Day 4: Tamworth to Grafton
23 Jun 2022
Master Map
NoRoomtoMove had declined all offers from me to post his CB1100 Forum calendar. He was determined to come to collect it so he could realize a long-held ambition to ride from his home in Victoria to Brisbane. He’d tried in July 2019. We’d met in Sydney and made it as far north as Walcha before, for some reason I can't remember, he turned home. Every time it looked like he might make it in 2022, something got in the way, so it was a satisfying feeling when we both turned our noses north from Tamworth.
After 90 or so kilometres, we stopped at the wonderfully named Alternate Root Café in Uralla and warmed up with an excellent plate of poached eggs and a hot drink. We didn’t hurry as it was cold on the range.
Our next stop was Ebor Falls which were pretty after some rain.
We then proceeded a few hundred meters to Fusspots Café in Ebor which, despite being somewhere near the middle of nowhere, was doing a roaring trade. A hot cup of tea was welcome. After refuelling up the street we made our way along the lovely Armidale Road which tracks diagonally down the range to Grafton. We’d been told by a bloke at the café that he’s never been on such an awful road; that the potholes were everywhere and frightening. I must have misunderstood him, I think, and he must have travelled a different route as, while there were some potholes near Ebor, the road was in reasonable condition. Some parts had been reconstructed since I was last there eighteen months before.
Breezing up to the Roche’s Family Hotel in Grafton, where I’ve stayed a couple of times in the past, we were dismayed to learn that not only was there no accommodation, we’d be lucky to find any in Grafton due to an influx of flood relief workers. Luckily, several phone calls landed us a very comfortable room in the Abbey Motel.
