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We had a good night at the Townhouse, and starting out on another back road, we had a lot of flat ahead, but also a headwind. Our target today is Cudal, a very small town, perhaps too small, as other than a campground, there doesn’t seem to be too much going on there: a bistro that closes at 4, no grocery, no pubs, and one hotel that’s pretty pricey, and completely remotely operated. We picked Cudal in order to get a little closer to our friend, Stephen, who was going to come pick us up to take us back to his home in Coolah. Also, it was only 80km (51 miles) from Cowra, so no big push like yesterday’s 120km (80 miles).
A little background that I mentioned in one of our update posts. We met Stephen a rainstorm in Valentine NE on our summer tour last year. We all took refuge in a McDonalds to get out of a downpour, and ended up in the same motel. Stephen was a freshly-retired Australian on the return leg of a cross-Canada-cross-US motorcycle tour. We had breakfast in the AM and chatted again and Dana and Stephen exchanged phone #s. Stephen said if we were ever in Australia, to look him up and she did! He was going to pick us up wherever we were and take us to his place and on to the outback. Dana was reluctant to have him do all that driving, but Janet (from Wagga) reassured her that folks who lived out there were used to driving long distances — just something they have to do and are comfortable with.
Our original plan for today was to get to Canowindra where Stephen’s son lives, but it was only 30 miles from Cowra and Dana wanted to get more miles under our belts to make Stephen’s trip shorter.
We did go through Canowindra, where I took a break. Dana was ahead and though I texted her that I wanted to switch up the route as the original one was quite hilly for the last 20 miles, she wanted to stay on that route. I opted for the flatter route and after my stop, went on to Cudal to scope out our refreshment and dinner options. I went to the little bistro and got a couple of cokes and went to check out the campground. It was adequate, though a bit close to the highway. I texted Dana and she concurred and I made a reservation with the local council who ran the campground. A bit weird — you can do it online, but they charge a $100 AUD security deposit, and you have to do it during business hours otherwise you won’t get the approval and the email with the secret codes for the toilets and showers. The woman at the bistro also pointed me to the local bowling club as a place to get a drink.
I sat on the curb near the local tack store. No refreshments or anything in there, but they did reiterate that the bowling club was the place to go, and it was on the road that Dana would be coming in on. When she got there, after downing the coke, we went to the campground and got set up and got showers. The bowling club was our next stop.
There are over 2000 bowling clubs in Australia — and it’s pretty common that even a small town like Cudal will have one. Bowls, or lawn bowling is a variant of the Italian game bocce. On the way to the club, I thought I saw someone carrying a pizza away from a food truck, but thought it must have been a hallucination as nothing showed up on the maps. We went in to the club and got “registered” (signing the guest book), and got our beers. Dana immediately started practicing her Australian with the two tables of workers getting their after-work wind-downs. They were quite a gregarious group and eventually I went over. The club’s kitchen, much like the hotel in Koorawatha, was only open Thurs-Sunday, and when we asked where we could get something to eat, they all said, “The Pizza Truck.” So, it wasn’t a mirage, and we finished our current beers and went to get a pizza. The bartender said it was no problem to bring it back there. So we did. A couple of the guys were still there and we continued our conversations whilst downing our pizza and beers.
Back at the campground, we climbed into the tent, trying to ignore the truck traffic and anticipating tomorrow’s trip to Stephen’s.
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