The North Coast - The Home Stretch

The balmy weather continued, but all around me there was evidence of the recent floods.  Parts of the New South Wales North Coast had received their heaviest rainfall in forty years just over a week before.

Flooded paperbark swamp near Crescent Head 

I left Crescent Head on rural backroads across a wide floodplain.  This is beef cattle and dairy country, but a fair proportion of it looked more like a vast network of streams and lakes.  To the tourist it might be quite a pretty sight, but the locals were obviously doing it tough.  As I ambled along the flat, narrow roads towards the Pacific Highway, I was basking in the sun and daydreaming a little (as you do), and not paying much attention to my surroundings, when I rode past a makeshift fence along a creek bank where someone had penned half a dozen calves. 
  

Rivers and creeks across Northern New South Wales are still swollen, a fortnight after the floods

For some reason, as I passed, the sight of me spooked the calves and they started running madly up and down their pen, until one of them leapt up and burst through the wire on to the road right in front of me.  I stopped and looked on helplessly, feeling somehow responsible, as it galloped off down the road,.  There was no-one around to alert - no house, no farm buildings, nothing.  All I could do was ride on, in the same direction the calf had run.  About half a kilometre down the road I passed the calf, which was calmly standing by the roadside and had completely forgotten that a man on a bike dressed in bright orange was a scary sight.  A few hundred metres further, I was able to tell a neighbour of the owner of the livestock what had happened.  He laughed at my concern.  “Happens all the time”, he said.  “Silly bastard should learn to build proper fences”.
Later that morning, I came across a man using a pitchfork to pull flood debris - mostly grass and branches - off a partly collapsed wire fence. Judging by the length of damaged fence, he had several days work ahead of him. He was covered from head to foot, including his face, and I wondered why. I stopped for a chat. Mistake!


The reason for his strange garb was that a lot of the debris was toxic: all the septic tanks and sewerage ponds in the area had been washed out by the floods, and the effluent had spread across the fields. He had already had infected wounds from contact with the debris, and was on antibiotics. It turned out that he owned all the surrounding land as far as the eye could see, and he was NOT a happy man. I stood for twenty minutes while he fulminated against the weather, the corruption of the local council, the insurance industry, the government ..... the entire world was conspiring against him. I extracted myself and left before it all became my fault.


A thirty kilometre stretch on the wide and smooth Pacific Highway brought me to Coff’s Harbour. On one fairly benign-looking bend near Urunga, I spotted a roadside memorial to a deceased truck driver. These little shrines are everywhere on the Pacific Highway, and indeed you'll find them on most Australian rural roads. The usual format is a cross inscribed with a name and dates of birth and death, perhaps a photo of the deceased, a bit of sentimental "in memoriam" doggerel, and a tacky wreath of plastic flowers. Sometimes the bereaved leave little offerings, like bottles of beer - the very things that are likely to have contributed to the tragedy.


However tasteless they are though, these memorials provide a useful reminder of the fact that the most dangerous thing we Australians ever do is not walking through bushland that's crawling with snakes, or swimming in shark-infested waters: it's getting into our cars and driving out on to the highway. This particular memorial was a little different from most in its incorporation of what were, presumably, parts of the dead driver's truck. I leave the evaluation of its aesthetic taste to you.


Roadside memorial to "Mickey".

Like Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour used to be an attractive place on a pristine bit of coast: now it’s an overcrowded jumble of shopping malls and carparks. I detoured on to the Coramba Road and climbed into the hills to the west of town, still clothed with banana plantations as they were when I first came here forty years ago. I sweated and strained as I hauled the bike up the mountainside but I couldn’t stop smiling. It felt good to be back in the sub-tropics.


Banana plantation on the Coramba Road.

I stopped for a beer at the Coramba Pub, feeling deserving and morally superior, as you do when you’ve just pedalled a heavily loaded bike up a mountain on a warm day.


Bananas and sugar cane: I must be near home.

Thirty warm, undulating kilometres later, I rolled into the attractive rural village of Glenreagh where, after another another mandatory beer at the local - the Golden Dog Hotel - I sought out the Recreation Reserve and Showgrounds, paid the caretaker the princely sum of eight dollars, and set up my tent under cover in an open-sided wooden shed. This would prove to be a very fortuitous decision.

My sheltered campsite at Glenreagh

 As the sun set, a dozen or so kangaroos gathered on the sports oval and stared at me, apparently trying to work out what kind of creature had invaded their territory. 

