Planet Cycling Australia guide. Previous episodes have covered my rides from Sydney to Brisbane and Melbourne to Sydney; this time I’m taking it relatively easy, planning on doing 2 separate rides in NSW with a break in between, as on this holiday I need to spend some time in Sydney.

Yesterday (Monday 7th Feb) I rode a Greyhound bus from Sydney to Bathurst, which is the start of a 4 day circular route through wine and gold country. I arrived at about 8.15pm and got a reasonably early night.

I got away from Bathurst about 9am today, having taken a ride around the town and photographed a few of the historic buildings, of which there were plenty. This was the first inland settlement to be established west of the Blue Mountains:

On the outskirts of town, on the banks of the Macquarie River, is this memorial marking the spot where the town was first proclaimed:

The next 40kms of road were very undulating, making the riding fairly tough going It was hot as well and I was glad when I reached the halfway point of today’s section, at Sofala. This is a former gold mining town, now largely abandoned, however it does still have some historic buildings from the gold rush era of the 1870s, including a charming old pub where I took in a leisurely schooner of Toohey’s New. Not the most sophisticated of drinks but refreshing nonetheless.

Sofala is on the banks of the Turon river, seen in this photo:

The road remained undulating, and soon became unsealed:

It continued like this for about 10kms, during which I was thankful for my bike’s suspension mechanism. Soon after rejoining the tarmac I came upon this large lizard in the middle of the road:

At about 4.30pm I arrived at Hill End, the destination for this first day of the ride, and checked into the Royal Hotel, built 1872:

I was given a room on the first floor with access to the verandah, where I was ale to take in a very well earned beer in the still hot afternoon sun:

Like Sofala, Hill End is a former gold mining town which though largely now abandoned, still has a number of historic buildings:

I went for a walk along a well marked trail showing the site of some of the former mine workings:

This is the entry to a disused mine:

On the way back to the hotel I saw a number of kangaroos:

I enjoyed a lovely meal at the hotel, which I was surprised to find had free wireless internet - not something one expects in remote places like Hill End.
Total; distance covered today (including a tour around Bathurst) 95.8kms. Maximum speed reached 59.8kms on a long swooping downhill.