Dinner (Day 3) was at the hotel at Mendooran, a true piece of old Australia … not necessarily in the best sense … After making the acquinatnce of Sharon and Dave on the balcony outside our room (names disguised to protect the guilty) and hearing about the woes of the car driver vis a vis the cyclist … we alighted to the beer garden for some tucker … Christian had the Parmy and I had a steak … both ok in fact … but we were a bit preoccupied with avoiding Shazza who was down drinking by herself and desperately seeking company … Beddiebyes was wonderful, preceded by watching My Octopus Teacher, a riveting piece of film-making from left of field … Next morning … a BIG day … we thought … 93 km planned … started very well, good road, not much traffic. Nowhere was open for breakfast but we found a convenience store and the old fella there made us sandwiches for later on. We had a banana for breakfast which seemed good at the time … So we ate our nannies and set off … A one point we were intending to join the bush tracks but missed the required turn-off and had to backtrack 3.5 km to find the entrance. That started well for the first 100 m or so … and then the mud started, followed by couple of hours of of creek crossings, mud and deep sand. We were happy to find dry gravel roads but it was hard work. The sandwiches started to beckon and just before the end of the national forest we lunched handsomely on classic Aussie white bread snags … Mounted again for the last lap to Ballimore … Finally we reached Baltimore, the Hair of the Dog hotel, which I feared would be like Mendooran, but was a very pleasant surprise, a place with plenty of clientele, a friendly pleasant buzz and and coke that came from heaven … We got chatted up by one of the locals who wondered whether we had sore arses and told us we looked like a pair of fit blokes … K’n oath, mate. … We set off at around 2pm from Baltimore for Dubbo, expecting a further 30km which seemed enough. All went well for the first 25 or so km. Then we checked the maps, thinking that we must be on the outskirts of Dubbo but discovered that we still had 18km to go … By that stage we were starting to feel a bit weak, having only eaten a banana and a very slim sanga over the whole day … The trip to Dubbo just seemed to stretch out and out, as though some malign god was turning back the compass as we rode … Finally we got to the Macquarrie Inn motel on the outskirts of Dubbo. A huge Aussie place with more and bigger screens than I’ve seen in any pub anywhere … After a lovely hot bath we met Jeff Priday’s friend Clifton there for dinner, which was very pleasant. But short: we were exhausted by that stage. Bed rarely has seemed so good, although I tend to say that every night … We started watching a film about a murderer but it didn’t last long … Early rise the next morning … Day 4 came in at 120 km and a lot of that was on difficult tracks and corrugated dirt roads of differing quality … It was a great day but very taxing … probably too much, but we didn’t have much choice given the paucity of accommodation in that area.