One of the Glenreagh locals 

A clear, cool night with brilliant stars made me feel quite affectionate towards Glenreagh, especially from my comfortable vantage point in the open-sided shed.  I left the fly sheet off my tent and fell asleep gazing at the stars through the insect mesh.  My affection was tested when I woke in the early hours to the realisation that the temperature had plummeted to near zero.  I noticed that the stars were still clear and bright as I dragged the fly sheet over the tent, put on my thermals, two pairs of socks and beanie, and crawled back into my sleeping bag.  I woke again at dawn, confused.  It was still freezing, but that drumming sound on the iron roof - could it be rain?  I dismissed the idea because the night had been so crystal clear, and dozed off again, only to wake an hour later to the unmistakable sound of heavy rain.  I crawled out of the tent to see the whole recreation ground shrouded  in mist and being lashed by a heavy shower.

As I packed up to leave, the rain eased to a light drizzle, but there was no doubt I’d have to  put on my full waterproof kit for the day’s ride.  I carry good waterproofs, right down to silicon rubber overshoes.  (There’s nothing more miserable than wet, freezing feet.)  The morning’s ride was quite comfortable despite regular downpours, and by lunchtime, as I coasted down the Gwydir Highway into Grafton, the sun was beginning to make an appearance.

If you can't find it here, you don't need it.

Grafton is an enigma: a sprawling, unattractive town when you skirt it on the Pacific Highway, but a place of surprises when you enter it from another direction and ramble around a little.  It’s a big, rural service centre for a beef cattle, dairying and sugar-growing region stretching from the Great Dividing Range to the coast.  The town straddles the Clarence - largest of the North Coast rivers and once a major transport artery.  In summer, the place is ablaze with the purple blossom of hundreds of Jacaranda trees, providing an excuse for an annual Jacaranda Festival.  (Although the name Jacaranda has an Aboriginal ring to it, the tree is actually a South African import.) 

Unlike the neighbouring seaside towns of Yamba, Iluka, Angourie and the string of beach villages stretching Southwards to Coffs Harbour, Grafton isn’t a tourist trap: it’s a working, rural service town, and I like it for that reason.  It’s a real place - not a media creation.  As I cycled through town, I stopped to photograph several lovely colonial houses.  This drew me into conversation with a number of locals, all of them friendly and relaxed.

There are plenty of colonial gems like this tucked away in Grafton's otherwise unlovely streets

North of Grafton, the narrow Lawrence Road carried me past the hulking, heritage-listed Grafton Jail, and on through a watery realm of levee banks, ponds and billabongs full of waterbirds to Lawrence itself - a pretty village on the Clarence with a surprisingly large and well-appointed pub overlooking the river, where it would have been rude not to stop for a cleansing ale on an afternoon becoming sunnier and warmer by the hour.

The "pick-a-plank" bridge into Lawrence.  Some of the gaps between the planks on these bridges can swallow a bike wheel.

Twenty pleasant kilometres later, I crossed the river again on the Bluff Point car ferry (no charge for bikes) and coasted into Maclean.  This otherwise typical sugar town has crafted an identity for itself as Australia’s Scottish town.  



The Bluff Point Ferry

This seems a little misplaced in a subtropical place surrounded by canefields, but Maclean certainly was settled by Scots in the mid-nineteenth century, and their influence persists.  In any case, the Scots are nothing if not adaptable.  The tartan-painted power poles and other touristy knick-knacks are a little on the hokey side, but the town has a certain charm, with its twisty main street full of interesting shops, restaurants and pubs winding down to the river.  The rain had returned, so I checked into an overpriced cabin in the Maclean Riverside Caravan Park (“No camping. No exceptions”) and anticipated a comfortable night with no need to pack up a wet tent in the morning.  

Every main street power pole in Maclean is emblazoned with a clan tartan

For some reason I didn’t sleep well in the ample double bed.  Perhaps I’m just not used to beds anymore, and my skimpy little three-quarter-length Thermarest is my mattress of choice forever.  In any case, I was up and packed and on my way by 7:00 am.  In familiar territory now, and only 200 kilometres from home, I got myself into distance-covering mode and decided to ride to Ballina - 90 k’s north on the Pacific Highway. 



The Harwood Sugar Mill is not actually exploding: it just looks that way.

  It was a mixed day of rain, patches of sunshine, still periods punctuated by gusty South-Easterlies, and one way or another I found myself at my target destination by lunchtime.  The obvious next destination was Byron Bay, only thirty kilometres further North, and within easy striking distance of Tweed Heads - my home base - the next day.  I stopped for lunch, then pushed on, blessed by a tailwind and a reappearance of the sun.
  

The comfy-looking verandah of this cane farmer's house on the Richmond River South of Ballina  

looked out on ....

... this.

