Exploring Australia on a Himalayan 450, dirt tracks, camping, barn finds - Episode 2

In this episode, we ride down more random dirt tracks, stumble across a massive barn which has a barn find inside. We cool off in a stream, wander down a tunnel, get hit by a lightning storm, ride over more water crossings and have a campfire. We headed off after the first barn find. Not exactly what we were looking for, but it shows that there are some still out here. As the lady had mentioned, they are mainly tin barns in this area. There was a lot of livestock on the track. We made it back onto a sealed road, but not to worry, there was another dirt track just on the other side. We passed the Chaffee Dam which had tree trunks still in it, even though it was built over 45 years ago. We pulled into the town of Nundle. After a quick feed, we filled up the bikes and kept heading south. It wasn't long before we were back on gravel. We pulled over. I couldn't hear what Dave was saying, but he pointed up the hill, so I followed him up. It seemed he'd spotted another barn. He was going in, so again I thought I'd wait a bit. If I didn't hear the sound of a shotgun, I'd follow him in. There was a horse in the paddock, so I shut the gate. There were a lot of locks on the gate. With no sound of gunfire, I rode in. Now that is a massive wooden barn. I rode around a bit, but couldn't see Dave. Then he appeared from the farmhouse. It seems that this is a shearing shed back in the day. This guy's been here for 20 years, but he has no idea how old it is. He said it's 75 years under it. It's starting to sink, but he's keeping it. He's starting to fix it up. He said go and have a look. He thinks the outside is all hardwood. He said the timber inside is really impressive. Wow. He didn't say what the timber was, but it kind of looks like, if I was taking a guess, I'd say black butt or stringy bark, because stringy bark's the area. He said the whole thing's still set up if you wanted to go there for shearing. Look at these boards here. Do you know why they I said to him, I don't think I'd want to take this one down. He goes, oh mate, you'll be there for a long time. I'm just making my way through here, as they have the lines for the shearers. Your motor's up here, and then it spins a whole bar on the whole lot, and the clippers come off there. So when they get the sheep, come through here, finish with them, out the chute. Now this is what you call a barn find. There's no engine, but it's still a barn find. Look at all the timbers everywhere, from the ceiling right down to the floor. It's amazing. Tamworth cordials, Lillyman's. It's all hand-sawn too. It's probably 250 by 250. Imagine the stews of all the shearers. Oh yeah. So the other one might have been a bit old in wood, but this one would be good, but they're not tearing it down. At least we know what we're looking for now. It's an impressive old structure. So now we've got to find a camp spot for tonight. We're going to head down the dirt road and see what we can find. We headed off once again. The rain was starting to fall, but it was blue skies ahead, so no need to stop and put our wet weather gear on. Dave had gotten distracted, then decided to put his rain pants on. It was time to get ahead of the rain clouds. After traveling a few hundred meters down the road, we were out of the rain. It's amazing how many dirt tracks there are that you'd never know about unless you started exploring. We kept following the river along these sweeping bends. A red-bellied black snake, this time alive. We pulled up to see where to head to next. I remembered someone mentioning that there was a free camp area at Moonan Flats. Now that we had a sign pointing us in that direction, it seemed like the logical place to head to. I'm not sure what I like about these kinds of dirt roads. They're not technical or challenging, which I do like riding those sort of tracks on a dirt bike. You don't go super fast on them due to how narrow they are, and a good chance of coming across a farmer in a four-wheel drive. I guess I just enjoy the flow of it. The corners, the rises, the descents, and being able to look around as I travel along. We pulled into Moonan Flats. The free campsites were on the other side of the pub. Well, apparently it's no longer a free campsite, and it wasn't actually that inviting and wasn't on the river. So we decided to see if we could find somewhere else. I had been through this area before and knew there was some free camping at the base of the climb up to the Barrington Tops, but I'd never been there before. So we decided to check it out. We pulled up at the campsite, and I'm going to say I think we made the right decision to look for a better campsite. I'm not sure you could get much better. I got to setting up my tent. Meanwhile, someone couldn't wait. I think he's meditating on today's ride. I think that's what it is. That there is someone without a care in the world. I'm getting in. It's hot. It wasn't that deep, but enough to get your whole body under the water. I don't know if there's anything else that would be better than a creek dip at the end of a ride. A hot ride that is. From inside the tent. Outside. How are you feeling Dave? I'm exhausted. I feel refreshed after being in there though. So we both had a swim. Both tents are set up. We're going to have a look at some food and basically do nothing. We have voted that this is the best campsite so far. First night was good, but it was raining a little. Second was interesting, but this one's definitely the best campsite. The skies started looking a little ominous. It didn't take long and we had to get into our tents and wait this one out. As night fell, the lightning picked up and it went on for hours. So Dave is in his tent and he has the jet boil on inside. Dave needs to be concentrating 100% on