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Thunderbolts Way - Oxley Highway Lap

Date:
By Wom Battle
Category: Rides

It's been too long since I'd been on my Harley Davidson® Road King® and a mate, Dave, mentioned last week that he was riding up Thunderbolts Way and across the Oxley Highway with some friends to stay overnight at Port Macquarie today.  I was dead keen to go but couldn't stay overnight because I had commitments at home so I immediately planned to head back home down the Pacific Hwy while they travelled on on Port Macquarie.

My mate Heffy, formerly known as JP, was also keen to do the lap as was my favourite pillion Zanderhard, formerly known as Zanderhar (you'll find out why if you read on).  Dave's friends, keen dirt bike riders, were hiring a couple of road bikes for the trip which was to kick off about 8.30am but eventually turned into about 10am putting at least two of us a bit behind schedule for the 600k+ day planned.

The group, Heffy and I on our Road King motorcycles, David on him BMW K1200, Andrew on a Triumph Sprint and Paul on a BMW GS1200, headed up to Perenti at Gloucester, with my leading, for the obligatory coffee hit and a morning tea of Breakfast Pie.  The day was perfect for riding, sunny, not too hot, not too windy.

After Perenti the next brief stop was the scenic Love Dunny, a lookout high up in the hills given it's informal name as the site of Heffy's proposal to his bride Krittie.  Andrew and Paul hadn't been that this way before, I described what a treat is was riding through the hills and over the river crossings followed by a mad trip up hill to the lookout.  Not too experienced on the road, they enjoyed the scenery and caught up to us at the lookout and you could tell immediately they enjoyed the run. Time for a change of gloves there, it was getting cool.  I'm wondering if it's ever warm up that way!

The next part of the trip to Walcha past the turnoff to Nowendoc opened up a bit with sections of sweeping 75 and 85k corners, some nice straights and great views. Some roadwork outside Walcha that seems to have been happening for years bunched us up and after fuelling the bikes we had lunch at the Royal Cafe while discussing the fun we were about to have between there and the Long Flat pub.

After leaving Walcha you travel on long open straights, big sweeping corners as you head across the tablelands to the best "fun" part of the trip.  The speed limit across that area is 110kph, it quickly drops back to 100 and before you know it you hit the first 25k's of serious winding road.  I warned the others that it's very easy to take too much speed into the windy bits after a chunk of 110k travelling and that the speed advisory signs were fairly reliable on the curves, care was required.

Almost immediately after the end of the first 25k's of winding road you hit the next sign warning of 45k's more, I always smile at that point.  I led for a while then at the first stop for roadworks Heffy took over.  Dave took the lead after the second controlled stop and we arrived together at Long Flat, all of us warn out, it's hard work riding through there!  A while later the others arrived and we spent some time debriefing and lamenting the loss of more of the Harleys' running boards and bracket metal, who said they weren't consumables.  Then Heffy, Zanderhard and I left to head towards Wauchope and then home.

We needed to stop at Nabiac for fuel, avoid it if you can, at the moment the servo has one unleaded pump and one diesel pump working while they are upgrading it. 

Funny thing happened....Heffy and I queued up behind a Commodore at the lone unleaded pump while a 4WD was on the other side of the pumps using the diesel when a couple in a buz box that arrived while we were queued.  They drove past the 4WD, backed up to it on the other side of the unleaded pump clearly looking towards getting quick access to it.  The passenger in the Commodore moved forward to give us access and I pushed my Harley up to it, removed the filler cap and grabbed the nozzle just as the driver of the buz box was reaching for it.

He looked at me, smiled and said "Just missed it!", clearly dissapointed his cunning plan hadn't worked.  Maybe I was a little tired, I was definitely put out by his deliberate attempt to jump the queue so I replied in a friendly manner, "You just missed out on getting flogged."  Heffy heard the exchange and laughed raucously and I muttered something I can't spell.  The buz box guy then got in his car and left without getting fuel, very strange.

During that part of the trip Zanderhard fell very obviously asleep for a while, which was fine until my shoulders got sore holding him up so I gave him a gentle nudge to wake him.  We later found out that after that point he was looking for something to do because his bluetooth system had gone flat so he inexplicably thought it would be a good idea to follow the advice of a billboard suggesting that he text "Hard" to a 1800 number.  What was he thinking??? I'm guessing he didn't expect the reaction of my wife when she called the number to see what it was, nor did he expect the stream of calls and sms's from the 1800 number assuming he had a little problem to sniff out.  Poor Zanderhard!

Enough of the digression.  I had been keeping an eye on the time, cognisant of a social funtion I was to attend that evening, the GPS usually is pretty good at telling me when I'll arrive home.  At one point though, my wife called me to ask when I'd arrive and I told her I'd be there about 6.30pm.  She informed me, not very politely, that it was already 6.50pm and at that point I realised I hadn't adjusted the GPS for Daylight Savings...ooops.

Straight home then, didn't pass go, didn't stop for fuel again or to allow bloodflow to restart in the seated extremity. Another 695ks on the clock for the day, another fun packed ride and a couple of funny stories that'll be with me forever, and one that will stick with Zanderhard.









 

Disclaimer: This non commercial website and its content is not affiliated with or associated in any way with the Harley-Davidson Motor Company, Harley-Davidson Australia, the Harley-Davidson Owners Group® or any Harley-Davidson® Dealers in Australia.  The use of the terms Harley-Davidson, and Road King® are unavoidable because that's what I own and ride.  This website,  called "My Harley Davidson" , and any opinions or comments expressed herein are purely about my Harley-Davidson Road King ownership experience, a truly great experience at that. I have no intention whatsoever to infringe on any trademarks or copyright ownership of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company or anyone else.


March 2024
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