By 4:00 pm I’d checked into a backpacker hostel in Byron, had a shower, and was wandering the streets of Australia’s “alternative” tourist capital and Easternmost point of the continent, having ridden 120 kilometres since 7:00 that morning.

Empire Vale is a tiny place, so rather than a Post Office, it has a Post Cupboard.

The only other inhabitant of the eight-bed dormitory room at the hostel was Vai, a young, recently qualified doctor.  Indian by birth, he’d grown up in Birmingham and completed his medical degree at York.  He was having a brief holiday in Byron Bay before heading to Perth for a three week placement in a city hospital.  He spoke of the possibility of working for Medecins sans Frontieres when he’d accumulated some experience.  What a joy to talk to an idealistic, compassionate and clever young man intent on using his talents to do good in the world!  He was also passionate about cricket, which raised him in my estimation even further.  When I left, early the next morning, he was excited about going snorkelling with sea turtles that day. 
  

Rainbow over the Cape Byron Lighthouse, taken from the balcony of Nomads Backpacker Hostel.

The ride home to Tweed Heads the next morning was an easy 80 kilometres, mostly on the Pacific Highway.  This part of Highway 1 is one of those rare stretches of motorway where bicycles are allowed.  Wide shoulders and a smooth surface made the riding fairly comfortable, despite the moderately heavy traffic.  I detoured into Brunswick Heads for breakfast at the Dolphin Cafe - a local institution renowned for its food and coffee.  It didn't disappoint.   


I consider the whole Australian continent my home, and I've lived and worked in many parts of it, but the Tweed Valley is one of those parts that has become special to me.  Suffering under heavy development pressures, it remains one of the environmental jewels of Australia.  The backdrop of the Border Ranges, enclosing World Heritage Rainforests, and the distinctive spire of Wollumbin / Mount Warning, preside over a lush landscape of forested ridges, estuarine lakes, sugar cane fields, dairy farms and coastal heathlands.  On the Pacific edge lie pristine surf beaches that are the equal of any on the planet.  As I rode into this "Green Cauldron", it really felt like coming home.

Wollumbin / Mount Warning looms over the Tweed Valley.  Its spire is a volcanic plug - the remains of magma that solidified in the crater, now eroded away, after its last eruption 20 million years ago.

It was impossible not to detour along some of my favourite Tweed Coast beaches and just enjoy being back in an environment that feels so comfortable for me.  In mid-winter, the sun shines on most days, and the average daily maximum temperature is in the low 20s.  Hard to take!

The magnificent Tweed coast

A nice little following South-Easterly breeze pushed me home by lunchtime.  The easiest 70 kilometres in cycling history.  Although there were showers and storms circling around me all morning, I rode in a perfect, protected cell of sunshine: undeniable proof of the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, to whom I pray and who protecteth me with her trailing celestial tendrils of divine pasta. 


Tweed Valley cane farms with the Border Ranges in the background

So, I'm back at home in the Tweed.  A momentary rest, while I transfer this blog to its own website, and set off on a series of rides - first around the Tweed Valley and the Border Ranges, then further afield.  Stay tuned.

 

The Mid-North Coast of New South Wales

The Pacific Highway wasn’t the cyclist’s nightmare I expected.  The road has been widened and improved in recent years, and there’s a wide shoulder and a good riding surface, at least on this Mid-North Coast section.  For 60 kilometres from Nerong to Nabiac, the riding was fairly pleasant, despite a fairly constant stream of cars and trucks.  The healthy buffer zone between me and them allowed me to relax, enjoy the green, rolling countryside and retreat into my own thoughts.

Another great Australian place name.  Pity there didn't seem to be an actual place to go with the sign.

The size of the investment in this highway couldn’t help but impress itself on me: hundreds of kilometres of dual carriageway with three, and sometimes four lanes in each direction, massive cuttings, monumental drainage works, soaring bridges and interchanges - millions of tonnes of concrete and steel and bitumen obliterating thousands of hectares of farmland and forest.  It’s a commitment of tax revenue that few seem to question, but I have my doubts that, as a society, we’re getting value for money.  

The main purposes of this engineering masterpiece seem to be to transport large quantities of raw materials and consumer goods along the North-South axis of our heavily populated Eastern coastal strip - something that could be done more efficiently by rail - and to provide swift passage for recreational motorists, often towing half their worldly possessions, along the same axis.  Why don’t we ask serious questions about all this, like - would we be better creating public transport and rail freight networks, educating people into different recreational patterns, and developing positive social infrastructure rather than encouraging alienating, fossil fuel - based, anti-social behaviours like driving hundreds of kilometres along soulless highways in insulated steel boxes?  When will we realise not only that it isn’t fun, but that it’s dangerous, unhealthy, expensive and largely pointless.  

