This is another stage that feels bad when you look at the elevation profile, but actually isn’t when you get down into the detail. Yes, it’s uphill for virtually the whole stage, and indeed there are only just over a hundred fifty feet of descent on the stage so respite is in short supply. But for a stage that climbs for nineteen of its twenty two miles, just over two hundred feet of climbing is not to be sneezed at.
The stage heads north east away from the Carawandool State Forest and in doing so deviates away from the ridge that justified much of the climbing towards the end of stage 403. The rollout is uphill immediately but the twenty feet that are gained in the first mile are hardly onerous, and indeed they’re gone, and more, by the time the Newell Highway descends back down to under eight hundred feet of elevation by the Mount Tallabung Road junction at two miles: that road loops around the eastern side of Mount Tallabung, which itself dominates the eastern landscape beyond the forest.
By nine miles, the road is running alongside Bundaburrah Creek, and that continues for three miles until the A39 crosses the creek at twelve miles: that’s the last you see of it on the stage as the creek meanders its way east to its source south east of Forbes. There’s a rest area at twelve miles, immediately before the crossing, then after it the road runs straight for two miles to the junction of Lachlan Valley Way heading west.
The highway passes an unnamed lake at seventeen miles and as the road approaches the outskirts of Forbes, it passes the Forbes River Meadows Caravan Park at eighteen miles and Lions Park at nineteen miles before crossing Lake Forbes on entry to the town. after crossing the water, the A39 stays west of the lake before leaving the town by snaking left then right past the golf course.
The second significant climb of the stage is at twenty miles, a fifty footer in half a mile, but all that does is set up an equally sharp descent down to the finish just after the Woolshed Road junction in the northern suburbs.
Distance: 22 miles / 35 kilometres
Ascent: 240 feet / 73 metres
RGT Magic Road: ZerLtN3Ltnz1
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