[The longest single day’s ride I’ve done, so far. Narrow tar section, poor shoulder with drop-offs in places, and plenty of big trucks to keep me on my toes. Coming into St George well after dark felt especially dangerous. And OK, so the featured image, above, has nothing whatsoever to do with my bike ride, but just happened to be sent to me this day from Maastricht, Netherlands. It’s of my daughter, Molly, and granddaughter, Lila, out riding.].
I had to stop in the lovely country town of Dirranbandi for a full 3 hours to charge-up the bike batteries using the generator, and to fix 2 punctures in the rear tyre (pinch flats they were – caused, I’m guessing, by diving off the road into the rough when a big truck came up behind me too fast and too close for comfort. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not blaming the truck drivers here. They’re very good, and give a wide berth if they can. If, from their elevated position, they see something coming that I can’t, they give a blast of their horn and that’s when its time for me to move over. No ifs or buts)
Unlike Hebel, Dirranbandi is a pleasant little oasis of a town, and has a mighty fine bakery too, run by a German lady, and where, between patching attempts and with my bike’s guts all spilled out across the rotunda next door, I over-indulged on a pie, a sausage roll and a vanilla slice – supplementing my normal daily intake of a couple of bottles each of coke, iced coffee and ‘V’ energy drink.
I was well and truly knackered by my long hot ride and still traumatized by that last hour of night-riding, so I took a room at one of the many motels in St George strung out along the main drag. I chose the Balonne Motel, which is pretty ordinary but was OK value at $85 for the night. So knackered in fact, I forgot to get my camera out, so you’ll have to content yourself with a picture of my last night’s Narren River campsite again.
The town itself looks prosperous enough – I suppose that’s because of the huge cotton-growing industry it is the centre for. The largest farm of all, the controversial Cubbee Station (controversial because they’re nicking too much water out of the Murray-Darling irrigation system according to some) is nearby.
If I were looking for adventure, St George on a winter’s Wednesday night would probably not be the place to find it. I settled for a (very ordinary and not cheap) lamb shanks and 2 beers at the St George Hotel.
