By 
Four-days from Wisemans Ferry The first Tour Of Duty recce ride is logged and ready to go. Darin Rowley is the man making it happen.
Kurt Quambusch (the publisher of Adventure Rider Magazine) and I (Darin Rowley, owner of Adventure Motorcycle Equipment) were discussing important issues. We decided: KTM orange is a great colour; if every motorcycle sounded like a KTM 990 with an Akrapovic pipe, we’d still never get sick of the sound; single-cylinder adventure motorcycles could get you a lot of places; and there are a lot of people taking up adventure riding. With all this worldly information processed, Kurt looked at me between bites of his bacon-and-egg roll and slurps of strong coffee and I could see a penny had dropped.
He’d had an idea!
He managed to expel snippets of his concept and food that translated to, “Let’s provide quality four-day adventure rides that new adventurers can simply put into their GPS and follow!”
“Hell, yes,” was my response. “There might be an afterlife, but I’m riding now!”
After a couple of quick phone calls and a few kilometres we found ourselves at Moonan Flat’s Victoria Hotel on a perfect mild-blue-sky day.
It was all organised a good 12 hours in advance.
Meet and greet
The pleasantries were exchanged with Kurt explaining his glorious run from Wisemans Ferry, through the Watagans, past Singleton and over the western side of Barrington Tops. I recounted my run from Canberra, rerouting due to flooded rivers and camping on a sensational hilltop near Muswellbrook.
This dialogue was completed, along with the obligatory handshake, in a minute or so without Kurt removing his earplugs.
It was obvious he was being seduced by his 990. The burble of the lumpy twin with new horizons unfolding in front and a roost of dust viewed in his mirrors had him wanting more, so we fired up our trusty steeds and headed north.
Go for gold
We enjoyed the smooth, easy dirt roads to Ellerston, a Packer family property that runs cattle and sheep and hosts some of Australia’s best polo playing fields. It’s also home to a golf course designed by Greg Norman and Bob Harrison. The thing that caught my eye was the motard/kart track. I’d like to have pointed the pint-size WR250R around it, but I suspected the security team would’ve swung into action.
Kurt and I were stopping for photos and trying to capture the feeling of what we were experiencing. A brief discussion over who should be the pin-up man for this story quickly arrived at the decision to leave our helmets on whenever possible (to make the photos look good).
We pointed our front wheels towards Timor, flowing through rolling green hills under a blue sky and feeling the countryside as we passed through was very relaxing. Kurt and I discussed this feeling and we understood this was what adventure riders craved. For us, it was decompression from a hectic domestic existence and a required outlet to keep day-to-day life on an even keel.
From Timor we motored north on Crawney Road to Nundle and were absorbed in the countryside. Basalt gave way to limestone and before we knew it we were at Nundle. We refuelled, got a room at the Peel Inn – built in 1860 – and enjoyed a cold beer or two on the pub balcony, followed by a hearty meal. It was a nice way to finish the day with about 400 relaxing kilometres covered from Wisemans Ferry.
Nundle is an 1850s gold-mining town.
It’s interesting to consider the goldfield yielded a reported eight tons of alluvial gold and two tons of reef gold. At today’s value of $1580 per ounce that gives about half-a-billion dollars pulled out of this area. Imagine what wasn’t reported? If it’s like any of the goldfields I’ve seen, there’ll be some colourful history around this town, so it may be worth having a look around the old gold-mining areas.
Fire down below
We were up well past the crack of dawn and off north to Walcha through a network of soothing dirt roads. The not-so-early morning air was refreshing and the near misses with kangaroos sobering. I did need a spatula to remove my bum from my seat after I puckered down a little, tightly braking for a ’roo and then getting on the gas thinking I was going to hit it.
The roads traversed State forests, giving way to open agricultural land and providing a great start to the day.
From Walcha we pointed our distinctly different bikes north, taking the backroads to Gostwyck. I thought I’d have some fun and pitched the little WR250R into a standing-start drag race with Kurt’s 990.
Needless to say, the 990 sounded awesome and went past me in a shower of rocks at about the 90kph mark. I had to grin! It was good to see Adventure Rider Magazine’s publisher with a bit of fire in his belly.
