The Longest Day - Country Roads - CycleBlaze

April 8, 2024

The Longest Day

The Great Dividing Range

Gulgong to Merriwa 

Today’s 108 km ride with a 600+metres of ascent was the biggest day in this past week of riding. Fortunately the weather was perfect. The roads were reasonably quiet for the first half day.  Then the 50km section of The Golden Highway to Merriwa was much busier.  The road has a decent shoulder most of the way but there were sections needing extra caution.  The Wollar route would be preferable albeit slower with about 20km of dirt surface according to locals.

The day in pictures:

Ready to depart the cabin accommodation in Gulgong.
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Gulgong butcher’s humour
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The Great Dividing Range isn’t great, dividing or a range but I’m happy to brag we rode over it into the Hunter River catchment.
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Ulan Pub stop at 9:30 am for coffee and sandwiches. Cold Chisel music blaring and miners drinking schooners. Classic.
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Ulan Pub pool room
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Into coal mining country
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Ore train
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Joel rolling down to Merriwa. That’s the Liverpool Range in the far distant background. We need to cross it tomorrow or the following day.
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Merriwa
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The accommodation. The Royal Hotel.
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Great verandah. Classic Australian pub.
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The time is wrong. Ride was about 7 hours.
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We climbed. But we also descended. The roll down to Merriwa at days end was wonderful after many hills.
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Today's ride: 108 km (67 miles)
Total: 475 km (295 miles)

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