Pingelly to Beverley 2011

Pingelly to Beverley day 6, Saturday 29 October 2011.

I left Pingelly at 9:14 on a cool sunny morning with moderate E ? SE winds. The wind was perfect and the road was wide and its surface was smooth, and there wasn’t much traffic and no steep hills, just gentle undulations. This was one of the best runs of the ride.

Beverley

I got to Brookton, 384, non-stop in about an hour. I stopped in the main shopping street and had a rest and a drink. The place was bigger than I remembered, probably because I had only stopped on the eastern side of the railway line before. I had to head into the wind up Brookton Highway for a couple of km then turn back NW into the continuation of the Great Southern Highway towards Beverley.

I rested at 401, then arrived at the Beverley Hotel at 418, 12:54. I checked in at the bar. The hotel keeper was going to give me a room, dinner and breakfast for $55, then he saw my bike helmet and realised that I was not part of the big package group of people who were staying there that night, so I got the room and ‘continental’ breakfast for $50. The place was certainly full and it was just as well I had booked two days before.

My room was No. 16. It was the usual small dingy room you find in these old hotels, but to my surprise there was a new flat-screen digital TV sitting on the rickety little locker. Usually the only TV in these places is a half-dead, maybe black-and white, one in the guest lounge, which is monopolised by the proprietor’s kids or by burly truck drivers who want to watch Funniest Home Videos. I thought that by modern standards I had a good deal for my $50.

There was the usual hole in the fly screen over which a spider had artfully woven its web. The window went right up and I could hang clothes-hangers on the window so that washed clothes could easily dry in the sun and breeze.

I walked down the main street to buy food and drink. The IGA was closed here too. This surprised me. I found a bakery further down where I bought drinks and a beef and salad roll and cakes. I went back and put these things in the fridge in the guest lounge, then had a rest.

After a shower and change and clothes-washing, I looked around the town. There are some picturesque old buildings. The towns up and down the Great Southern Highway are a hundred years old or more and when they were planned and built, high hopes were held for their future and grand buildings were erected.

I was too late to look into the Aviation Museum because it closed at noon, but I looked at the outside displays, a Macchi jet trainer and a memorial to the victims of the crash of a DC4 en route from Perth to Melbourne in 1950. I walked over the bridge to the park and took pictures of the river. I looked at the 1938 Beverley Town Hall, still with faded lettering at the western end saying PICTURE GARDENS, though that facility has long gone. The door was unlocked and no-one was about so I went in and looked around. The usual long lists of war dead adorned the walls. I took with me on this trip a book, ‘Passchendaele’ describing the terrible battles and slaughter of World War I, so these lists of dead that you find in every country town had more meaning for me this time.

I took a minute to sit in a small park and ring the Travellers’ Rest Motel in Mundaring to book a unit for Monday night. The lady wanted my credit card number to secure the booking, but they didn’t take American Express. If you want to do that to your guests then you should take all the common credit cards. Anyway, she said she would hold the room till 5 pm on Monday. I assured her that I would arrive long before that.

I took a picture of the Waterhatch Road leading westward out of town. Reference to the 1989 and 1995 rides will find descriptions of my encounters with that road and the West Talbot.

It was to be Karaoke Night in the hotel, and they were getting set up for that. I just had my food and watched TV in my room. The karaoke wasn’t far away, my room was upstairs at the back and the karaoke downstairs at the back of the hotel, along with the outdoor dining and drinking area. I went down to have a smoke and check out the karaoke a couple of times but it was pretty sad stuff and at 10pm I put tissue in my ears and slept quite well. When I awoke in the night all was dark and quiet. I had missed the karaoke and all the door-slamming, engine-revving laughing and shouting of kicking-out time.

Reading at Beverley: 418. Day’s ride: 54km.
Cumulative distance: 243km. Average km/ riding day: 49.

Pingelly to Beverley 2011

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