Blog 154 Grong Grong to Binalong

1st March

I left in the dark and enjoyed the kookaburras waking up. Birds wake immediately and don’t transition slowly from their slumber. Chatter chatter, they go, “look see someone coming, hark… pass it on,” and down the line my arrival is transmitted by this top of the tree telegraph system until I have a chorus of interest and noise in the steadily lightening air. By Coolamon I rode up the historic high street to the top turning back from the famous ‘Nearly New Store’ to take coffee at the Coolamon Perk. Through the window I see the solicitors - AW Thompson 1911-1949 and AJ Thompson 1949-2005 on elaborate refurbished facade on a building where every brick has a tale. 

Bit of Information

At the outbreak of World War 1 Coolamon was hosting the then opposition leader The Right Hon. Andrew Fisher MP. who shortly before addressing a meeting in the Odd Fellow's hall received a telegram from the Prime Minister Joseph Cook advising him that the UK Government had declared war on Germany. He announced to the meeting that Australia would support Britain "to the last man and the last shilling" a line that he would repeat frequently throughout the war, but which was first used in Coolamon. Fisher became Prime Minister following an election held a month later.

So

Mick the Bushman

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Another Map of the Day

136 miles, the longest ride of the journey so far.