There were two fatal accidents in the area on the day I rode through Buladelah.  I saw the aftermath of the first one.  At about 5:30 that morning, a B-double semi-trailer left the highway and plunged into a farm dam about ten kilometres south of the town.  As I rode past in the late morning, police divers were extracting the driver’s body from the cab. From my viewpoint, it was hard to imagine how the accident happened.  It was a straight stretch of road with no obvious hazards.  The truck had veered off the highway for no apparent reason.  A few metres either side and it would have missed the dam.  What could have happened?  I could only conclude that the man who died had fallen asleep at the wheel.  

This resonates with me.  My son fell asleep at the wheel of a car when he was eighteen.  The obvious outcome of this accident is that he’s minus a leg, but that doesn’t scratch the surface of the long-term trauma, economic disadvantage, emotional and physical pain that he went through - and still deals with on a daily basis. The real toll of our addiction to driving cars is horrendous, and yet very few people are courageous enough to suggest that perhaps we should reassess the whole idea.

The second fatal accident I heard about later on the radio.  A young driver, in her first year, had misjudged a passing move and ploughed into an oncoming vehicle.  She and her mother were killed and other family members seriously injured.  The consequences of these “accidents” are incalculable, yet we seem to accept them as an inevitable part of life.  If it’s to do with roads and driving, it’s just a consequence of our addiction to cars: nobody challenges the fact that we do this at all.

Ok; you’ve picked up a theme of mine here, but allow me to explore it a little further.  From my bike, I watch car drivers constantly, partly because it’s a good idea to make eye contact with them to make sure they’ve seen me, and partly because they seriously worry me.  Many of them seem to be in a kind of netherworld - not connected to other human beings or to the landscape around them.  The results of this disconnection are all around us.  As a cyclist, I negotiate oceans of refuse discarded from cars.  In fact,  the Central and Mid-North Coast of New South Wales gets my vote for the most rubbish along roadsides anywhere that I’ve travelled on a bike - Tasmania, New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, America.  We have the filthiest highways of the lot right here. (I make an exception here for the US state of Kentucky, where I cycled along roads with  metre-deep deep ditches full of broken glass on one side and homicidal coal truck drivers on the other.  But Kentucky is “special”.)  Travelling by bicycle along these highways is akin to riding through a gigantic, linear rubbish dump.

Many American states have adopt-a-highway schemes, and this reduces the quantity of detritus a little, but the fact that there are still heaps of rubbish there when it’s being removed regularly proves that it isn’t changing the basic anti-social behaviour.  On this tour, I didn’t notice adopt-a-highway programs until I reached the Central Coast.  Where they’re operating, there’s slightly less garbage, but THIS ISN’T CHANGING ANYONE’S BEHAVIOUR!  People are still chucking piles of crap out of car windows.

You’ve probably intuited by now that I attribute this anti-social behaviour to the isolation of car drivers and passengers from their environment - particularly when they’re travelling long distances on highways.  They’re bored; they’re consuming junk food mostly to alleviate the boredom; and they don’t feel connected to the world they’re passing through, so they have no compunction in trashing it.  Out of sight: out of mind.  There’s far too much rubbish out there for it to be blamed on a minority of anti-social individuals: this is a majority sport.  To understand its extent, you have to travel the country’s highways at 15 kilometres an hour - not 110.  Believe me, you get heartily sick of dodging broken glass.  Broken beer bottles are a huge proportion of the truly offensive rubbish, followed closely by plastic sports and soft-drink bottles and takeaway food containers.  If this issue isn’t something that bothers you particularly, try touring on a bike.

Allow me one more observation on this topic, and I’ll shut up.  I would never throw rubbish out of a car window, yet I don’t remember my parents ever lecturing me about it.  They didn’t have to: they taught by example.  Nor do I remember explicitly telling my children not to do it, but I’d be very surprised if any of them did.  What this means is that there’s a frightening proportion of Australian parents who are NOT teaching by example.  Ok; enough!

Camping at Nabiac was a strange experience.  I’ve driven through this small town many times when it was right there on the old highway, and have never been tempted to stop.  Even the signs for the National Motorcycle Museum didn’t tempt me.  This time, though, riding off the highway and over the bridge into town, I suddenly realised what an attractive little town it is, and determined to visit that museum in the morning.  After a  pleasant evening in the pub, I retired to my tiny tent and instantly realised that the highway was very close, that the trucks were frighteningly loud, and that they were going to go on ALL NIGHT!  I did manage to fall asleep,but woke early with the roar of trucks louder than ever. The Motorcycle Museum wasn’t open till 10:00 am, and I wasn’t prepared to hang around till then, so it remains unvisited.

