Day 27 Gilgandra to Wild Camp 22 km past Dubbo 88 km

I'm getting close to home, Melbourne has started to appear as a destination on road signs. Still 800 km away but home is exerting a magnetic pull. After the rest day I have planned for Sunday it will be full steam ahead.

I didn't take any photos in Gilgandra, nothing really caught my eye. And there wasn't a lot on the way to Dubbo either. I had 2 exciting moments riding: the first was some traffic light controlled roadworks that I had the green light to myself while all other traffic waited. The problem for me was that it was 2 km uphill and into the wind. By the time I reached the end I was stuffed and there was a big queue waiting for me to clear the road. One driver yelled encouragement (I think it was encouragement - hard to tell what he actually said but I wasn't going to ask for clarification).

The second incident occurred as I was crossing a bridge with no shoulder approaching Dubbo. I was keeping as left as I could because of the traffic when all of a sudden I felt something hit my leg then the bike was making some grating noises. I jumped off the bike to have a look and found about a metre of barbed wire wrapping itself around the rear cassette and back wheel spokes. I couldn't wheel the bike further without the wire getting more entangled so I had to crouch down beside the bike and pull the wire clear. It took me 3 or 4 minutes to extricate the wire all the while traffic rushing past. I was relieved to get off that bridge.

Shortly after I rolled into Dubbo. There is some nice parkland near the CBD but the heavy presence of large trucks made it for uncomfortable riding so I wasn't keen to hang about. I made a quick visit to Macquarie St to buy lunch and visit Woolies and then found some shade in a park.

Melbourne on the road sign for the 1st time

Old Town Hall Dubbo

As I am meeting the Mraks at Peak Hill tomorrow I decided to push on to shorten the distance I have to cover in the morning. It was slow going as it seemed more uphill than down and the wind and road surface was against me.  After 22 km I found an area that was off the road that will be be okay for tonight.