Wintersun Run 2014—Part II

[Cormanus]

Day 9: Sydney

23.9 kms [url=https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmaps.google.com.au%2Fmaps%2Fms%3Fmsid%3D20124742313004208155​2.0004fbf1ce2b9e8766e13%26msa%3D0]Map

After the Pterodactyl and I parted company on the north shore of Sydney Harbour. I rode across the bridge to visit my son who lives in Sydney. I had a very pleasant evening with him, stayed the night did some domestic chores, spent some time figuring how I would get home and bought a new riding gadget which I’ll talk about elsewhere some time.

In the afternoon I travelled across Sydney to stay with some very old friends. The map of that trip is included only for completeness as, if I can find a way to do it, I intend to post a single map of the complete ride. To date Google has thwarted me.

I hoped to be away the next morning, but, because I’d been away longer than I expected, I’d just about run out of prescription medication and the top up my wife posted hadn’t arrived. It was looking like another day in Sydney.

Day 10: Sydney to Gloucester

347 kms [url=https://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?msid=201247423130042081552.0004fbf1d2a3e472e5fb0&msa=0]Map


The Black One ready to head north for home

Plan B sorted the medication problem and I finally got under way about 10.30 am. On Pterodactyl’s recommendation, I retraced my steps to our last coffee stop so I could tackle the Putty Road which leads out of Sydney to the north and is much enjoyed by motorcyclists.
It was overcast, but pleasant enough and I stopped for coffee and something to eat at the Grey Goose Café, a popular haunt for travellers and kindly towards motorcyclists. They even have a concrete strip along the front of the place reserved for bikes.




The Grey Goose Café—not quite in the middle of nowhere

Not long after leaving the Grey Goose, I found an abandoned roadhouse not far from the Grey Goose with a remarkable statue which prompted me to pull out the camera. Having turned it on and discovered I could at least take pictures wearing thick gloves, I left it hanging round my neck and took some photos.




Australian bush—there is something very special about it




The Putty Road

Before Singleton, the road straightens out across a plain, now largely cleared for farming.


The Putty Road reaches the plain complete with a hill for Ferret
After refuelling at Singleton, I set out up the wonderfully named Buckett’s Way to Gloucester, my destination for the day. It’s a very pretty drive—some plain and some hill and modest ravine country climbing again into the Great Dividing Range.





I came across the unassuming looking bridge above and a sign flashed by telling me it was a world first. So I stopped on the other side to take the photo and read information about it. Apparently, when it was completed in 1994 it was the largest cellular stress laminated hardwood bridge deck in the world. It’s 60 metres by 8.5 metres and was assembled on one of the approaches. It was “... launched into position with the aid of hydraulic jacks & bailey rocker rollers. Weighing in excess of 200 tonnes this was the largest or heaviest structure ever launched in this manner.”


An altogether less impressive construction, but pretty nonetheless


NSW has many of these signs warning motorcyclists to be careful


Approaching Gloucester

Gloucester’s Roundabout Inn had a motorcycle parked outside so I went in and booked a room. They kindly gave me space in their garage to park the bike and I enjoyed more crumbed lamb cutlets, beer and red wine before falling asleep in front of the television—the first I’d watched since leaving home.
Day 11: Gloucester to Dorrigo

485 kms [url=https://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?msid=201247423130042081552.0004fbf1d68bc6629f9ee&msa=0]Map

The Pterodactyl had kept telling me I had to ride the Oxley Highway on the way home. I didn’t want to because it meant a longer way and made it possible I’d have to spend an extra night on the road. My research on Day 9 had shown me a couple of alternatives, but I also looked at the [url=http://motorcycleparadise.blogspot.com.au]Motorcycle Paradise Blog (written by Iron Chef, a former CB1100 owner—indeed I think he may have owned the bike that Pipemasters used in its video of its 4 into 4). The Iron Chef has a great section on good motorcycle rides in Australia and I read the [url=http://motorcycleparadise.blogspot.com/2006/09/great-bike-roads-20.html]post about the Oxley Highway with interest. He claims—and who am I to argue—that there are more 30-40 km corners than the Tail of the Dragon in the USA and rates it as one of the three best rides in Australia. I’ve included a link to his post on it and it’s worth a read, if only for the photos.

In the end, I decided I’d have to do it, even if not the best way, which is said to be east to west.

So I left Gloucester to head to Walcha up Thunderbolt’s Way—the route of another nineteenth century bushranger. Thunderbolt’s Way actually runs pretty much all the way to Goondiwindi on the NSW/Queensland border where I’d refuelled on the way to meet the Pterodactyl way back on Day 1, but I was turning off long before that.

It was raining, the only day on which it did, so I was wrapped up in wet weather gear with no possibility of photos on the move. The road out of Gloucester is fantastic. It winds through gorges and ravines climbing and descending and then climbing again before opening out a little into plantation forest and then on to a semi-alpine plain across which you climb to get to Walcha. Once into the forest, the road is mostly good and its a fast ride, even on a cold, wet day. There are some pictures of the higher part here on the [url=http://motorcycleparadise.blogspot.com.au/2007/02/good-motorcycle-roads-in-nsw-4.html]Motorcycle Paradise blog. I have one photo of my own from an earlier trip along this road.


River crossing on Thunderbolt’s Way on a better day in 2012

I refuelled at Walcha at a very old fashioned service station that offered little in the way of service and certainly had nothing at all resembling coffee. I had no desire to get dressed and then undressed again in the space of a few minutes so I pressed on along the Oxley Highway.