it, otherwise he'll burn it down. He's very easily distracted. So we'll see how he goes. The rain has stopped. It has got dark. So we're going to see if we can get some food in before we go to bed. This is going to be an exercise of don't get distracted, don't run into them and don't run into them. It doesn't take very long at all to boil. Oh, my attention span is awful. I'm actually starting to look at my toenails already. I have been keeping an eye on the water level in the creek. Pretty sure we're fine. It has to fill over the waterfall first, theoretically. Mash this one. Oh yeah, look at this. Put too much water in. Beautiful. Who would have thought? Roast lamb and vegetables. Tastes awesome. Really, really good. That was surprisingly nice for a bag meal. The rain started again and continued for the rest of the night. I woke up at about 5.30am and it was still raining. Back to bed. We said when the rain stops we'll hustle and get our tents down and get packed. Me and Dave is struggling at best. Well, our next plan due to the weather is we're going to try and clear it basically. Apparently further south, we're heading in that general direction anyway, it seems to be better. So we're going to sort of just do a few road miles just to get ahead of it and then find somewhere to pull over and work out a better plan. But that's the plan for the moment once Dave finally packs up his tent. How you going there Dave? I'm struggling at best. Dave finally got sorted and we were off. That's the road to the Barrington Tops which is still dirt and a great ride. Was it a barn? No, just a very large chicken shed. We rode into Scone and the rain fell again. I spotted a timber structure that, well, had a lean on it. So in we went to check it out. There's probably not much to see. I asked the guys, they don't know much about it. The guy said, don't touch it or breathe on it because you'll probably knock it over. It's clearly old, but it's not what we're looking for. Like you can see the timber, it's probably Oregon or Cypress pine. It's mostly steel. So let's move on. So there was a massive front coming across from the south, so we decided to head even further west to try and get around it. I could see the storm behind me in my mirrors, but it was all blue sky out the front. We rode into Mudgie, a quick fill up and then we were on our way again. Definitely, I think it was a good call to get in front of that storm front that was coming through. We'd looked on the maps of the weather and there's a whole heap behind it. So we've gone further west in the general direction of Bathurst and Orange. As Dave also says, there's probably more chances of finding a barn out there. And as we're coming through here, I said, have you ever been to the Bridal Track? And he was like, no, but I thought probably a really good place to ride through. Epic trail I've done once before from the other direction. So we're going to head towards a place called Hill End, Hills End, Hilled End, and head onto that. And we may camp there, depends how far down we get. So right now, Dave's just taking off the last of the wet weather gear. It is windy and warm. So now we had the day's plan with still a little bit of the day left. We rode into the very small town of Hargrave. Dave's dad likes windmills and old churches. Here was a tin church, which you don't see that often. The most old school Australian bloke came out and said hi. He actually owned the church, buying it and moving it to this property, and was in the process of restoring it. He said tin churches were quite rare, and that's why he was trying to preserve this one. We had made it to Hill End. Have a look at this. Really thick hardwood. These posts are amazing. I don't know how old this would be, but oh my gosh, it's good. Beautiful old shed, still standing. You can see the sides of this, like they're different to the front. Like this is just the sides of, they're just milled up logs. And you can see the patchwork they've done. There's obviously air getting into it, so they've put some old gale on it. And then the front probably would have all been hand sawn. There's no precision in the tools that they've used. They've just put it up and it's done its job for 100, 150 years. Favorite barn so far. In 1872, the largest gold specimen in the world, the Holtzmann nugget, was found at 2am in the Hill End goldfields. These goldfields became world famous as the richest quarter mile in the world. And at the peak of the gold rush, the town had 8,000 residents, 28 pubs, an oyster bar and a kilometer of bustling shops. You can do a self-guided tour through the town, as there's information signs on every block of land and building. There is also a museum. The bridle track does have a lot of warnings on it, but it's not that bad at all. So we rode in. The track has some steepish drop-offs and can get narrow in sections. We just cruised along the first part, getting used to the rough loose surface. We went across one of the weirs and I didn't see a submerged pothole. Probably the funnest part of the track is riding along the riverside. You just have to watch out for the odd pothole or ten. The track rose up the hillside again, where you get a great cliff edge view of the valley below. We pulled over as Dave had spotted something. Wild fruit. I don't know what they are. Either peach or, I think they're a peach. They're baby peach. I'll tell you what, they're pretty tasty. And across the road, we've got blackberries. One of my favorite fruits is blackberries. Dave is foraging off the side of the road. Well, track we'll call it, because it is a track. The bridle track. Dinner. Apparently it's dinner. The reason I probably lose weight on these trips. Dave's loving the track and foraging off the side of the road near a cave that we reckon there's probably some snakes