Out on the Flatlands.

[WarrenH]

I spent a couple of weeks before the Fedral Election on the SW Slopes and in the Riverina of NSW. I enjoyed election day in Albury, celebrating a great election result with my family.

It rained almost every day and it flooded heaps, while I was away. I got as far as Hillston and sat out the rain for a few days. After all the roads I wanted to travel on remained closed, I then turned around and headed South. Even when I was forced to stay on the black top, by floodings and mud, I saw relatively few vehicles ... apart from giant trucks.

I had Serfas Driffters on which are excellent tough tyres for simple off roading and equally fine for tarmac. The tracks are smooth in the Flatlands, they were fabulous before the rains came.

My first experience of the dreaded Three Cornered Jacks wasn't too bad, despite removing dozens of Jacks from each tyre, each day. Thankfully, I only had two punctures. I only discovered that I had punctures, after pulling out Jacks. Each tyre still has dozens of fine spikes in them, that I can't remove. When I returned home, yesterday, I spent a few hours fruitlessly trying to remove the finer Jacks.

Anyway, here are a few shots from a region where time appears to have stood still ... in the little hamlets.

A grey day and the old Post Office at Rankin's Springs.




A White Pine (Callitris glaucophylla) with a past visit from lightning. North of Rankin's Springs, on the SW Slopes.




The grey soil and early wheat crop, North of Griffith, NSW.




Lots of localised floodings.




I rode past the grey soils to the vibrant red soils near Hillston, NSW.




When it wasn't raining the Flatlands looked amazing.




Little Corellas (the wide spread form) on the banks of the Lachlan River.




Little Corellas beside the Murrumbidgee River.




I took this shot of the Mighty Murray at Albury earlier in the year but, it is fitting to include it here. I was a bit busy on election day, handing out how to vote cards for the Farrer Greens, to take a shot at the end of my tour.




Warren.

[Trevtassie]

Those tyres are doomed, doomed I say!
Those little points will keep working their way through... although Slime may save them.

[WarrenH]

Trev, G'day. I'm not into slime, that stuff scares me, after reading about a guy who had has built up over a kilo and a half of slime in his tyres. He was wondering why he was getting slower during XC races, despite getting fitter. When he finally took the tyres off his MTB he had two huge gobs of slime in his tyres. From a post on MTBR Forum.

Yes, I feared that that might be the case with the Jacks. They are like lawyers, when they have their hooks in, they're impossible to get rid of. I had best not ride too far from home, in the coming few weeks without dozens of quick-fix patches.

I've had the same set of Serfas Drifters on the bike for a long time. I'm glad that they are $40 a tyre and not the price that we pay for tubeless MTB tyres locally.

Here are a few more shots from Albury, taken from the Hume and Hovell Walking Trail along the ridge of Eastern Hill, this past Autumn. It isn't all flat in the Riverina.

Tabletop Mountain.




Smoke and showers, looking over the Murray into Victoria.




This next shot was taken on the ridge of Eastern Hill, about one kilometre South of the main lookout where the Hume and Hovell Walking Track abruptly starts to descend to the river ... and where Big Ben Mountain in Victoria can be seen through the trees. To the left of Big Ben is Mount Bulla on the horizon.




Warren.

[silentbutdeadly]

Lovely effort, Warren. Nearly made it out my way. As usual...great eye...great photos.

Slime is a waste of time. These days I just use Stans or Joes latex fluid. Every 3 to 6 months, empty the remaining useless fluid, pull out the odd latexicle and repeat. Works fine against the jack in a tubeless set up with clingwrap carcassed MTB tyres. The gravel bike still runs tubes under the very very good Challenge Gravel Grinders and the tubes get the latex treatment as well...same sort of interval.

[Trevtassie]

Dunno about slime being a complete waste of time... especially with three corners because the holes are tiny. I used to live in Kalgoorlie and rode my bike all over the Golden Mile before it became a huge hole, out to Kanowna and Coolgardie. Place was infested with double gees, like jacks on steroids, so thick the tyre would get covered completely in them and I'd scrape them off with a stick. Slime used to do the job, it had to, I couldn't afford the number of patches I'd need otherwise.
I still use a tube that's had the same lot of Slime in for about 15 years since it doesn't go off. But... it doesn't work so well in tubes that are too small for the tyre, the stretched tube means it won't stabilise. Stans definitely works better at fixing big leaks but it's more work in tubes de-snotting. Works good in my tubeless set up.

[open roader]

Those little corellas are so much easier on the eye than the sub species we have down here. Corker images and storylines as usual Warren!