This must once have been the latest in high-tech farming equipment

From Nabiac, I rode the highway to Kew (“Famous” for the highly intelligent and subtle souvenir brand “Far Kew” ), and then detoured to Laurieton - a surprisingly urban and pleasant beach resort that seems set on becoming the retirement capital of the mid-North coast.  

Bonny Hills Beach near Laurieton

The public library in Laurieton not only welcomed me but provided wi-fi access, allowing me to import photos to the blog without pain and distress.  I hereby register a huge vote of approval for the Laurieton Public Library - a bastion of civilisation.  That night, I happily occupied the camp kitchen of the Laurieton Campground, drinking red wine, listening to my beloved ABC Classic FM, and writing, writing, writing.

Headland between Laurieton and Port Macquarie

Leaving Laurieton in the morning, I ambled up the coast to Port Macquarie - a vast and expanding metropolis on what used to be a lovely bit of coastline but is now half-buried under concrete and bricks.

Not the kind of critter I expected to meet just outside Port Macquarie.  Looks like she was a bit shocked to see me too.

I pressed on through town and out to Settlement Point, where a car ferry carried me across a wide tidal river, (not being a car, they didn’t charge me), and on to the Plomer’s Point Road, a 35 kilometre rutted dirt road that runs through the vast Limeburner’s Creek Nature Reserve.  This part of the ride was my first bit of near-wilderness since the East Gippsland Rail Trail.

I passed up the opportunity to explore this particular road.

The coastal heathlands, open eucalypt forests and paperbark swamps that fringe the road are teeming with bird-life.  Despite the potholes and dust, I had a pleasant afternoon pedalling through this lovely, peaceful place, with almost zero traffic.

A local's attempt to deter tourists?  Plomer's Point Road was rough, but more pleasant riding than the highway.

It's a waterbirds' paradise in Limeburner's Creek Nature Reserve after recent floods

Crescent Head was one of those lovely surprises - a beach resort town on Australia’s East Coast that has hardly changed in a generation.  It was Saturday, and there were plenty of weekend campers and caravanners in town, but the place still had the relaxed, unhurried feel  that comes with there being little else to do except fish, surf, swim or lie around in the gorgeous winter sunshine.

As the sun set, I walked across a little footbridge over the tidal creek to the beach.  The sky and sea were suffused with a magical, purplish light that kept subtly changing, and I knew my miserable photographic skills, even with the new upmarket camera, would never do it justice.

Sunset on the tidal creek at Crescent Head

A stand-up paddler returns to shore at sunset - Crescent Head Beach

That evening I sat in the quietest corner of the pleasantly rowdy pub (it was Saturday night after all), writing my blog and studying my maps, when a partying group of weekenders from Newcastle invited me to join them.  Soon the beer and laughter were flowing freely.  Someone said there was an American blues musician playing at the Country Club across the road, and that he must be pretty good because he’d been on the bill at the Byron Bay Blues Festival.  We wandered over.  The man’s name was Bo Jenkins (really, not kidding) and he WAS good.

Bo Jenkins doin' his thaing.

I woke the next morning in my tent to the realisation that I was still fully dressed, hadn’t bothered to get into my sleeping bag, and that my mouth felt like the bottom of the budgie’s cage.  Must have been a good night.  On this still, sunny morning, waiting for the dew on my tent fly to dry seemed a good excuse to sit around, have several cups of tea, and delay my departure until almost 10:00 am.

Sydney and the Central Coast

Not only do I have lovely friends to stay with in Sydney, they live in the lovely, affluent Eastern suburbs, close to the surf beaches and the city centre.  I’m well aware that most Sydneysiders don’t inhabit this world: they live in the vast suburban expanse to the North and South, but principally to the West, stretching out to the foot of the Blue Mountains. A trip to the city or the surf beaches is a major excursion from these realms - one I imagine many of them rarely make.  I loved the suggestion that the new Western Sydney AFL (Australian Football League) team should be called The Squinters, because if you live in the Western suburbs and commute to the city, you’re driving into the sun in the morning, and again in the afternoon.

Me with that famous coathanger thing in the background.

I have a love/hate relationship with Sydney. I lived here 40 - something years ago, as a young man, having emigrated from my own suburban wilderness in Melbourne’s outer East. For me, Sydney was the Big Smoke: a scary, exciting, cosmopolitan place with unlimited possibilities and many pitfalls for an over-confident 18 year-old who was far from street-wise.

