Another clear morning today leaving Coffs Harbour. Most of the group
enjoyed a walk along the beach before loading the vans and riding the
bikes a few short kilometers down the road to North Coat V-Twins, the
local Harley dealer.

Ashley and his team gave us a fantastic welcome with a barbeque
breakfast and plenty of terrific shopping! We found out this morning
that although the floodwaters were receding, the Waterfall Way to
Dorrigo on our first leg would not re-open until that afternoon.

We had to backtrack to Grafton to pick up another road south to Ebor
where we had a scheduled lunch stop at the waterfalls. The new road was
beautiful taking us through mountains and incredible lush rainforest –
and as we climbed the temperature fell even further and we were glad for
our thermals on the bikes.

Our lunch at Ebor was hurried as we had lost a lot of time backtracking
so we took off again towards Armidale – but missed the turn off and
rode 40km the wrong way. By the time we realized and returned, fuel was
running low on several of the bikes.

We used fuel from the spare tanks we were carrying to top the bikes up,
and inched our way on to Armidale. Despite the top up, several bikes
ran out of gas just short, and waited on the side of the road with the
sweep vans while we ran more petrol back to them.

We regrouped in Armidale and set off on our last leg to Walcha. By this
time it was dark, but the sky was beautiful – lit with stars and the
milky way guiding us home to our hotels for the night.

Walcha put on a warm welcome – the log fire in the Commercial Hotel
never looked so good, and Jane and her staff put on a fantastic dinner
before we all headed back to bed for the night.

The best news for the night was that Thunderbolts Way – our route
south for the next day has reopened – the floods are finally past us
and sunny days and open roads beckon!