National Motorcycle Museum Run
28 July 2013 / Words - Peter Rodgers, Photos - Keiran Rodgers
We’re a pretty geographically spread out chapter here on the Mid North Coast and that can pose a bit of a challenge with our runs. So we often have two start points as we did for our run to the National Motorcycle Museum at Nabiac. Some of us started from Port Macquarie and some from Taree.
The Port Macquarie contingent took the long way to Taree via Coopernook and Landsdowne, giving us the opportunity of many more bends (and potholes) than the more direct Pacific Highway route. The scenery is not half bad either! Things looked a bit grim for a while because almost as soon as we turned off the highway we found ourselves behind a slow moving ute with no opportunity for safe overtaking. Fortunately we didn’t have to wait too long before the ute turned off and we could resume at a pace more suited to MX-5’s on a winding country road.
Arriving at Glenthorne Service Centre we found Kevin and Carole waiting for us – in fact they knew we were nearby as they picked up our chat on the CB radio.
Our next stop was Blackhead Beach and a change to our route thanks to Kevin’s local knowledge of great winding roads giving our little cars another opportunity to practice their cornering skills.
Blackhead Beach is just stunning – especially the day of our run, as we not only arranged perfect weather, but also a dolphin display upon our arrival. We also met a prospective new club member who came along to say hello. All he needs now is an MX-5, which hopefully he will find soon.
Off then to Nabiac and the National Motorcycle Museum. Seems like many MX-5 drivers were right into motor bike riding in previous years (some of course still are keen riders) and the opportunity to see Australia’s largest collection of motor bikes was keenly anticipated.
Almost as keenly anticipated was lunch with the $8 fish, chips and salad particularly popular.
The museum’s collection is simply awesome with around 800 motor bikes on display and really needs a full day to fully take it all in. Unfortunately we didn’t allow enough time and so could only skim rather than become immersed in all that there was to see.
Nevertheless we all enjoyed the drive, the company and the museum.
