10/24/2005 - Day 2: Newcastle to Taree

An overcast day, but not unpleasant – our first stop of the day was at a Harley dealership. A number of us had bikes that needed adjusting – they fixed my clutch which helped a lot with the pain and numbness I’d been experiencing. From there we had a very scenic ride along Buckett’s Way - through winding farmland roads with almost no traffic – but plenty of potholes! There were some real bone rattler's there - a few times I was sure I'd bent the rim on the front tire! The next stop was the National Motorcycle Museum – an enormous set of buildings with more antique motorcycles than I ever would have imagined existed!

From there we were racing some bad weather that was coming up on us, but had one more stop where a group of schoolgirls and another BCNA group were waiting to greet us. The girls were so sweet – all in their school uniforms. We gave them all our jackets to try on – which they loved – and had a brief visit with the ladies, then it was back on the bikes to try to beat the storms. Schools were just letting out and all the kids in the streets had us beeping our horns like crazy women! We got caught in a bit of rain, but made it back for the most part for a stay in a “real” hotel. Well, “motel” really, but after the hostel (which we coined “hostile” early on) it seemed pretty luxurious!

The rain started in earnest as we were walking to dinner at a local sailing club. I ended up having some great conversations with a couple of the new Aussie riders – Greta and Susanna. We shared not just our stories, but our personal philosophies and thoughts about illness and its causes. The sharing and stories continued back at the hotel where we ran back and forth between rooms, dodging rain and talking and laughing into the night…