Page 9 - NLH Newsletter January 2023

th
7 December 2022 * Destination: Blackalls Park

There does seem to be something attractive about the concept of a free lunch despite the much-used quote
that there is no such thing. In any case we had 16 people at Hexham ready to go this Wednesday for the ride
to Blackalls Park.

We even had a couple of new people.
One, Vaughan, was having a look at
what we do and travelled with us to the
morning tea stop and then had other
things to attend to.

We had Rob and Cookie on their trikes
with us and they volunteered to be joint
tail end charlies. They have both done
this before and the system worked very
well again.
We left Hexham and took a couple of cycles of the traffic lights to get onto Maitland Road. From there we went
to Minmi via Black Hill and on to George Booth Drive. We turned off George Booth Drive toward Mulbring and
on to Sandy Creek Road into Ellalong which was our morning tea stop.

The people at Lings Café were pleased to see us. They were so pleased, in fact, that there are pictures of our
group on their Facebook Page. The café was quite busy, but they handled the crowd well and we all got served
in a reasonable time.

After morning tea we returned to our bikes/trikes and travelled north till we found Wollombi Road and we turned
right toward Cessnock. From Cessnock we went through Kearsley and Freemans Waterhole before heading
toward Toronto. From Toronto it was just a short ride to the Blackalls Park Reserve.

Mike, Colleen, Jennifer and several others were at Blackall’s Park Reserve when we arrived. The cooks had
been busy and lunch was ready immediately. Ken Taylor arrived shortly after with boxes of ice creams which
he was handing out like Santa Clause. This was all good fun and accompanied by the usual banter. The other
new person, Steve, went to Blackall’s Park directly and introduced himself there.
After the fine lunch we all went our separate ways. It had been a good day and rain was coming, but it held off
until we were done. Thanks to all who attended and to Rob and Cookie for the tail end work.

9