Dorrigo its a nice place but the locals are scary

Thursday the 21^St of October 2010

The plan was to head for the hills again where we know the rides are interesting. So we left Forster and headed to Port Macquarie via Taree, then onto Kempsey. We decided to stay in a place called Dorrigo because it was getting dark and looking like it was going to get very wet very soon.

We had been on the Pacific Highway for about 20-30 minutes when the traffic ground to a screaming halt, given we were on bikes we were able to get to the front of the queue where we discovered the problem a Mercedes had come to grief. It appeared that the merc had swerved or lost control and crashed into a really large embankment. As a result of the severity of the accident the police had blocked of the road so they could do their investigation.

Once we got going again the ride into Taree and Port Macquarie was okay. Once we hit the country roads life got much better. The roads in the country are sometimes good sometimes bad but always interesting. The road to Dorrigo was a pretty interesting ride because of the winding roads and spectacular scenery like the waterfall.

 

Whilst we where admiring the view a group of riders (about 20) cruised on by. (Clearly it’s a popular ride)

 When we got to Dorrigo, we started the search for accommodation; we parked out front of one of the hotels where the other group of bikes had also parked up. Alan found the spot a $65 a night, twin room with ensuite, but he carpet was a funky shag pile. (Actually it looked like the ones that I pulled out of my place)

So we went to move the bikes when Alan stalled his bike in front of the locals, they got a bit of a kick out of it.

Couple of interesting things about the ride so far

The new camera is working a treat, it gets mounted onto the handle bars via the Gorilla Pod, (saves me having to ride one handed) I got some cool footage of Alan riding around a bend up to the falls.

Riding abilities I’m a gun when it comes to left hand cornering, not so great when I’m doing a right hand corner. When it rains I’m completely crap and slow down to a crawl. Alan on the other hand is nowhere as quick as me when it comes to cornering so I tend to leave him behind, but as soon as it rains (which it does a lot) he overtakes me and all that remains of me is a blip in the rear view mirrors.

I’ve also discovered that when I ride around corners I have to place my right foot so that it hangs below the foot pegs, chassis and exhaust that way I know when I’m going to scrap the exhaust. My left foot on the other hand (so to speak) sits normally on the forward controls.

So everyone who knows me, knows my dislike for freeways & highways. My thoughts are if you need to just get somewhere then freeways are fine, but if you want to enjoy the journey / ride then find another way. Freeways in my experience tend to be windblown roads with trucks and cars screaming past at astronomical speeds, the Pacific highway is one such highway. Having said that it’s not as bad as the Calder Highway in Melbourne.

Cheers

a