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Wednesday: Geoff Udy arrived last night into Glen Innes having ridden from Toowoomba to join us. Unfortunately his wallet had fallen out of his open pocket on the way. This morning Geoff and Bryan embarked on a needle in a haystack ride to Tenterfield to try & find the wallet while Keith, Brenton & I went 40kms up the New England Highway to Deepwater for coffee & gas to wait for them to complete their search
Geoff & Bryan were unsuccessful in their wallet search and soon returned to meet us. We then retraced our route 17kms to Dundee (NSW not Scotland) & turned East into Bald knob Road which led to The Old Grafton Rd. This had around 100kms of everything an adventure rider could wish for. Fords, mud, slippery seal & gravel, fantastic scenery and even a hand dug tunnel. After over 3 weeks riding here I have decided that currently Australia is one big “floodway”. The weather combined with heavy trucks have really hammered many roads here. Some of the potholes on seal or gravel would be a fast track to China if you dropped into one. As Geoff says “in NZ you ride on the
left - in Australia we ride on what’s left”. Swollen rivers and flooded paddocks are everywhere and while challenging, this road was great fun to ride on.
We came out of the Old Grafton Rd at Nymboida and did a Sealed Road Race track which was a lot of fun and led us into Dorrigo. We have been here before. There is a Dead train cemetery as you ride into town, and we stayed at the Railway Hotel (albeit in the motel units at the back as the Hotel has actually closed down.) The motels had the most comfortable beds we have slept on anywhere & combined with high thread count sheets we were in 7
th probably Egyptian heaven. We later walked to the local RSL for an excellent Chinese meal.
Thursday Leaving Dorrigo with our destination Gloucester, Geoff soon led us into some gnarly gravel roads a.k.a bush tracks. We explored alternative routes (got lost) and eventually found Kempsey Rd. We rode down this great gravel road ignoring a road closed sign at the top which looked like it had been moved to the side, to find after 20 or 30kms of great winding
gravel road leading down to the George River that ….wait for it….. The road was closed due to recent – flood caused slips. After a chat with the road workers who thought it was all quite funny, we retraced our route getting to enjoy this gravel road again, this time riding uphill. These roads through this forest are fantastic. Heading for Armidale Geoff showed off his party trick – he left the road at a too fast speed, rode through trees & then back onto the road & gave his bike a rest in a drain narrowly missing Keith who wondered what all the fuss was about. Brenton & Mike missed all this excitement as they had already reached Armidale where, Mike demonstrating his fine control (or lack of), bumped (fell into) the back of a girls car when parking.
Leaving our lunch stop in Armidale, & farewelling Geoff who was returning to Toowoomba, we were heading to Gloucester over NSW high country up to 1340m elevation & down to single digit temperatures –all of which which provided great views & interesting riding. Gloucester was the start point for the Barrington Tops road which was in our route but
unfortunately arriving into Gloucester we found the Barrington Tops road was closed due to ….you guessed it - flood damage.
Anyone checking the satellite tracker during today probably thought we had stayed in Dorrigo as the tracker’s batteries had gone flat. These are now replaced & the tracker is working again.
Sleep in tomorrow as we are visiting The National Motorcycle Museum which doesn’t open until 10am.
Friday Leaving Gloucester we were again heading over some high country, with heavy mist until we reached Nabiack after 40kms, to visit the National Motorcycle Museum. If you’re into large quantities of old motorcycles in original condition then this would be for you. As an ex 1970s to 1980s motorcycle dealer it was somewhat different. We walked past rows of bikes we used to sell & service and it was not pleasant to recall some of the issues! However they did have a good collection of Yamaha TZ race bikes.
Leaving the museum we headed south with the goal being Wiseman’s Ferry. This was a nice back country sealed route until we reached Maitland and Cessnock where the traffic was unbelievable (believe me). During the manoeuvring
through all this Friday afternoon traffic somehow our corner man system failed & we lost Bryan. Later towards Wiseman’s Ferry when we were stopped at a road works red light, Bryan caught up. In the ensuing discussion, between Bryan & Keith as to who was at fault, the “Stop Go” lady asked a very pertinent question - “those 2 aren’t married are they” ?
Onwards towards our destination all was forgotten when we took the shortest route down a brilliant fast, hard packed gravel road for 32kms. Reaching the ferry – which is free & runs continuously, we agreed that the last section had saved the day. An adventure riders dream. Into our destination – Wiseman’s Ferry Inn we were “off the grid again” hence no blog. Great spot on the Hawkesbury River nevertheless.
Tomorrow we split up again as Keith & Bryan need to be in Melbourne a day ahead of Brenton & I due to timing of flights home.
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Bill
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Great week
Another great report on the weeks happenings love the comment “ those two aren’t married are they”??