Uralla to Singleton
13 October 2016
Click on the image for a detailed map
Although I’ve ridden on various bits of the New England Highway, I’ve never ridden the stretch between Uralla and Tamworth. In the cool of the morning, it was a lovely ride. The road surface is good; there are some good hills and corners to make the trip interesting; and, finally, you get to ride down the Moonbi mountains. One day, I’ll be sure to ride up them.
Down the Moonbis and into Tamworth. The road is much more fun before this, but with my heavy winter gloves on, I found it very hard to turn the camera on and I needed both hands for riding
Tamworth is the home of both my wife’s family and Australia’s major country music festival which is held for a week or so in January each year. It was, I think, also the first place in Australia to have public street lighting.
My plan was to turn off at the northern end of the town and head for Dungowan so I could ride through the Port Stephens Cutting to Thunderbolt’s Way. As I rode into Tamworth, though, it occurred to me that there was a bit of family business I should attend to, so I kept going into the town. That detour does not show on my map.
After a bit, I returned to Nemingah, filled up the tank and headed for Dungowan.
I discovered the Port Stephens Cutting some years ago when I was driving my son’s car to Sydney. I suppose I should really say I came across it as I didn’t ‘discover’ it in the way James Cook is said to have discovered Australia. I missed a turn to Hanging Rock and found myself on a stretch of road winding up the range to join Thunderbolt’s Way. I’ve been meaning to ride it for some time.
The road runs through pretty agricultural country through Dungowan, which is now pretty much a ghost town, before climbing sharply through the Port Stephens Cutting onto the plateau of the Great Dividing Range. The road joins Thunderbolt’s Way (about which I’ve written before) around 50 kilometres before the road gets steep and twisting on its way down into the Manning River valley and then up the other side and on into Gloucester.
Looking back down the Port Stephens Cutting
Looking up the Cutting
It’s worth a brief digression here to make mention of the Great Dividing Range which separates the Eastern seaboard of Australia from the great big often very flat inland. It’s not actually a single range; rather a number of them all loosely joined to form a barrier. It’s said by Wikipedia to be the third longest land-based mountain range in the world and is the reason Australia’s east coast is blessed with so many great motorcycle roads: the old timers found the only way up hills was to turn regularly. Generously for their descendants, they built a goodly number of them.
After I made it through the Port Stephens Cutting, it became clear the ominous looking grey clouds were getting lower and I was going to get wet. So somewhere near the highest point of the road, I stopped and hauled on my hitherto unused and highly recommended Frogg Toggs. I’m tempted to say I may as well not have bothered. They were nearly useless and it was not terribly long before my crotch was sodden, my boots full of water and the front of my jacket soaked.
The rain wasn’t much fun, particularly as it was combined with occasional patches of mist. Nor was the road surface. I hadn’t been on Thunderbolt’s Way since late 2014 when parts of the road were not good. Now more parts of the road were not good. I was careful on my way down and up and then down again into Gloucester.
It’s a great ride from Gloucester to Singleton, although on this afternoon it was marred by patches of rain. Luckily, I guess, there was more dry than wet and my outer layers were a bit drier by the time I got into Cessnock and checked into a motel room at the rear of The Royal Hotel. The stairs were rickety, but there was plenty of room to dry gear and undercover parking for a very, very dirty CB1100.
There were few photos from the afternoon as the camera was tucked away out of the rain, but I did pull over and take a couple.
Between Dungog and Singleton: one of those palindromic shots
Between Dungog and Singleton a few minutes later: a milestone shot
I ate acceptably and then slept.
