Rylestone Ride 22-23rd July 2026

 We should ride every Wednesday. The weather was perfect. 17 Cowpersons (there were 2 cowgirls and 15 cowboys) headed out of Berowra, north toward Wollombi. As well as an early springtime, paranoia was in the air as we passed, unhindered as it turned out, through the speed traps and patrol cars on the Old Highway before stopping at Jerry’s for coffee. 

 

A lovely run through Wollombi, and via the Martindale back road into Denman for lunch. Next the Bylong Valley Way, wonderfully green and picturesque with cattle standing like statues and at that lolling speed which is quick but leisurely. This is a classic motorcycling road. Then on to Rylstone, and the World-famous Globe Hotel.

 

The Globe describes itself as 3 star, but that is not quite true. Let me get to that. The rooms are small; a bit bigger than a ‘phone box with thermodynamic construction to keep them cold in winter and hot in summer, and with a shared and distant bathroom. The beds remind me of my time in prison. However, this is an adventure and who knows what can happen on an adventure?

 

We pretty much had the pub booked out. A couple of astute fools booked somewhere else, as “adventure” was beyond them at their time of life. Whatever worry we may have had about the accommodation soon fell to the back of the mind as we indulged in a “few” beers and dinner. The Globe meals are as good as you’ll find at any pub, beef-cheeks, 400gm steaks; mostly a vegan’s nightmare but a wide enough range and generous serves of fresh vegies. The wine selection, a collection of local regional wines, was excellent.

 

We ran some Lucky Door prizes. John is now resplendent in his hat from Onslow WA, and looks quite the adventurer, almost. People at the Golf Club think he might be a member with his Mercedes hat. Geoff wears his Tony Abbott T-shirt to bed, and takes his Liberal Party keep-cup to the local café and gets engaged in political arguments that are beyond him, even though he doesn’t know it. Dave is struggling a little with Rod May’s seminal self-help publication “Perseverance. Happiness. Prosperity”. It’s perhaps not surprising Dave struggles, because the work doesn’t seem to have helped Rod at all.

 

The Globe has some features unusual in a pub, although the name gives a clue and makes the provision of conventional rating, like 3 star, difficult. The pub has a Tardis like feature, accessed via a switch on the air conditioner control. Erica, always one to mess about with controls, found herself in middle Asia, on the Silk Road, in the year 427bc. She was in a palace, placed upon a large, luxuriant bed, surrounded by an honour guard of husky eunuchs and hundreds of worshippers. She was a princess, a goddess, the object of all earthly and heavenly aspirations. When she awoke, she found herself covered in rose petals and saffron robes and gold. Tidying all this up made her late for breakfast.

 

Rod, on the other hand, found himself the prisoner of those fiends of the KGB, in a Siberian gulag. He was chained up and tortured all night by a feather boa tickling his anus. He confessed immediately and was still confessing early in the morning, demonstrating he had no resilience whatsoever.

 

Hollywood had a tale to tell. He had decided to smuggle some cheap All Blacks rugby shirts into New Zealand and was detained for a long time at Auckland airport. This was New Zealand’s national dress under attack here! By the time he’d undergone a thorough body search and the shirts confiscated it was in the early hours of the morning. Everything was shut and the taxis had all gone home. Eventually, a decrepit 1966 Chrysler Valiant slowly approached, its one headlight casting a small yellow patch of visibility toward the ground in front. A heavily tattooed head stuck itself out the window, and called “wanna lift, mate?”

 

Hollywood felt he had no choice and jumped into the old Valiant which, unnoticed to that point, also contained seven children. Off they went to distant parts unknown to Hollywood. The mission was to steal all the coal they could find from railway stations which, in those days, held large supplies of this natural treasure. Being the kind fellow he is, Hollywood offered to help load the coal into the Valiant’s boot. For reasons to do with time and space, the boot seemed insatiable and by the time the sunrise eased over the horizon Hollywood was coal-black and exhausted. To rub salt into the wound, he had to pay The Globe a $250 cleaning fee for the general mess, and the very dirty coal dusted sheets. Take care where you drive your Tardis.

 

Tony James missed out on all this. He couldn’t work his air-conditioner and spent a cold night in his underpants and T-shirt. The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that he’d had 14 beers and shared in 2 bottles of wine over and after dinner. He needed to pee a lot during the night. He’d kept his Apple watch on and managed to do 10,427 steps back and forth to the loo. It was one of his better days with steps. 

 

A few of the cowboys departed in the morning to check out the by-pass over the Bell Road past Lithgow, and get home early. Most of us had the glory of heading back down the Bylong Valley. It was interesting to see the overnight crop of roadkill since the afternoon before. Wombats, fox, rabbits, the odd ‘roo. Grotesque. We enjoyed the fresh, sunny weather – a cool 4 degrees as we passed through Bylong Village.

 

We rediscovered the neat little diversion via Yarrawa, and had morning tea at Denman. A group split off to go via Wollombi. The core came down the Putty Road, where a solid proportion of Australia’s road workers are engaged. It’s still a great ride down the Putty. To avoid the misery of the Windsor Road back into Sydney, we took the Bulls Ridge Road, and then over the Sackville Ferry. This gives options of heading up to Wisemans Ferry or heading to Dural, and then on to the M2. It’s a Peter Walshaw innovation. It’s not quicker but is a whole lot more pleasant.

 

Thanks to Peter (Walshaw) for TEC duties day 1, and Steve Samson for day 2. We lost no-one and kept up a pleasant pace for the whole ride.

 

Stephen Davies.