If you're lucky enough to live in Sydney's inner East, this is your front yard.

Walking the streets of inner Eastern Sydney today, my 60 year-old perspective is very different. Yes; there’s plenty going on here, but you need plenty of money to enjoy it. I’m oppressed by a pervasive griminess and tawdriness - more litter than I remember; more grim, red brick blocks of flats; more, much more traffic. I get a strong sense of the struggle to survive and thrive that is life in any big city.

I guess you know where this is.

There’s no denying the spectacular beauty of Sydney Harbour, especially on a bright, sunny day in what’s humorously called winter around here. Photographs of the iconic Bridge and Opera House are mandatory, of course, but there’s much more.  A leisurely walk through the Botanical Gardens, which stretch out around the Eastern shore, rewards with sudden vistas of gleaming skyscrapers framed by lush vegetation.  Giant Port Jackson and Moreton Bay Figs add a tropical grandeur.  (I know they’re both there but I couldn’t actually tell you which is which.)  On the water itself, there’s always something happening.  The colours are vibrant, almost surreal.

Sydney's CBD from the Botanical Gardens

My bicycle journey out of Sydney, on a still, sunny winter’s day, was a joy. I cycled from Randwick, through Centennial Park and along Oxford Street through the trendy suburbs of Paddington and Darlinghurst (known in a less genteel era as “Darling it Hurts”) and down to Circular Quay, where I caught the self-styled “famous Manly Ferry”. (I’m reminded of the adage that if you have to tell people you’re famous, you’re not.) A gentle half-hour cruise along the sparkling Harbour delivered me into the lee of its Northern headland, where I began a pleasant two-hour ride past beach after beach to Palm Beach (of course) on the edge of Pittwater. At almost every beach I sighted Humpback Whales on their Northward migration, sounding and breaching just a few hundred metres off these busy city foreshores.

Palm Beach - sans palms

I arrived at Palm Beach just in time to watch the 12:00 noon Ettalong Ferry disappearing around the point. That forced me to relax in the winter sunshine, read, drink coffee and enjoy the surroundings until the next ferry at 1:00 pm.

View of  Pittwater from the Palm Beach - Ettalong ferry

This ferry journey is a treat (although I was disappointed that the big, powerful aluminium catamaran was doing the run, rather than the quaint old wooden boat moored next to it). Rounding majestic Barranjoey Head, with its 1881 lighthouse at the top of the cliff, the ferry cuts across Pittwater, which is surrounded by the dense and rugged bushland of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.

From Ettalong, the ride North passed through the formerly quaint (and quaintly named) Central Coast towns of Budgewoi and Woy Woy - now heavily trafficked dormitory suburbs of Sydney. Bypassing Gosford (thankfully), I slogged North towards Newcastle, the second-largest city in New South Wales, resembling its English namesake in being a coal mining and heavy industrial centre, but mocking the resemblance with its glorious surf beaches and forested mountain backdrops.

A Scribbly Gum 

As I climbed yet another steep hill on the increasingly busy highway, a car suddenly pulled over in front of me. A psychopathic hater of cyclists about to bash me? A plain-clothes policeman about to book me for some bizarre local riding offence? No; a considerate local named Darrell Stone - a veteran cycle tourer - offering information about a bike path (in fact, another rail trail) that would keep me out of the traffic almost all the way to the city centre. The Coastline Bike Trail turned out to be a beautiful ride, climbing gradually over forested hills for 20 kilometres to Adamstown, from where a signposted cycle route through quiet backstreets took me to the foreshore. A ten minute ferry trip across the harbour landed me in Stockton - a quiet village within sight of bustling Newcastle, with a pleasant, cheap and secluded beachfront campground.


Overnight, a strong Westerly wind drove up a wall of black cloud, rattling my tent and threatening rain. By morning, the sky was clear again, but the wind remained fierce, hammering my left shoulder for the entire fifty kilometre ride to Nelson Bay, and threatening to shove me out into the traffic. Equally unnerving were the groups (squadrons? flights? flocks? mobs? gangs?) of military jets from the Williamtown RAAF base screaming across the landscape every few minutes a little above head-height. Those who know me will recall how much I adore these displays by machines of death, and how safe and secure they make me feel.

Camped in the Myall River National Patk

 Buffeted and harassed, I arrived at Nelson Bay to find that the ferry across Port Stephens to Hawk’s Nest had been cancelled because of the strong winds. The local caravan park in this upmarket, resorty place wanted to charge me $30 to put up my tiny tent, so I started checking out the options for stealth-camping along the foreshore. On impulse, I stopped in at the tourist information centre, where a smart, lateral-thinking young woman remembered that a Hawk’s Nest - based tour boat operator would be docking in about an hour, and would be crossing Port Stephens again to go home. A quick phone call and I was on. The crossing was rough, but not scary on the solid old wooden boat, and the skipper’s local knowledge was a big help for my onward journey.


