TRACER TOURING

I had a few reasons to head off for the weekend, not the least of which was to help a mate celebrate his birthday: dodgy geezer by the name of Mick Matheson — you may have heard of him. It was also time to take our long-term Tracer 700 for a good long spin and I had a 600km-odd loop planned encompassing a lot of tarmac plus a fair bit of dirt.

The top of the loop was to be just outside of Mudgee, north-west of Sydney on the other side of the Blue Mountains, but rather than take my usual route, a mate had been banging on about the beautiful camping spots along the banks of the Turon River, which crosses your path at Capertee, accessed by the unsealed Upper Turon Road to Sofala, and I was keen to investigate for myself. In any case, it would likely be a far more interesting alternative than getting a sore arse plodding along the Castlereagh Highway. It also dove-tailed nicely with a couple of other dirt roads which would take me out