Onwards to Armidale

The weather was quite cool in Dorrigo this morning, pleasant for packing up and getting sorted. John, the bloke camping near to us came over for a chat before leaving. He’s been doing a bit of walking in the parks round the area but after today will be winding his way home southwards to Canberra. Another nice fella, who invited us to call in should we go back to Canberra.

The Armidale road is a straight line from Dorrigo, and gradually progresses from lush pastures to brown dirt. 
It is still the Waterfall Way though - which  sounds more like a suburban housing estate road than a main highway. Armidale was apparently named after Armidale on the Isle of Skye, from  where the ferry runs to Mallaig on the mainland. 

I rode that route too several years ago, on another small bike, my trusty pizza delivery bike, which at 125cc is a comparative beast.  And the Glasgow deckie who tied my bike down laughed when I told him I’d ridden from London on it and was on my way backdown the UK; I wonder what he’d say about riding round Oz on a 110cc then? Anyway, the road does sneak past some pretty awesome waterfalls, not that you’d really know they were there.

Like these at Ebor. We stopped there for a coffee, met a bloke called Dave and his daughter Samantha, saw a photo of the falls in the cafe and stopped on our way past. 

Its on the Guy Fawkes River, so called because a bloke called Parke camped on its banks on Guy Fawkes Day 1844.

Or these at Wollomombi, where the Wollomombi and Chandler rivers meet and both tip over massive sheer rockfaces, crashing down 200 metres.Only there was none of that today because there was no water. Not a drop. Bone dry. Somebody had nicked the water. All of it.

It's one thing for a river to dry up and leave puddles or a slow trickle, but both of these are massive rivers and the falls are some of the tallest in Australia, so for them both to be completely dry was really something. But this is what they look like when they are flowing - an official  picture, not mine.

 But just imagine being the first explorer to see them. They must have been pretty amazing. John Oxley who surveyed rivers nearby, commented about similar falls.

The fact that they can dry up is also an indication of just how arid and harsh this place can get. The grass is already scrabby and brown, the dirt baked hard like concrete and ‘green’ doesn’t exist. Yet horses, and sheep still graze away like its the tastiest feast ever. Maybe it is, who knows.

This area is generally known as New England, and that’s down to the distinct four season climate, which is unlike most of the rest of Oz, and autumn leaf colours which are apparently a real spectacle. So does that then mean the trees are mostly deciduous? They’d have to be in order to change colour and drop I think; I’ll have to investigate.

Even with our frequent stops and the hilly road, we reached Armidale by mid afternoon and found somewhere to stay.

It's also Australia’s highest city - high as in altitude rather than the Bellingen sort of high. It has a noted problem with air pollution too, caused almost entirely by emissions from wood burning domestic fires. So much for the good clean air of Australia. And it has a bit of a hail problem from time to time; real monster storms that bash down buildings and make them collapse under the weight of iceballs.

It’s quite a substantial place with some pretty buildings and proper stuff going on, including a choice of physios,one of whom is going to try and sort my leg out for me tomorrow afternoon. Its now so bad that I can't walk so have to move by a combination of hop, shuffle and drag, which is very boring as well as tiring. I did try swimming to see if that would help but it didn’t as I cant move it sideways at all. Fortunately though, riding is fine, even if kick starting is difficult. I sort of fall on the lever and hope it turns the motor. If not, Gordon has to kick it for me.