around. More red bellies. We might find gold, but if a big bear or something scary comes out, get ready to run. It's deep. We wandered further into the tunnel. It seemed to go on for a few hundred meters. We didn't come across anything interesting, so we headed back out. Cave exploring done for the day. Now we're going to keep going and see if we can find a campsite, because it is, it's 5.30 or 6 in the afternoon. Daylight savings time, that's why there's so much sun. But there's still a bit more fun to come. There was a section of grass next to the road that looked like a decent camp spot. We'd keep it as a backup and see if there's anything better further down the track. There was a big open area of grass and it was a bit further off the main track. But then we saw another track, so rode on down it. That's better, that's heaps good. This one? And then you get the sound of that while you're going to sleep. I don't think you'll get as many mozzies because it's moving water. Cool. Joe's mystical adventures continues to deliver. Like I reckon I went down into the bridle track probably for, I don't know, 400 meters, not even, probably 200 meters. Big rock on the road, don't hit the rock, don't hit the rock, don't, straight over the rock. Accelerator goes down, bike goes into here, hit the clutch, pull myself up. Lucky I didn't go that way because that's a straight drop. I don't know, I reckon I gave myself probably a good couple of k's just to see myself in. And then you just move. This thing just, this thing is, I reckon this bike just gives you confidence. The question is, would Dave buy one? Well we're all I hope you get one of these waiting for me when I get back. Either I take that one or I get another one. Like I've ridden, I started on dirt bikes, which is probably why I'm standing up on my pegs all the time. Like that's just good balance, good confidence and suspension in my legs. I can kind of just feel the road a lot better. And then I've done road bike riding, but not on a, I've never ridden a Royal Enfield before, but it doesn't matter. Like if you need the power on the main road, you've got it. I don't know, it's just, I feel really confident on it. You've got good weight distribution, as I said before. You don't feel like it's taken off on you. Like as soon as you hit it, it goes with you rather than like dirt bikes, you're like, hang on. Yeah, I just can't speak highly enough about it. The next bike I get, if it's not this one, will be this one. I think he's converted. Nothing to do with me. It's just him riding it. I like them too. Tent set up. Dave's still working on his, but I'm going to go check the water out. Dave is on fire duty. He's got to get some wood. Oh, over the other side. You want to swim across? Yeah, let's go. I'll drag it across. There's camp spots all along this road. There was another couple of guys up there who were fishing and they were on a kayak. And apparently last night when we had the thunderstorm, we were nestled in that little sort of canyon thing. They had, they said, 70 kilometre hour winds coming down here. It was dark. They were on their little kayak fishing. They got blown over and that destroyed both of their awnings off their four drives. So I think we actually scored the campsite. And today we get this one. Sorry, just looking for snakes. Get this one. It's really good. The water's a little browner than I saw it last time, but again, like yesterday's campsite, with the rain, everything goes brown because all the soil is getting washed in. Well, at the edge, the water is lukewarm. So Dave's setting up the fire and well, he put it in between the two tents and I thought it was a little close. I have to use my tent in a couple of weeks on another trip and I don't want to have to get a new one before then. The embers coming off onto the top of that will just put holes everywhere. And I think Dave might be a little bit of a pyromaniac. He likes a bit of fire. So not at all, he says. Well, he may not be, but I'm just being very cautious. I could have left it there and then blamed him for a hole, but that wouldn't fix the hole. Instead, I just moved it. We now had our pile of firewood. Being a timber kind of guy, it's got all the tools. I don't know what he's doing there. Kindling. We'll call it kindling. I think he's trying to impress with just one hit and it just didn't happen. This guy knows nothing. Don't worry, I've used it before. First time. Still got his tag on it. So you normally see two ways of building a fire. There's the teepee way or there's the box. What do you call that? Like a log tower way. He's going the log tower way. We could always just pull a bit of petrol out. This might be a bit wet from last night. The last of the sunlight reflected off the clouds to the east. About to have some dinner and we've just realized we have no idea what we're doing tomorrow yet. We thought about thinking about it, but we thought, why don't we do that in the morning? We've still got a bit of the track to go and I guess we're going to go towards Orange, right? Wherever Orange is. I think it's southwest. Oh yeah. So we stopped it to get fuel and I yelled out, get some water and Dave didn't. So to make dinner, we've just got some of the river water and boiled it twice. But hopefully, I'm sure we'll be fine. Tonight we're eating tasty chicken mash and wraps. River water sludge. Yeah, I don't know what you call it. We call it dinner. Toast it. The question is, can I taste the river water? Not so far. Cut to a shot of Joe Tubarro throwing up. Well, I think that'll do us tonight. Off again tomorrow. In the next episode, we continue along the bridal track. Dave hugs a tree and misses a corner. We race some kangaroos and a wombat. Of course, we find more epic tracks, then us to some sheep and finally find what we've come on this journey for.