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TRAVEL- AUSTRALIA
BOB WOZGA
LED BY THE BRIDLE
The Bridle Track in the Central West of NSW is one of those stretches of road that is on everyone’ s bucket list whether on an adventure bike or a four-wheel drive. Generations have travelled along it and more will test their skills in the future.
I have vague memories of travelling along it as a kid with my family, in the days when station wagons ruled the roads. Dad negotiating potholes, fallen rocks, and honking the horn when coming to blind turns to inform any approaching car we are NOT moving out of the way and mum holding her hands to her eyes, not wanting to see the cliff face nor sheer drop to the Turon River below. The average family holiday has changed over the years.
Years later, I took my newly bought DR650 for its maiden overnight trip to Hill End, with the expectation of returning to Bathurst via the Bridle
Track. Having read on the internet that the Bridle Track was closed due to a rockslide at Monaghan’ s Bluff but seeing others had successfully negotiated the blockage and passed through, I thought I’ d give it a go. I was stopped at Monaghan’ s Bluff and forced to turn back. That was ten years ago.
Hill End located an hour’ s drive north of Bathurst, is for New South Welshmen, remembered as one of those places you went to for school camp when in primary school. You were made to look at old buildings and holes in the ground. Possibly walked and climbed out of a mine and didn’ t appreciate any of it. As you get older, you realise it’ s a fascinating living relic of the1870’ s gold rush days and you start to appreciate it. The Village, maintained by National Parks NSW, has a garden feel to it. Relics and artifacts as well as original miners’ huts, shops on the main street, an
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