Category: New South Wales

Continuing on from Canberra, I started driving southwest towards Australia’s highest mountain range and the famous Snowy River region. After a sweet little dirt road shortcut that led me through another fun river crossing, I found myself on a busy road connecting Canberra with Australia’s most famous alpine region. It was quite busy, but most of the traffic seemed to be going the other way. I was dying for a cup of coffee (still being subject to fire bans overnight) and noticed a popular looking family run pancake restaurant along the way. I decided to add a few hotcakes with maple syrup, ice cream, and cream – to my coffee order. Hotcakes were described as being bigger and heavier that pancakes (which they also sold). I should probably note that everyone who worked in this restaurant looked rather large – so this was not a meal to recommend having often.

I had my fill of cakes and coffee and proceeded down the highway until I reached Jindabyne, which is the gateway to the Snowy Mountains. They had a big information center there where you could talk with rangers and get answers to questions – which I always prefer to looking things up. My questions were “where can I camp?”, “where can I mountain bike?”, and “where can I hike?” The answer to all three questions was “lots of places!” And much information was given to me to show me where to go. It was mentioned that numerous hiking trails could also be mountain biked – but when the summit trail to Australia’s highest peak was mentioned as a cycling opportunity, I knew I had to try it.

Truth be told, Australia is a relatively flat place. Even the highest peak, Mt Kosciuszko, is only a little higher than Mexico City at 7310ft (2228m) – but STILL! It had to be done! The actual trail is about 9kms each way and follows an old gravel road up to the summit, but I was told you are not permitted to ride your bike for the last mile (1.6 kms) of it. Having now cycled the trail I can tell you that it is definitely thigh-master stuff for the 9kms up, with only one dip for recuperation on the way there. You climb out of low forested areas and up into alpine views with no trees and very low scrub with snow still clinging to the south side of some peaks in the area. The trail also crosses the Snowy River in its infancy.

I was able to peddle the entire bike-able portion without the need for a break, which felt great. I do think the pancakes must have helped! I locked up my bike where they wanted me to and walked the last mile in my cycling shoes. It was really beautiful at the top (especially looking south, where the trail spirals up from) and I really wanted to hang out there for a while. I took lots of iPhone pictures, including several panoramas, before I decided it was finally time for the descent. After I walked the mile back to my bike, I hopped back on it for a ride I will always remember! Mostly all downhill with plenty of berms to jump over – put there by the park service to channel snowmelt off the trail in spring. Lots of fun and a great feeling of accomplishment.

Fired up from that experience, I headed into the ski resort town of Thredbo to see about other mountain bike trails you can get to by ski-lift. I figured I earned my climbing credentials and deserved it. Only problem was that Thredbo was packed for a weekend blues festival and nothing was open, so I decided to skip it and find a campsite for the night that I could use as a springboard for some other mountain bike trails in the morning. I found a great little campsite along a river tucked away in a busy camping area for the night.

My GPS’s carry sunrise and sunset tables. For weeks and weeks, while up north, I found the sunset time would barely chnage from day to day and place to place. Now that I have crossed back south of the Queensland / New South Wales border, the sunset time seems to increase significantly with every days drive further south. I was getting used to early evenings (7pm) for a while, but now that I’m back on daylight savings time and getting further away from the equator, it is staying light until 9pm!

Made a beeline for the famous Blue Mountains National Park just west of Sydney. After a cruisey drive down from Myrall lakes and into metropolitan Sydney, I encountered my first toll roads in Australia. Oddly enough they didn’t have cash lanes, so I opted to set my GPS to avoid them. Sydney is a great city, but like most – better seen without a car or gear in the back to worry about. I headed up into the mountains to see what I’ve often head people talk about and what I regularly see out of my plane window when flying to Perth from Sydney.

There had been fired in the area and there was still a bit of lingering smoke, but the Blue Mountains lived up to their reputation. There are a number of lookout points you can drive to at the top, but there are also a variety of trails that drop down to different levels of the cliffs, passing by rivers and waterfalls along the way. I took one trail recommended to me by the park staff that dropped you half way down the side of the cliff and along a ridge past waterfalls and amazing overlooks until you get to a very steep staircase up the other side. The National Pass trail it was called. A really amazing hike!

Afterwards I headed back down the other side of the mountains to find a campsite that was also recommended to me by the Blue Mountains staff. They gave me a map and showed me the best scenic route, so I logged a few of the towns into my GPS to route me and give me an ETA. Seeing as it was only about an hour and 15 minutes, and the temperature back down in the valley was hovering around 100F (again), I decided to goof off a bit in the first historic town I came to – even grabbing dinner from a local cafe. When I hopped back into my car to drive what was supposed to be the last 15 minutes I ended up in a suburban neighborhood with NO national parks or campsites in sight! Major GPS failure. Or maybe the map was wrong. I haven’t determined which yet, but I was finally able to punch in some GPS coordinated from a book I have on campsites for a campsite that appearing to be roughly in the same location as what was recommended to me. Only problem was that it was a good hour of driving down the road and the sun was setting fast.

