Page 11 - NLH Newsletter November 2022

Tea Gardens 23 October 2022

This Sunday morning I carried out the modern ritual for ride days – checking the rain
radars. There was rain on the radar, but it looked like there was a chance it would leave
us alone, at least for the morning. The forecast was for showers, but you never know these
days.
6 people left Hexham, one on a Spyder and the rest on motorcycles. We were destined
for our first stop at Dungog. The road through Woodberry is open again these days so we
went that way and through Millers Forest and on to Clarence Town and finally Dungog.
The last couple of kilometers into Dungog is very rough, but the rest of the roads were not
too bad.

We sat outside the Café
in Dungog and had our
morning tea with the
usual banter and a bit of
a show and tell about
mobile phones. 2 people
had declared their
intention to leave us after
morning tea and they
went their own way while
the rest of us, now 4,
went from Dungog
toward Stroud. This road
was very bad at the
Dungog end, and
gradually improved as
we got closer to Stroud.

We followed Bucketts
Way back toward the coast. There was a section of roadworks at the pacific highway
end which was single lane and dirt. The section was controlled by automatic lights. This
delayed us for a little while but after that the ride was relatively simple.
When the bikes arrive at Tea Gardens, Mike and Colleen were already there and had
reserved a table for us. Mike was sporting the bandages from his recent wrist operations
so we got another show and tell while we had lunch. A rain shower passed overhead
while we were there, but we were undercover and didn’t care about that too much.

After lunch and the usual discussions about all the worlds issues we left and headed home
straight along the Pacific Highway. I did not encounter any rain while riding during the
day which was very pleasing.

Thanks again to those who attended and to Mick for being Tail End Charlie again.

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