Road Trip To The Nabiac Museum
Story and photos: The Bear
I guess there are three things the ideal motorcycle destination should have. An interesting road to get there; something worth seeing or exploring; and a good place nearby to eat and stay. Nabiac on the Pacific Highway in New South Wales near Taree offers all three. It is about 300km north of Sydney, which makes it the perfect overnight run if you have a pillion whom you don’t want to stress with long days in the saddle.
From Sydney there are a few choices among the roads going north. I like to start with the Pacific Motorway, the M1, as far as the Berowra exit. That takes you to the Pacific Highway and a short section of Sydney suburbia before Cowan, where you reach the beginning of the Old Road. This was once the highway and makes for very enjoyable riding as far as Somersby. It is best to continue to the M1 from here with a sharp right along Peats Ridge Road, even though the highway is predictably dull.
The next point of interest is at the roundabout in Heatherbrae where the wonderfully named Masonite Road takes off to the right. It is not really Masonite; I think they make the stuff here. I like the pie shop on the corner which has passable coffee for morning tea. Back on the highway, which has been the A1 rather than the M1 since you turned into John Renshaw Drive, you continue to the Bucketts Way turnoff on the left at Twelve Mile Creek. If it’s lunchtime, the classy Farmer’s Wife Distillery (closed Monday and Tuesday) is waiting for you on the right. Skip the gin and sample the ample meals in the cheerful restaurant.
Once upon a time the Bucketts Way was a trail of misery from the Pacific Highway here to Nabiac via Gloucester, with more stretches of badly repaired road than a Sydney suburb. It has had some attention recently, though, and nowadays you can safely look at the pretty scenery without dropping your front wheel into one of the giant potholes. Turn right in Gloucester to stay on the Bucketts Way and continue to Krambach. Here it’s time to leave the Bucketts Way; turn right where the roadside sign points to Nabiac and Tuncurry.
Cross the bridge over the Pacific Highway and follow the signposting to the National Motorcycle Museum just off Clarkson Street. There is plenty of parking out front.
The first time I walked into the museum I felt a little like Ali Baba must have done when he entered the treasure cave. But he just found gold and rubies; I found motorcycles. All kinds of motorcycles, with the predictable emphasis on British bikes but also a substantial selection of Japanese machinery, reflecting their popularity in Australia.
In 1988, Brian and Margaret Kelleher, who had been in the motorcycle retail industry for 18 years, read in a Bureau of Statistics report that substantial numbers of our old motorcycles were leaving the country for the USA, Japan and England. Brian had been collecting motorcycles before starting the motorcycle business and he and Margaret had continued amassing motorcycles and memorabilia with the dream of one day opening a museum. They worried that much of Australia's motorcycling heritage would be lost unless they could give these bikes a home. Unable to get government assistance, they decided to go it alone and set up the National Motorcycle Museum of Australia in 1990. Initially based in Mitchell, a suburb of Canberra, the Kellehers moved to the Mid North Coast of NSW where they purpose-built a complex that now houses some 800 bikes.
The museum’s collection is eclectic, and many of the bikes are in unrestored condition – all right, let’s not beat about the bush, they’re junk. But junk with potential. I’m not going to try to list what is there. Let me just say that whatever motorcycles or scooters interest you, you’re likely to find examples.
Once you’ve had your fill of the museum (a point often marked by the tapping of your pillion’s foot), head back to Clarkson Street and follow it north to where it crosses the highway. Turn right into the highway, follow it to Failford Road and then follow that to The Lakes Way. Turn right and continue to Tuncurry. I like to stay at the comfortable South Pacific Palms motel down near the Coolongolook River where a short walk across the wobbly-looking but solid bridge takes you to a favourite restaurant of mine, Spice Monkey.
A relaxed breakfast along Head Street in Forster can then lead to an equally relaxed ride down the greenery along the Lakes Way to the Pacific Highway at Bulahdelah, where there are more choices to get you back to Sydney. But more about that another day.