April 29, 2024
Westmar
With almost eighty kilometers to Westmar we made sure we were on the road before eight o'clock. We hadn't gone more than seven kilometers when a ute pulled up next to us, driven by Dave, the charity rider we had met on the road to Moree the week before. A long natter ensued with Dave full of good advice. Importantly he confirmed that the back road we had chosen was the best route to Westmar.
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The ride was mostly through attractive woodlands. Nothing exciting but not unpleasant. What we didn't enjoy was the wind blowing from the north that made things a bit tedious at times. Thankfully there was very little traffic. Just twenty one vehicles passed us on the sixty four kilometer stretch to the Moonie Highway. The wind had now shifted to north easterly and the Moonie Highway runs east to west so things got easier at the right time into the ride.
Dave had suggested we would have some hills on our route. One man's hills are another man's plain. Dave's view comes from living in the Goondiwindi area, which is as flat as a pancake.
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Westmar is a cross roads with a similar type of hotel to many tiny settlements in Australia in that it is a pub, shop, motel and campground all in one. Importantly, they are also the meeting places for the local communities.
The campground here is free but has no amenities. However, there is also a rest area across the road that caters for the truckers which has showers and toilets. So we first had a shower there before setting up the tent at the campground next to the hotel followed by beer and burgers at the hotel for supper.
The water here is terrible sulphurous bore hole water, not something one would want to drink, but the hotel had rainwater tanks from where we could fill up our water bottles for tomorrow.
Tomorrow is another seventy odd kilometers to Meandarra. Our current thoughts are to head westwards from there for a while before turning northwards towards Roma. Tine will tell.
Today's ride: 78 km (48 miles)
Total: 2,287 km (1,420 miles)
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