Catching up on July – Macquarie Towns Motorcycle Rally – Not Just Motorcycles

We have attended this rally a couple of time before and it is nice to pop down to Windsor, only two hours from home, and join in a rally in warmer weather.  We are always amazed at how much warmer it is so close to home.  Do you think we are feeling the cold?

This year we opted to take “Sophia” the red Moto Guzzi.  Sophia is a bit of a home body, so this was a little unusual for us.  We used to use her for all our travelling, but we worked out that she wouldn’t have been used for more than a day trip since 2002, when we bought “Snubby”.  We also worked out that Mick and I haven’t done more than a day trip on a solo bike since 2008, when he put the sidecar on “Snubby”.

We travelled down on the Friday afternoon and proceeded to go for a walk.  There is so much to see when you are just strolling along.  You can have a look here to see our walk from last year.  This year I forgot to take my camera, so just took a couple of photos of the sunset on the phone.

We were blessed with the best weather on the Saturday, getting up to 20 degrees.  Rather different to home.

There was a great roll up of bikes with some rather stunning ones among them.

The format is that you go for a ride and stop somewhere for morning tea.  I have no idea where they took us, as there is a maze of roads in that area, but we ended up parking in a rather picturesque little spot.

Our first stop was in the little hall to collect our Devonshire tea.  This motorcycling caper is rather civilised at times.  I loved the big old tea pot and crocheted oven mitt.

After morning tea we went for a wander around and discovered we were at a lovely little sandstone church.

The interior was simple but nice and bright and well maintained.

I got chatting to a lady and discovered that we were actually at the oldest church in Australia and the first Presbyterian church in Australia.  It was built in 1809.  Previously church services were held under a tree across the road.  The tree is still standing.

Next to the church is The Schoolmaster’s House, which was built in 1817.  The church itself was the school and is the oldest existing school building in Australia.

You can enter and view the schoolmaster’s house.  The stairs are nearly like a ladder they are so steep.

The two upstairs rooms have very low ceilings, which of course, are no problem to me.  I liked the fact that there was a patchwork quilt on the bed.

Once outside we had  a wander around the lovely grounds.  The reason the church is here, is that the Hawkesbury River is just behind where I took this photo.  This was one of the very first areas along the river to be settled.

The graveyard is also very historic, with a few First Fleeters buried there.

We really enjoyed our little break at the church.  The Schoolmaster’s House has a tea rooms and craft shop in it.  I picked up a brochure with a self guided tour of the Church and grounds.  We’d like to visit again some time and have a proper look around.  It was an unexpected peek into our early history that I had no idea about.  What a bonus.

Once back on the bikes, we continued to wander all around the place and crossed the Hawkesbury River on the Sacksville Ferry.  I love these old car ferries.  They always make me feel like I’m on holidays.

The cliffs along the river were stunning.

And that is all the photos I took.

We enjoyed lunch at a small local school, where we were spoilt and then had the afternoon to ourselves so wandered around Windsor again.

There was a presentation dinner in the evening with some fun trivia games and “Sophia” was lucky enough to be voted second in her class of 1986 – 2005.  This was a surprise as it was a rather large class with some beautiful bikes.  Then again, Sophia is rather lovely and there are only two in Australia that look like her and the other one is in Western Australia, if it still exists.

The organisers of this rally do a wonderful job and we hope to attend again.  It is also just a good excuse to have a nice weekend away.