Gilgandra via the Back Road

I haven't ridden my baby for a couple of weeks, work and play have kept me off her tho I have been able to show her off to my oldest, bestest friend (who was suitably impressed even though she has no interest in bikes at all). The last time we went for a ride was on a work trip to Gilgandra, work for Terry not me. But I did help, I took a heap of photos for him!!

This is the trip to Gilgandra, we took a back road through Mogriguy at Terry's instigation, he was leading, I was following. I've been along this road before, it's a nice little road with a few trickier corners and some railway crossings and causeways. I was waiting the whole time to see how I would handle the 25km posted corner that I remembered taking at about 10km/hr last time and was pretty impressed with myself for taking it at 60km/hr ... wow that wasn't as bad as I remembered it. Then I came to the real 25km corner .. oh yeah it's a 25km corner, there's no way I'd even get up to 30 on that!! But I still thought I did better than that first trip. It was a nice trip, the weather was perfect and I got to see some of Gilgandra that I'd never seen before, we always just ride straight through it on the way somewhere else.

The Pub

I've been told the pub at Gil does a good  counter lunch ... but we were on a mission to find the best cafe in town.

The other end of the street.

While I was reading about the Cooee March, which is pretty interesting and you can find out more about it here if you're interested, a bloke with a couple of horses came clomping up the street. Was just unusual enough to make me snap a pic quick as I could.

We then wandered into the main street to find out which cafe had the best food. How did we work it out, ask a local of course.

Some of the art deco architecture has been lovingly restored.

And we spotted this baby from out of state packed to the roof with luggage in the back seat.

We found the cafe, called the Rockcake Bakery, with a 50's rock decor and lots of Elvis and Marilyn memorabilia.

We then headed out to the motel on the other side of town for Terry to do his work and after a couple of hours we headed back home along the same back road. Terry stopped for a couple of pics ...

Of me riding through my first causeway with water in it, OK it's not deep but it's a start for me and was interesting to see it's not as bad as I thought it would be ... yes I was going slow so my feet wouldn't get wet :)

Then I made him stop again to get some shots of the road we were travelling, had to find a straight bit that didn't have a corner that a car could come round and take me out ... I wanted to stand in the middle of the road for some shots ...

Some of the late blooming Wattle is still around and it is so pretty riding through them ....

This stretch of road didn't have a lot of trees or Wattle along it so I tried to get arty with the one bush I could see. Then just got on with the obligatory 'bikes on the road' shot while Terry was waiting patiently, as usual ...

The rest of the trip home was pretty uneventful. It has been nearly two weeks since that trip so I have fond memories ... I'm dying to get back on the bikes and just take off!!