Bathurst Library hosts ABC Sydney's Richard Glover and Simon Marnie

It wasn't nervousness about the talk he was about to give to a sold-out audience, but a result of a miscalculation of Bathurst distances.

He'd chosen to walk in to the library from his lodgings at Mount Panorama, he told the Advocate, and he hadn't realised quite the extent of the trek.

The popular presenter of ABC Sydney's Drive program was soon in his element, though, as he chatted with his fellow radio presenter (and the MC for the Bathurst Library event) Simon Marnie about the Central Tablelands, the gold rush on the Turon ... and where they'd be going for dinner.

"He's done me this great favour [to be the MC], so I said it's my treat, so god knows," Mr Glover said of their dinner plans.

"He's probably trawled through to find the most expensive joint he can."

Mr Glover was at the library to talk about his new book Best Wishes, in which he outlines his suggestions for a better world.

"Some of them are silly, some of them are heartfelt and some of them are incredibly short," he said of his wishes.

"Like: dogs should live longer. They should live as long as us.

"And some are more lengthy ones. Like an extensive wish about people understanding how interesting garbage is to the male mind.

"That goes over several pages and is impossible to summarise."

Having been in the Blue Mountains, he was going on from Bathurst to Scone and Tamworth as he takes leave from his ABC Sydney show.

"I mean, I don't actually have a convertible, but wind in my hair; that's the idea," he laughed.

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Mr Marnie was keen to be part of the Bathurst event for a number of reasons, but the principal one was Bathurst Library manager Patou Clerc, who he described as an old friend.

"We know each other because my partner [Amanda Brown] is a musician and during the non-paying times of her career, she needed a job and the best job was at Woollahra Library," he said of how he met Ms Clerc.

"It was amazing. They hired writers, authors, painters, musicians.

"And Amanda could say I'm going off on tour, I don't need work for six weeks. Or I've got no money coming in, can I work five days a week."

Mr Marnie - who presents the Weekends program on the ABC, part of which is broadcast statewide - said his plan was to stop at Hill End on his way back to Sydney.

He knows a number of Hill End identities, including Lino Alvarez of La Paloma Pottery and the artist Luke Sciberras, with whom Mr Marnie has previously appeared at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.

Mr Glover, meanwhile, said he'd been to Bathurst a number of times, but "I don't think I've ever stayed here before" and he was never a student at the local uni campus.

"I went to uni in Canberra, which I suppose is a bit similar," he said.

"It's a regional campus where you still have a proper university.

"People actually go to the campus and actually hang out together and actually get educated, which I don't think is necessarily the case in Sydney, where students are so stressed by the economics of life that they're all working too hard in paid jobs for the other part - I'm sure they get educated - but for that other part of university life.

"And I think that still happens here and I think it still happens in Canberra, but I think it doesn't necessarily happen in very many other places."

Where they would end up eating was still up in the air when the Advocate left the library, but Church Bar was in the mix.

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