It was already dark when the ferry docked at Hawk’s Nest, but the skipper’s directions made it easy for me to find the Myall River Campground in the National Park about two kilometres out of town. Completely alone in a beautiful riverside setting, I put up my tent, lit a campfire, and settled down for a peaceful night. The wind was still gusty, but gradually subsiding, and the stars were spectacular. I crawled into my sleeping bag early and ......


In the early hours of the morning I woke to what I thought was the wind rattling the tent. Half awake, I gradually became aware that something was invading my space - an animal of some sort. I grabbed my headlight and struggled out of the tent in time to see a dingo loping off with with my tucker bag - it had managed to extract the bag from my bicycle pannier inside the vestibule of the tent without waking me. I only woke as it dragged the bag, containing all my food, under the flap of the tent and made off. I stumbled across the grass, yelling and swearing at it, and it dropped its prize and slunk away, leaving a trail of half-chewed bread and pasta behind it, having managed to swallow a foil pack of tuna - including the foil. I wished it a serious bellyache as I repacked my supplies and discarded the torn waterproof bag.

Eying off my breakfast

At first light, I rekindled the campfire, brewed some tea, and started assessing the wreckage, when the second wildlife invasion began. First, a pair of magpies, then several crows, then some butcher birds, then a pair of blue-eyes attacked from all quarters, snatching the remains of the pasta and bread with uncanny efficiency. It didn’t help that I was laughing so hard as I tried to shoo away each invading wave. After breakfasting on what was left (they’d even stolen the small carton of milk for my tea), I set out on the Myall River Road - towards the next disaster.

A line-up of breakfast thieves

Five or six kilometres along the road, a car coming from the other direction slowed and the driver flagged me down. The Bombah ferry, my only way across the channel between Bombah Broadwater and Boolambayte Lake, was out of commission and not running. There was no choice but to backtrack to Hawk’s Nest, cross the bridge to Tea Gardens, and make for the Pacific Highway - the hideously busy main artery between Sydney and Brisbane. Trucks, trucks and more trucks, coming up!

Rule number one for an iconic Australian place-name: use lots of oooos.

Highway Blues, "The Gong", and a well-kept secret.

There are very few alternatives to the Princes Highway on the 130 kilometre stretch between Bateman's Bay and Nowra.  For two days I tried to enjoy the stately eucalypt forests and ignore the cars and trucks constantly grazing my right elbow.  The weather was being difficult too: pleasant, sunny spells alternating with sudden, heavy showers, which meant changing in and out of my waterproof gear every half hour or so.  (Once the sun was out, it was impossible to leave my rain jacket and waterproof pants on because I was sweating profusely inside them.)

Despite this promising sign, and another advertising a wine festival,

I somehow didn't manage to indulge. Not like me!

After threading my way through Nowra's unlovely sprawl, I turned off on the coast road to Shoalhaven Heads, where I pitched my tent in an almost empty coastal campground that was so exposed to the wind I spent most of the night trying to hold things down to stop them blowing away.  One consolation was the brief but spectacular sunset behind the forested hills.

From Shoalhaven Heads to Wollongong the next day, the riding was varied and mostly enjoyable, with a brisk Southerly pushing me northward through patches of forest and lush dairy farms, with sudden spectacular views of rugged coastline to liven things up.

Brewery? Milk factory? Giant alien spacecraft?

No sign to help me identify this "thing" in the middle of farmland.

A brief spell back on the Princes Highway between Gerringong and Kiama saw me dodging milk tankers for a while, and a wrong turn on the outskirts of Kiama took me over some seriously steep headlands before I finally found the town centre.

I headed out to the famous Blowhole on a craggy peninsula near the lighthouse, but despite a raging sea and a sudden storm, the show was a squib.  I rejected the crowded and expensive cafe in favour of the shelter of a huge Norfolk Island Pine in a grassy hollow, where I was completely sheltered from wind and rain while I made a sandwich and brewed tea on my camp stove.  With impeccable timing, the storm abated and the sun came out as I climbed back on the bike for the afternoon's ride into the industrial city of Wollongong.

The famous Kiama Blowhole

declining to live up to expectations.

