Day 45 - There's always a Sunny Corner

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Lithgow to Bathurst 71km

The day did not start auspiciously.  The rain finally found us, after much ducking and weaving across SE Australia on our part.  It was drizzling as we rode out of the servicable Lithgow Hotel and Motel, but within 200m it was a deluge, soggily we trundled onwards.  Out of Lithgow, heading west "we met again Great Western Hwy".

Kerstin, still smiling

Not wanting to spend all day in the company of traffic, to be fair the truckies are the best drivers out there, but beware the panicking geriatric, especially if towing a caravan.  A detour, an extra 20km, and we quickly found ourselves off the beaten track.  It rained as we rode past Wallace Lake, the vista somewhat disturbed the enormous coal power station right next door.  It rained as we rode through Portland 'the town that built Sydney.'  Home to Australia's first cement works, which operated from 1902 til 1991.  There are certain bonuses to being wet, one is that you really don't want to stop pedalling, because then you get cold.  So today, the hills became our friendly heat generators.  And I made it up a few that previously I would have walked mainly by applying mind tricks and gritting my teeth.

Me, cresting another hill

After three hours of rain the sky began to lighten and tantalising hints of blue were on the horizon.  And with perfect timing the sun came out right as we arrived in.... Sunny Corner.  Sunny Corner was once home to 4000, in the Silver rush of 1884-5.  Now it's a sleepy little place, where the sun shines on cyclists.  The Sydney to Bathurst cycling race used to come through here, before the building of the Great Western Hwy.  

The 1908 cyclists

Like all things in life it's good to be reassured that for every dark corner there is a Sunny Corner just around the bend, and we mean that quite literally.


As we left Sunny Corner behind, but taking the sunshine with us, we had flashbacks to travelling in the States.  A pine forest, enormous roads, the occasional equally enormous but courteous 4WD, big skies and a great lunch.  With a surprise dessert of wild (feral) blackberries (and bonus, no bears).


Unfortunately for Australia's capital of Motor racing, there is no other choice but to arrive in a cloud of diesel and noise on the GW hwy.  I have two good things to say about this approach, it was mainly downhill, and there were 10km of roadworks, speed limit = 60km/hr.  They even had one of those speed camera displays so you can be publicly shamed for speeding.  Kerstin and I clocked a healthy 19km/hr.

It's 6pm at the caravan park and a huge crowd of grey nomads are celebrating a 70th birthday, we've already had some dancing on the tables, and have now moved onto the sing-along.  At least they aren't put off by the thunder and pouring rain.  Totally in a Sunny Corner!
Location: Bathurst NSW 2795, Australia

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