Long Ride - Day 14 - Dalby to Barraba

Long Ride day 14 - Dalby to Barraba

Oh goodness what a night last night turned out to be, something I had eaten didn't agree with me and I'd spent most of the night with an upset stomach and being ill.  It meant little sleep especially when we had an early start to try and get to Tamworth before dark.

 

I'm pretty certain Dalby is the bogan capital of Queensland.  All night there were the sounds of Commodores doing burnouts, the people also don't seem as friendly as they do in other places in Queensland.  Maybe it's because it's close to the border with New South Wales.

 

After a quick feed we refuelled at the local Shell service station where an ancient looking military bike rolled in.  I went over for a look and was surprised to find it was actually a modern Kawasaki cruiser.  The guy had built it himself, and had done a brilliant job with it.  From a distance you'd swear it was an old Harley or Indian bike of the 1940's.  He was keen to join us for the ride out of town but wasn't too fussed about riding south with us.  It's a pity I would've like to have learnt more about his bike.

Checking out the cotton fields.

The first leg of the ride would take us to Millmerran, a ride of about 90 kilometres through mostly cotton fields.  Like the cane fields further north these are really something to see however, they leave a bit of blight on the landscape when the cotton is picked.  There's dropped cotton buds everywhere and it actually looks quite trashy almost like rubbish, I guess the good thing is that it is totally natural and would breakdown quite easily.

 

The ride through this area was pretty straight forward however, a strong head wind made it a bit of a pain in the bum.  It was gusting quite strongly, fuel consumption was well up on what it would normally be.  It also slowed us down somewhat.

Miles of nothing, straight into a very strong head wind.

From Millmerran we continued directly south and headed for Inglewood.  The land was now starting to change again and become a little hillier and had farm land much more similar to Victoria.  It was mostly cattle farming although there were still quite a few farms growing some sort of grain.

 

Inglewood actually saw us take what was probably a wrong turn as we could've continued directly south and head for Texas, yes that's right, Queensland has a place called Texas.  Instead we followed the suggested route from iPhone Maps and headed towards Yelarbon, which in turn was taking us closer to Goondiwindi, which was now not really the way we wanted to go.  It wasn't until we got to Yelarbon that we realised we were headed in the wrong direction and so had to double back about 10 kilometres to take another road to Texas.

 

The ride into Texas was quite interesting and is obviously a favourite for riders from the area.  There were quite a few groups of riders all going in the opposite direction.  The roads were quite good and were mostly through national park, so had plenty of twists to keep things interesting.

 

Once arriving in Texas there were plenty of signs stating what was in the town.  Obviously there were a few things based on cowboys and stockmen, but the funniest thing I saw was a pub called the Yellow Rose ... and it was painted completely yellow.

 

Texas is also a funny town as it sits right on the border with New South Wales.  Unlike many of the towns we Victorians share with New South Wales, Texas is purely one town and not a twin town like Albury-Wodonga or Echuca-Moama.   It was actually a little strange to see how it worked.  It was a pretty town, nevertheless.

Eventually we found the border.

We did have a little trouble finding our way through Texas and to the border but once we found the Dumaresq River we knew we were at the border.  Although for the most part the Queensland-New South Wales border is the 29 degrees south parallel, some of the border is marked by a river similar to what the Murray River does down south.

 

Crossing the Dumaresq we headed for the Bruxner Highway and headed west towards Yetman.  We were now out of Queensland after eleven days.  This was pretty much the first time I had ever been there except for Brisbane and I've got to admit it was very different to what I was expecting.  In fact I would say that Queensland represents a greater cross section of our country than any other state. It has so many different varied lands, it really is a beautiful state.  And for the most part the people are really friendly and receptive.  I'll certainly be back.

 

By the time we had reached Yetman the temperature had dropped considerably and was now actually becoming quite uncomfortable.  We still had around 200 kilometres to reach Tamworth and as it was already 3pm we decided we would go as far as we could before it got too dark and too cold.

Lunch in Yetman.  They even brand their pies up here.

We got as far as Barraba before the cold was starting to really take it's toll so we pulled into town to see what was around.  There were a few grand old hotels unfortunately neither that were still pubs offered accommodation.  Another was purely a hotel now and looked far too posh for a few bikers, so we headed back the way we came and tried the caravan park.

 

At first it seemed there was no reception just a door bell type thing that I pushed and an almighty siren went off, yet no one came.  Eventually an elderly bloke, on his way to the toilet, approached.  I asked if he was the caretaker, he said no and explained where I could find him ... over at the bowls club in his usual seat.  He offered to go and fetch him.

 

A short stocky bloke approached and immediately started talking about what he could offer us, he wouldn't shut up.  He showed us to a cabin that he charged us just $100 for, so the remainder has gone into the kitty as a donation to the PCFA.  The cabin was very nice and certainly much better than the dump we stayed on last night.  The main thing is that it was warm.

 

We unpacked and headed off to the Chinese Restaurant that was a part of the bowls club.  I'm not much of a fan of Chinese food however, this stuff was really good and cheap.  The funny thing was the service was a bit poor and there as seemed like constant bickering coming from he kitchen.  We over heard a couple of locals saying that the 'mum' was on holidays in Hong Kong and so the kids were left to run the restaurant.  It seemed they couldn't agree who was cooking and how was washing.  It was pretty funny.

 

On the way out we noticed that the caravan park owner was having a drink with two younger blokes.  It turns out his name is Bob Richards, or Richo to his mates, and his drinking partners were two firemen from Sydney who travel country NSW teaching the Rural Fire Service how to undertake rescues and so on.

 

It was a great laugh listening to Richo's jokes and the tales from the firies and how they get cats out of trees.  They also told us about some great riding roads in the area.

 

We showed them a few photos of our ride so far, and they were amazed at what we were doing.  Richo was particularly interested in the 'penis' trees from Bowen, and said that he had one that could better it.  He was very keen to show us.

Richo's prickly penis.

At 72 Richo is a real character and is exactly what makes these country towns so great.  He didn't care who we were, he just wanted to share his stories and listen to ours ... although it was pretty hard trying to get a word in.

 

We all walked across the road to the caravan park, Richo told us to be careful of the traffic, I'd bet that five cars a day go past here, so there was too much to worry about.  The firies wished us good luck and a safe ride home.  Richo showed us his prickly penis, we had a good laugh and bid him goodnight.  What a great old character.

 

Today we rode a total of around 537 kilometres, taking the total ridden up to 5,668.  The total raised is still creeping higher and towards $13,000.  I hope we can make it to this total before the ride if over.

 

Tomorrow we will head for Tamworth before trying to reach Bathurst.  At nearly 500 kilometres again it might be a tough ride, but we'll try.