The countryside remained green and pleasant right up to the edge of Wollongong's industrial area - the gigantic Port Kembla steelworks.  A pleasant surprise was the excellent network of cycle paths that kept me out of the traffic all the way to the centre of town.  More storms were looming, so I decided to find a backpacker hostel.  This was made quite difficult by the fact that no-one in Wollongong seems to know where anything is.  I asked for directions half a dozen times and got either totally misleading information, utter incomprehension or a blank stare.  I was beginning to wonder whether what I was asking actually made sense, or whether everyone in the place was completely mad, when I stumbled upon the stately Keiraview Youth Hostel, which also provides student accommodation for the University of Wollongong.

Pleasant, rolling dairy country

south of Wollongong

"The Gong" is a strange mixture of grubby industrial city, vibrant university town and drab, suburban sprawl, but everywhere you look there's a spectacular backdrop of steep mountain slopes and vertical cliffs, with magnificent surf beaches never far away.  My ride Northwards the next morning was a sheer delight, with the frequent showers and storms only adding to the grandeur of the coastal scenery.  (The wind was still blowing strongly from the South, helping me up the steep climbs.)  The Northern beach suburbs of Wollongong are a well-kept secret - from me, anyway, till now.  Bulli, Thirroul, Austinmer, - the excellent bike path took me through each one without any traffic to distract me from the wide, sandy beaches, big surf and grand, rocky headlands.

A riding highlight between Coalcliff and Stanwell Park is the Sea Cliff Bridge - 500 metres of elevated, cantilevered concrete roadway, spectacularly balanced above the surf.  From South to North, it gently descends in a series of sweeping curves, following the line of the nearby cliffs.  A wide, smooth pedestrian and cycle path on the ocean side of the roadway allows you to cruise safely and effortlessly along, enoying the view.  It's an exhilarating experience - a genuinely inspired piece of engineering.

The cyclist's privileged view from the Sea Cliff Bridge.

Those lovely engineers put the bike path on the ocean side.

The graceful sweep of the bridge as it rounds the cliffs.

North of Stanwell Park, a seven kilometre steep, winding climb - made more precarious by a jagged road-edge and homicidal car drivers cutting dangerously close on bends - brought me to Bald Hill Lookout, beloved of hang gliders.   A few hundred feet below the summit, through scudding black clouds and steady rain, I caught a glimpse of one of these courageous / suicidal (cross out whichever is inapplicable) pilots soaring close to the cliff-face at frightening speed, then vanishing into the murk.  When I hauled myself to the summit fifteen minutes later, the storm had closed in and the glider pilots were packing up their equipment and heading home.    The wind was gusting savagely by this time.  In the brief moments when the clouds lifted, the rugged coast I had been travelling along was revealed.

Every so often along this truly beautiful coast, you are reminded of its darker side.  The scary roads were cut and the isolated villages were settled principally to get at the coal seams that were first observed in these cliffs by shipwreck survivors in the early 19th century, and mined extensively from the 1840s.  Coal, of course was regarded as a bountiful and benign resource, there for the taking and a boon to development in the colony.  Its exploitation is deeply embedded in the economy and culture of the region, and few people hereabouts are interested in hearing about its lethal contribution to greenhouse gas emissions.  That this industry should be phased out, with the inevitable loss of jobs and profits is "unthinkable".   More unthinkable, apparently, than leaving a blighted planet for our grandchildren. 

Looking back towards Stanwell Park

from Bald Hill Lookout

After a glorious, sweeping descent from Bald Hill, the road entered the Royal National Park, the traffic all but disappeared, and the forest closed in.  Sheltered at last from the howling winds of the exposed coast, I rode for almost 40 kilometres in a serene, green silence broken only by birdsong.  Lush temperate rainforest in the gullies and open woodland on the ridges enveloped me for three pleasant hours.  The climbs were long but mostly not too steep and the descents were gentle and winding, leaving me at leisure to enjoy this truly beautiful environment.

Serene riding through the Royal National Park, which of course will be renamed
the People's National Park when Australia becomes a republic.

Apparently, you're likely to meet riderless, 1950s-style bicycles

around these parts.  Spooky!

Temperate rainforest along a mountain creek.

After climbing to windswept moorland one last time, the road finally descended to the resort town of Bundeena on the Southern shore of Port Hacking.  I waited in the weakening sunshine, chatting to hikers who had spent the the day walking the trails of the National Park, until the quaint old wooden ferry chugged into view, rolling in the long swells from the open Pacific just beyond the headland.  I hoisted the bike on board and settled down in the lee of the wheelhouse to enjoy the half-hour trip to Cronulla in the Southern Suburbs of Sydney.

Heading across Port Hacking

on the Cronulla Ferry

Approaching Cronulla