Ride Report 12th May 2013 – Coffs Nana Glen Loop
Ian Scott
The weather outlook for today’s ride did not look good early in the morning. It was raining when I set out from home to the start at Club Coffs (the old Catholic Club). Along the way the rain clouds disappeared and by the time I arrived, there was brilliant sunshine.
Being Mother’s Day affected the turnout as only three other riders turned up. Mike, Phil, Herb and myself headed off towards the highway ready to tackle the first of many climbs on this ride, Macauleys headland at the Big Banana. Arriving at the turn of to Bruxner Park, Don and Michelle joined us ready for the longest climb up to Bruxner Park.
After a short rest stop at the top, we enjoyed a long decent down through the rain forest with the temperature being quite pleasant as this forest is normally very cold at this time of the year. Into the open farmland and rolling hills and lovely sunshine, the next rest stop is Bucca T.
Left onto Bucca road and on towards Nana Glen after a few more hills. (The next bit is just for BettyAnne!) Everyone noticed that Mike appeared to be very slow climbing today. As we approached Nana Glen Mike got so slow going up hill, the term comatose springs to mind!
We arrived at Kafe Kookaburra for a very welcome refueling stop with coffee and raisin toast all round. Not sure how but the conversation ended up talking about obscure railway towns. Herb with his railway background won the day with Cook. The scheduled route for the ride was meant to go to Coramba via East Bank road. After evaluating the alternatives, East Bank road, lots of hills little traffic vs Orara Way, rolling hills lot’s of traffic, the unanimous decision was to ride back along Orara Way.
There was surprising little traffic between Nana Glen and Coramba but that was about to change. As we passed through Coramba it seems like everyone living west of the mountains decided to drive into Coffs Harbour for Mother’s day lunch. We arrived at the top of Red Hill for another much needed rest stop. The down hill run into Coffs was the normal exhilarating/white knuckle ride depending on your need for speed.