Day 24 Gloucester to Dorrigo

Today is to start and finish with an Australian Motorcycle Atlas ride. We left Gloucester about 8.45 because I made the most of the free wifi and uploaded the blogs to date. Our first destination was Nabiac, breakfast and the National Motorcycle Museum. The ride down which is the second half (or really the middle part) of Buckett's Way was good fun mostly good road with sweeping corners. Nabiac so I am told was a dying little town bypassed by the highway that was revived when the National Motorcycle Museum bloke decide to move his collection here some years back after a planning dispute in Canberra. True or not we found a bubbling little town with a great little cafe called the Greenhouse. Breakfast was very good and the girls were delighted as they also had great range of jewellery and trinkets ideal Christmas presents for family when you are traveling by motorcycle. Eventually Warren, Robyn and I went up to the museum. $12 each got us in to what was an extensive (800 odd) collection of motorcycles in varying states of repair. I found an example of every bike I have ever owned or at least a version of it. Warren did not do so well. The collection of old british bikes - AJS, BSA, Ariels etc - was very extensive. There was some American stuff, Indians and a few WHA Harleys. A lot of dirt bikes and speedway bikes too. All had their stories attached. In addition there was a lot of personal history about people who rode them. It was nearly 1.30pm by the time we emerged. You could spend a lot longer but you do reach a saturation. On the whole I prefer the Hagleigh one. It has a better range of Japan stuff in a better condition and if you only love Harley's you will be disappointed. Don't be put off it is well worth the visit. We decided that we would just run up the Pacific Highway only because we figured it would be late by the time we left Nabiac and we would need the shortest route. The run to Port Macquarie was pretty good with a fair bit of traffic for a Thursday. When we pulled up we had to queue for petrol and then for food. Back out on the highway we were surprised to find that the road when back to one lane each direction. There were over taking lanes but they achieved little the line of traffic was continuous littered with under powered cars towing vans and P plate drivers only allowed to do 80k/h (what a brilliant policy ???). By the time we made our next stop just north of Mackville I was that full of adrenaline. Bouncing around like I had four cups of double shot coffee. We soon turned west again headed for Dorrigo. The sky became threatening and there was a few spots of drizzle so we stopped and donned our wet weathers just in case. It was now time for Kerry's adrenaline shot, the drizzle had preceded us and winding road up Waterfall way was wet. Kerry's heart was already pumping as she again confronted her fear of heights when she ran the front tyre on to the white line. It slipped for a moment and put the Harley into a tank slap. To her credit she recovered and keep it up right. If the road had been dull it didn't matter she was now wide awake. The Heritage rooms of the Dorrigo Hotel were again a delight. We had tea and then retired to a cuppa on the wide verandah. Our adventure was coming to an end.