As an aside, it was somewhere around here that I decided that serious long distance riding in the cold and wet would require either the insertion of a catheter or wearing a wetsuit; the palaver of taking off several layers of clothing every time a toilet stop is necessary started to get to me.

As the Iron Chef records, you wonder what the fuss is about as you race east for nearly 60 kms across the alpine plain. While I like that sort of clear alpine country, the road is made for fast travelling and, in spite of the damp, I made good time. It has either always been cleared or deforested for farming land. Then you come to the trees and the road starts to descend into corners that get progressively tighter. It’s a stunning road: not just for riding, but because I really enjoy that sort of winding road through the Australian bush.

About 30 kms after the road begins its descent, you reach the Gingers Creek café, where I decided to stop for a well-earned coffee. It was still wet, although the rain never got really hard all day, and I was a bit cold. I met a couple of other riders who were on their way up the road. A Kawasaki Ninja 1000 and a black Ducatti.



I also managed some photos of the road as it approaches Gingers Creek.





And, later, some others a bit further down the hill as the road begins to fall below the tree line.







Even after the quick run across Long Flat at the bottom of the hill there are occasional twisty bits to keep the rider on his or her toes. I can see why the ride from east to west might be better— there’s something to be said for uphill rides—and I’ll be going back to do it some day.

After refuelling at Wauchope, I turned northwards to join the national highway for a while on my way to Dorrigo. Somewhere between Wauchope and Pembroke I heard a noise as if something had fallen off. I stopped and looked, but couldn’t see anything and so kept going.

The ride up the Waterfall Way from the National Highway to Dorrigo has some very enjoyable twisties, particularly between Bellingen and Dorrigo where the road clings to the side of cliff down which the waterfalls which give the road its name tumble.

It had stopped raining when I arrived, but I had worn the full wet weather kit all day. An OK pizza for dinner then bed.
Day 12: Dorrigo to Pomona

586 kms [url=https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fmaps.google.com.au%2Fmaps%2Fms%3Fmsid%3D20124742313004208155​2.0004fbf1e38ac6e9b433d%26msa%3D0]Map

My plan was to make it home so I was up and packed early. As I loaded the bike I realised that the noise I'd heard the day before had been a bolt at the front of the rack supporting the top box working its way loose and falling out. Damned if I could find a hardware store in Dorrigo so I set sail for Grafton figuring it would hold on that long.

It was a beautiful morning, but cold, as I followed a narrow and winding road from Dorrigo across to the main Armidale-Grafton road. It was beautiful—bush and farmland and corners and not much traffic. I saw the first live kangaroos I'd seen since the Hay Plain. Sadly, we had seen all too many dead ones.

As promised by the [url=https://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fmotorcycleparadise.blogspot.com.au%2F2007%2F02%2Fgood-motorcycle-roads-in-nsw-3.html]Iron Chef, the main Armidale-Grafton road was also an excellent ride, again semi alpine with lovely Australian Bush, some twists and turns and finally a descent and run along the plain into Grafton where it was pleasantly warmer.

I had coffee, found an auto shop and effected some repairs to the rack so as not to be worrying about it on the rest of the way home. I was going to follow the Summerland Way which runs north from Grafton to Kyogle before turning north-westerly and heading over the border into Queensland near a point where I once went for a [url=http://www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Fcb1100forum.com%2Fforum%2Fshowthread.php%3Ftid%3D2378&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGt8gB2QdGwmMCu41-K4kk0zMErEQ]ride with Enzo. The road’s pretty flat and fast to Kyogle; but pretty, running through bush and cleared farmland. The mountains of the border ranges get closer as you approach Kyogle.











At Kyogle, I decided to forsake the Summerland way and turn slightly east towards Murwillumbah as the road looked a interesting and it would bring me over the border at a point from which the final run home up the highway would be easier.

Between Kyogle and Murwillumbah there is some lovely winding road, although, from time to time, the surface is pretty broken up. These are the last photos I took before the camera told me the battery was exhausted.





I managed to fool it into life for one brief moment to take this photo of Mt Warning which is the point of Australia from which the sun was first visible at the new millenium. I was going to say it’s the first point the sun hits every day, but I’m not sure that’s true.



From Murwillumbah I crossed the border along the Numinbah Road which is full of twists and turns and very pretty, before a quick trip down the hill to Nerang where I joined the freeway for the final run home.


Mt Warning leaving Murwillumbah

I stopped for petrol near Caboolture and met a bloke on a BMW who was so loaded with gear that it surprised me he could get into his seat. He’d come from Armidale (near where I’d started) that morning. I took one last photo of the CB (with my phone) before climbing aboard for the final run home. I arrived just after dark having had the chance to enjoy the night time dashboard.



I’d been away 12 days and ridden just over 4,600 kms according to the map and 4,741 according to the speedo. All this on a naked bike with no mods other than a top box and a power outlet.

I couldn’t be happier with the CB1100. It didn’t miss a beat, carrying me and my load for 10 pretty solid days riding. It always felt smooth and there was always power in reserve. I haven’t ridden a real sport tourer like an ST, but based on this experience, I’m happy to use my CB1100 for long distance cruising in Australia. The thing I like about it most, I think, is going up hills. I don’t know why, but the sense of effortless power and always being able to accelerate always gives me a blast.

Some thanks are due: to Pterodacyl for asking me on the ride; to my wife for encouraging me to go; to this forum, which put me in touch with Pterodactyl; and to Honda for a fantastic bike.