The Taralga Tour
04 October 2023 / Words by Rod Nicholas. Photos by Simon Trickett and Rod Nicholas
Friday 28 September 2023
It had been a while since we’ve been to Taralga and even longer since we’d lunched at the Argyle Inn, so it was time to get both things done.
Taralga is a great little town, built on land donated by the son of wool pioneer John Macarthur, cleared and developed by convicts in the mid-1800s. The Argyle Inn is the oldest still trading hotel in Taralga. First built in 1875 in the Victorian tradition, and further modified in the later part of the 19th and early 20th centuries, it has received a significant makeover and now hosts a kitchen producing simple and delicious food.
We met at Hall—14 members in ten cars, with another one of each to join us down the road—and the briefing started. We had about 300 kms ahead of us for the round trip—not too far, but far enough to know we’d had a run. And with the sun shining brilliantly, that was what we wanted. There were two potential tricky bits at each end of the run, the first being our turn onto the Barton Highway from Hall, where there would be little hope of keeping all the cars together. It didn’t turn out too bad, and by the time we had turned on to Nanima Road on the leg to Gunning we were all lined up. The roads were in surprisingly good nick, with one minor holdup for roadworks on Nanima Road, but otherwise a pleasant run. Our rest stop in Gunning at the Merino Café was perfect. They had set aside the courtyard for our ‘private function’, and with a little table re-arrangement everyone was soon nibbling on pastries and sipping their preferred beverage.
Our next leg would take us onwards to Crookwell, via Grabben Gullen Road, then on to Taralga via the Taralga-Laggan Road. There were a few potholes to dodge, but not so many that it made the drive unpleasant. This is a lovely piece of road through the countryside, and for that reason features fairly frequently in our travels. The 40 kms from Crookwell into Taralga, through the little township of Laggan, is especially good—the road surface mostly firm and wide, the scenery running past windfarms and through rural properties, and bends both sweeping and ‘flip-flop’ to bring a smile to the driver’s dial. A couple of our drivers had received my blessing to run ahead of the remaining pack, which I must admit looked damn good snaking down the road, and they were waiting at the Argyle Inn ing as we drive down the main street of Taralga.
Rhys and Ashley's beautiful new ND created considerable 'new car envy'
Lunch at the Argyle Inn was an absolute delight! The Inn is a hidden beauty, not that it’s actually hidden (a large building in the main street is hard to hide) but it certainly doesn’t get the public attention it deserves. It is an attractive building inside and out, and the meal and service was superb, all at a most reasonable cost. Well worth a visit if you are down this way.
Our return route took us home via Goulburn, another tried and tested track that is enjoyable for driver and passenger. Then, rather than taking the Federal Boreway back to Canberra, our route was to take us along the old Hume Highway back to Gunning, branching off at Breadalbane. The reason was to drive the Cullerin Range, a winding piece of road responsible for more than a few accidents before it was bypassed (trucks, in particular, had a habit of falling over on a couple of the bends).
This turnoff was the subject of the second potential tricky bit mentioned in my pre-run brief. The turn-off was nine kms further along the current Hume Highway from where the Federal Highway veers off. It involved a turn across the north-bound lanes of the highway from a slip lane on the right of two lanes on the south-bound side. The slip lane could quite easily accommodate our convoy, but we first had to negotiate our way to the right lane without causing too much trouble for other motorists. On my reccie a couple of days earlier the turn off all went smoothly, but I had not taken into account that our run was on a long weekend during school holidays and subsequent increase in traffic intent on getting wherever as quickly as possible.
With nine cars in tow, I watched from the left lane as car after SUV after truck went by in the right lane, and the distance to the turnoff decreased. A kilometre out I signalled and moved left, alerting those behind on the two-way. Not everybody noticed the move, not everybody heard the radio alert (not everybody was using a radio), but soon enough they were making a move. A few other road users were not as alert to their surroundings as could be considered ideal, and there were a few irate toots of a horn or flash of lights.
The move was not dangerous as such—the turn off the highway here is on a straight section of road in a totally unobscured location (no trees to block a view etc), is well sign-posted, and has a goodly long slip lane to allow drivers to slow down before crossing the other lanes. Everyone in our group got through safely and without great drama, but it may not have been the best trick I have pulled off. It’s given me pause for thought, and there are lessons well learned. For example, including a manoeuvre like this on a run requires extra planning effort, such as:
- a reconnaissance drive, not just a google maps/street view of the intersection and surrounds
- extra consideration to the circumstances of the run such as the number of vehicles on the run, whether it is a ‘convoy’ or ‘waypoint’ run, driver skills/experience, likely traffic conditions on the day (holidays may create different conditions), weather and so on
- whether other options are available such as an alternative route or breaking a larger group down to a couple of groups with fewer cars
- whether radio communications are clear, including acknowledgement of important alerts or instructions.
For my part, a key lesson is that if we include this section of the route again (and it is likely we will, because it is a bit of fun), we will travel the other way, that is, north from Gunning to Breadalbane and on to Goulburn rather than the southbound route we took on this run.
No one wanted or needed another stop, so we all made our way independently home from Gunning.
At the end of the day, however, 15 members had a really good time on a day just about perfect for touring in an open top sports car with a bunch of good friends. Do we need anything else?
(For interest, we travelled the following route: https://goo.gl/maps/BXbWPan2r1ahRLkEA.)
