Tour d'Tamworth: Look around the home-town - The Reunion Ride - CycleBlaze

October 3, 2014

Tour d'Tamworth: Look around the home-town

With a bit of time before the 40th year school reunion events start, a reminiscence ride around town was today's activity. Some of the sights were:

Hometown overview...this is very special to me. A sprint up Oxley Lookout on unloaded bikes was a good start to the day.Tamworth is a sizeable regional city built on the flood plain of the Peel River.This view is looking back across Tamworth to where we rode from yesterday. Duri Peak is visible on the horizon.
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Note the insects splattered on the sign!
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And there's my alma mater. Oxley High School nestled at the base of hills in East Tamworth.It was these woodland hills that our PE teacher Ted Cross was keen to make us run up and over in the 70's. Our high school cross-country runs were infamously gruelling. In hindsight they were great preparation for cycle-touring.
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East Tamworth with a part view of our former family home amid the trees beyond the lawn bowls club.
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An excellent gallery and coffee shop at the top of Brisbane St.
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Yep...they are kamikaze specialists in this area. We were pounded on the way in to Tamworth yesterday.
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This building is special. It was built as a Mechanics Institute in 1866. It was badly rundown until about 25 years ago when the local council funded a restoration project. My father did much of the restoration work by hand as his retirement job.
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Another iconic Tamworth building. The local newspaper offices. The Northern Daily Leader.
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The main street...we did a couple of "Peelies" on our touring bikes.
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The link of product and service might be obvious to some, but I couldn't see the connection.
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Historical cottage in West Tamworh
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Tamworth Railway Station. I would have liked to use the rail service to return home to Canberra by Sydney but it's not a bike friendly country service compared to the Intercity services or VicRail.With a cheap online air-ticket being available, it was much faster and not much more expensive to get home by air and bus. It's a pity NSW rail doesn't encourage bike travellers. They need the patronage which is declining fast to the competition.
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East Tamworth Primary School which I attended in the 60's.
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Tamworth velodrome which was not tempting for touring bikes
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East Tamworth cottage
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One of the old local churches. Formerly Methodist or Baptist, it seems to have been taken over by one of the modern evangelist groups.
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Today's ride: 40 km (25 miles)
Total: 740 km (460 miles)

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