Ron & Kathy's Travels

Two wheels move the soul …

We’ve just spent a lovely few days at one of our favourite places – the farm that our friends Lindsay and Eileen live on and which borders the Hat Head National Park near Kempsey.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon and had great weather the whole time and, surprisingly for May, the daytime temperatures were in the high 20s each day.

On Monday morning Lindsay and Eileen took us for a 4WD via beach tracks from Hat Head to Crescent Head and along the way we came across a 4WD that was firmly stuck in the sand at the water’s edge. Someone – we figure it was one of the 4WD’s occupants – had written the message “Help Needed, Not Stolen” in the dust on the rear window but as there was no one around we couldn’t do anything. Hopefully it was recovered before it became a write-off …

After stopping at the Crescent Head bakery for lunch we headed back to the farm via some different tracks and were surprised by the variety of vegetation and the extent to which it changed between to coastal edge and the farm.

After I’d finished playing around on one of Lindsay’s baby quad bikes we headed into Frederickton to have dinner at the Macleay River Hotel. After buying a drink at the bar you can get one of a range of meals for $5 – that’s great value in any one’s books!

On Tuesday afternoon Lindsay mentioned that he needed to take his 1979 Honda GL500 Custom to South West Rocks to have it inspected for registration and he asked me if I’d like to accompany him for the ride on his 1983 Honda CX650 Turbo. It’s a really nice bike which I’ve ridden before and it took me all of a split second to accept his offer.

The guy who inspected Lindsay’s GL500 was a really interesting chap who had an equally interesting collection of restored vintage cars and motorcycles – unfortunately he doesn’t get to use any of them much as he also restores kerosene lamps and old clocks!

The ride to and from South West Rocks was magic – lovely roads on a warm afternoon and no traffic to speak of – and on the way home all I could think of (and which all my motorcycling friends will understand) was the following saying:
“Four wheels move the body; two wheels move the soul”

We left the farm on Wednesday morning and headed for Grafton – Lindsay reminded us of the great back road from Coffs Harbour to Grafton that passes through Nana Glen and this was the way we travelled.

 


The car and the camper …

When we setup the camper at Lindsay’s place we discovered two things: the mattresses and seat cushions were wet (it had rained just before we packed it up in Coomba Bay); and one of the Velcro straps on the safari roof was broken (a bit surprising given that the camper is only four months old).

A trip to Kempsey was in order – for future wet packups we purchased a painters sheet for covering the mattresses and cushions and a couple of large sponges to toss on the canvas and we purchased some UV resistant Velcro and strong nylon thread for repairing the strap on the safari roof (this was not easy to stitch – if another strap breaks I’ll take it to someone who can sew canvas).

(I’ve decided to order some spare Velcro from Ultimate so that I can use the same stuff they do in future.)

 

Photos


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