It was a beautiful drive and the kangaroos were starting to come out (major road hazard), but after an hour of driving I came across one of the places the park staff had recommended – just as the sun was setting. It was down a long switchback road a few kms off the main road I came in on at a caving park. I arrived at the bottom to find no one around except one camper. Good enough for me, I pitched my tent and headed to bed soon afterwards.

What an amazing little find this turned out to be. As the light was getting low I saw my first mainland wombat scurry across the field next to me. There was lots of activity overnight with all kinds of big strange sounds (the hopping kangaroos being the easiest to figure out). Nothing to worry about in Australia as the mammals are rarely a problem for humans here. The stars were also amazing to see with no fly on my tent. In the morning I heard my first lyrebird. The first time I head about lyrebirds I though I was hearing an April Fools joke, but they really exist and can mimic any sound they hear. This one kept imitating the sound of a machine gun, so perhaps it had been hanging out at a local military training ground. I checked with the ranger in the morning and he confirmed that is what it was! It happens to be on the logo/badges of the New South Wales National Park Service.

Interestingly, there were a numerous sections of highways in New South Wales where average speeds were calculated by cameras. Sounds like the foolproof system for catching speeders. They have video cameras mounted over the highway lanes that read you licenses plates. They note when you’ve passed through and calculate the time it takes you to get through the next series of video cameras 10kms (or so) down the road. If it finds you speeding they just mail you your speeding ticket. Unlike point based speed traps, you can’t slow down too fool the radars because your speed is calculated by the average you travelled over the 10kms. Very smart and effective, I think.

Now that I’ve passed the eastern-most point in Australia (Byron Bay), every day’s drive will get me somewhat closer to Perth. I knew I had a long tedious drive to do today, so I kicked off by riding my bike down to the beach for a swim with the local surfers. It was very nice and I could have stayed there much longer that I did. Instead I shot off to the local town for breakfast (something I was originally planning to do in Byron Bay) and then hit the tedious turnpike.

Actually, it was a turnpike (toll road) and wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. It was quite busy, but limited to 2 lanes (1 in either direction) for most of it with passing lanes opening up from time to time. It reminded me somewhat of the old coast road up from Bunbury to Perth before they opened up the freeway. There was a fair bit of construction underway because they are trying to expend the entire stretch to 4 lanes. Some sections were done and seemed very light on traffic with 4 lanes.

I finally arrived at my destination after catching another small ferry and found a campsite at Myrall Lakes just over some sand dunes from a gorgeous eternally-long looking beach. I pitched my tent and went for a swim – just to bookend my day with two beautiful swims. The beach somehow reminded me to Assateague Island, but with possible dingoes instead of wild horses. Found some mysterious paw prints in the sand the following morning.

There is an expression in Australia (originating in Sydney, I guess) for any extremely remote location: Back ‘o Bourke. Bourke, NSW is a small town near the northern border with Queensland. I found it to be a bit creepy and somewhat reminiscent of Derby, WA. It seemed to be a bit of a ghost town – and even had tumble weed-like things rolling around and blowing all over town. The town seemed very quiet and unassuming by day but it had hints of much social unrest at night. There were numerous recently burned out homes, very high security around most shops, a bizarre iron-barred jailed-like car lot, and even barbed wire and electronic fencing around the caravan park I stayed in. I did manage to get out and visit their boat ramp for a very nice cooling swim with locals on the Darling River.

After my sleepless night in White Cliffs, I really wasn’t in the mood to drive too far the following day. I was keeping an eye out for a free campsite at one of the nicer roadside stops along the highway eastward when I just happened to pop into a roadhouse for a coffee. Anyone advertising “Real Coffee” in the outback must actually know how to make it properly! I popped in and noticed they were offering cheap camping around back with nice shady places, hot showers, real coffee, and a staff of European backpackers. It couldn’t be all that bad!

I got a little restless in afternoon and decided to ask them whether there were any 4wd tracks in the area I could mountain bike for a little while. They looked at me like I was a bit nuts and it turned out I was. I noticed a national park nearby boarding the owners farm property and got permission to ride through to try and get into the park. Unfortunately, after only about 10-15 minutes of bike riding I found myself with both tires flat due to double-G’s Double-G’s are double thorns that will tear through any mountain bike tire. I very rarely get flats, but I had to spend the rest of the afternoon scrutinizing my tires to find all the tiny thorns and pick them out so they would not re-flat my new tubes. the experience made me very wary of riding off trails for a while!