Colourful
After traversing the Salisbury plains, where there are a number of large shearing sheds as a testament to sheep farming in the area since the 1830s, we stopped in at the Gostwyck Chapel. This chapel was built with bricks fired on Gostwyck station in 1921, and stands in memory of Major Clive Collingwood Dangar, who lost his life during the first world war.
Two hundred elms imported specifically from England provide a magnificent tree-lined avenue and the chapel is covered in Virginia creeper. It’s a relaxing, shady place in summer that yields beautiful colours in autumn.
Fish tale
From Gostwyck it was into Armidale, a buzzing, modern, metro hub. We refuelled, rewatered and stocked up with refreshments (Coopers Pale Ale and a tasty shiraz) for our evening at the unique Moredun Ponds property, home of the Adventure Rider Magazine annual Congregation. We followed a series of pleasant, predominantly dirt roads, feeling rather lucky to be in this part of the world.
At Moredun Ponds we were greeted by Jo and AJ who offered we could camp or cabin it, and that hot showers were available either way.
Being a little soft and having ridden on a standard WR250R seat for a number of days – which made me feel like I had a little white bike hanging out my bum at times – we chose the cabins.
We recounted the day over a cold beer, listened to the laconic, dry, country humour of AJ, and I think we even worked out the velocity of light in miles and kilometres per second. We’d overdone the latte stops and only covered 268km, so next time we’re up near Moredun Ponds we vowed to find an extra 50km to 100km of country to explore.
Moredun Ponds is a breeding farm for Murray cod and has a working piggery. You may be able to talk with Jo or AJ and organise a Murray cod feeding or possibly fishing for other species. It’s a very relaxing, affordable location away from it all.
Go the pies!
With the sun well above the horizon we headed for Tingha, a town centred on an historic mid- to late-1800s alluvial tin-mining area. This was the most northern location of our ride and we hadn’t really thought about the best way back, so we pulled up and had a chat. Our collective wisdom was, “Let’s head south on dirt roads we don’t know and make sure we don’t run out of fuel”
With this flexible mandate we turned south and I laughed at our freedom. We followed a series of smooth country backroads into Bundarra where we refueled. Kurt overcame his caffeine withdrawals with a strong coffee and was thus able to communicate with other humans.
From Bundarra we headed west along the Barraba-Bundarra Road before turning south to Bendemeer along a nice network of farm-access backroads. We felt like we were floating through the scenery without a care in the world. A number of photo stops had us yabbering like a pair of teenagers and, before we knew it, we were in Bendemeer having a pie for smoko at the general store.
You bet
From Bendemeer we plotted a loose route to Nundle and discovered some spectacular riding. It was a very scenic and enjoyable way to head back to Nundle’s Peel Inn. My little WR250R arrived with 800ml of fuel left in the tank. I’d cut that one a bit fine…again.
In the wash up, while enjoying a frothy chop at the Peel Inn, we recounted the tranquility and the good-quality roads covered while exploring the 341km of countryside we’d covered that day. It was bloody beautiful! Interestingly, a nugget of a truck driver stopped at the pub, pulled up a stool and raved about his horse and how it was winning races. He also explained he kept horse testicles in his freezer…but that’s another story. He gave us the name of his race-horse and it paid $8 a few days later at the Sale races. In true form, I completely forgot to put on a bet.
Ready to go again
We went to bed early and actually got up early, departing Nundle heading through Barry Station, Ellerston and arriving in Moonan Flat. We said our brief goodbyes with helmets on and engines running, and almost like horses who know they’re close to home, we parted ways. I returned to Canberra and Kurt found his way home to Sydney.
We couldn’t have asked for a better four days. Fully decompressed, I launched back into domestic life, albeit with the next ride already planned.
Download the ride
Feel like you’d enjoy this ride?
Log on to www.advridermag.com.au/rides and you can down-load the entire trip as a GPX file with extra track notes – like section distances, accom and where to get fuel. Just load the GPX file into your GPS and retrace the Adventure Rider Magazine team’s every turn of the wheel, taking in the same scenery, the same dirt roads and enjoying the true meaning of the adventure-riding life.
Normally the download will set you back $129, but seeing as this is the first one, and the publisher’s still glowing after his four days of supreme adventure riding, he’s offering an introductory deal at only $99.
Get in quick before work catches up with him and he gets grumpy and jacks the price up again!
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