Wednesday 26th December 2012
To rid ourselves of all the excess weight gained from our Xmas dinner, Carole, Rob and I set off from Longueville, Sydney at around 0915, headed for Canberra. Apart from the weight loss objective, we were also keen to visit the Toulouse Lautrec exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia.
Carole and Rob had done a lot of work in devising a route that would use bikepaths and quiet roads as much as possible.
Starting out - Carole, Rob & Steve
The sky was overcast and it wasn't particularly warm, yet no rain was forecast so the conditions were ideal for cycling! We headed through Meadowbank, past the Olympic Park, and along the M4 cycleway via Parramatta, Guildford and Liverpool, then on to Campbelltown where the tourist office had a very pretty garden:
Tourist Information in Campbelltown
The route then traversed Narellan Rd to the Camden Valley Way, crossing over the Hume Highway which is the main road to Melbourne:
Foresaking the Hume for the back roads via Camden & Picton
Arriving at Camden we stopped at the tourist office to pick up some maps and were given some helpful advice about the big ascent that lay ahead:
Outside Camden Tourist information
Camden centre
The climb over the Razorback was long but not too steep. Rising to about 300m, from the top you can see the tall buildings of Sydney, some 70kms away, but the visibility today was not very good.
Carole & Rob complete the climb up the razorback
King of the mountain!
From there it was a short descent to Picton, a small town where we found accommodation in the George IV , said to be the oldest hotel in NSW.
Distance covered today was 103kms - so we were off to a good start.
Thursday 27th December
The day began with a puncture to Carole's rear tyre before we'd left Picton. It was repaired soon enough and we rode 10kms to Thirlmere, where we spent an enjoyable and informative hour and a half in Trainworks, a large new museum of NSW railways.
PayBus
The route followed a quiet, minor road through Bargo and Yanderra; then the busy Hume Highway couldn't be avoided for a short stretch into Mittagong where we stopped for lunch at a cafe. The weather was much brighter than yesterday and the temperature had started to climb.
View over the Wingicarribee River, outside Moss Vale
After passing through Moss Vale I took a brief detour to the Southern Highlands Winery, arriving just in time to taste a couple of nice reds:
Then onto the pretty village of Bundanoon, where we stayed in the Bundanoon Hotel
Distance today was 85kms.
We had breakfast after about 10kms at the small village store in Wingello:
Following the Highland Way to Merulan, we had to join the Hume Highway again for a short distance, and Rob had what was to be the first of many punctures, from debris on the roadside verge.
The route left the Hume and joined the Jerrara Rd to Bungonia, following which we followed a signpost towards Tarago, which led along the Lumley Rd - this turned out to be nearly 40kms of rough dirt:
The locals don't mince their words!!
The locals.....
Near the end of the dirt, passing by Lake Bathurst - which was apparently dry for many years until recently:
The combination of skinny road bike tires, which had already endured a fair bit of wear, plus 2 heavily loaded panniers, over rough dirt road with many corrugations, proved too much for Rob's bike and over this dirt section he had 4 punctures, eventually running out of spare tubes and also repair patches. I had gone on ahead to Tarago, arriving just after 3pm at the only hotel in town, the Loaded Dog - arriving about 3pm.
Fortunately they were still serving food so I ordered up a pizza and waited for Carole and Rob. Carole arrived at about 5pm, and told me that Rob had run out of repair patches and had had to resort to walking. I rode back to find him, with my puncture repair kit and he was about 4kms back from Tarago. Unfortunately the puncture repair wasn't succcessful and I had to leave him to walk the rest of the way, so he didn't get to the hotel until after 6pm.
Carole arriving at Tarago
We had another good meal at the Dog, which included a very nice Morooccan Beef Salad, followed by desserts and then the continuation of our card game of the previous evening, which Rob won by a large margin. Total d.iistance today, 105kms.
Saturday 29th December
There was another futile attempt to repair Rob's punctured tyre, using a new repair kit kindly provided by the hotel. But there was a problem with the rim tape which caused a new puncture every time the tire was inflated.
Carole & I set off for Bugendore, the next town, where we hoped there would be a bike shop so we could get some new rim tape and an inner tube for Rob's bike. However it was 32kms away, and after about 10kms we checked on Google and foound there wasn't a bike shop there anyway. Foortunately Rob managed to get a lift from a kind lady called Shelley, who ferried him and his bike in her little Nissan Micra, all the way to Pushies bike shop in Fishwyck, Canberra, where he was able to get it fixed.
This did of course men that Rob missed out on riding the last 67kms of the journey to Canberra, and the hilly yet scenic road:
Arriving at the ACT border
We passed tthrouugh Queanbeyan just after 3pm and shortly afterwards rendezvoused with Rob at our accommodation, Victor Lodge in Kingston, which he had kindly arranged.
Then the 3 of us went for a ride around part of Lake Burley Griffin, and enjoyed a celebratory drink at the Southern Cross Sailing Club, before heading off to dinner at the La Rustica restaurant, close to our hotel. There were so many good restaurants there that iit took a while to decide where to eat!
Total distance today was 86kms.
Canberra - Commonwealth Avenue Bridge
Sunday 30th December
We visited the Toulouse Lautrec exhibition at the National Gallery, then had a brief look around the National Film and Sound Archive, before heading home. Getting a train back all the way from Canberra wasn't practical, as bikes on that train have to be boxed, we didn't have boxes and there wasn't anywhere we could buy any. Furthermore only 2 bikes were allowed on each train.
So, at around 2pm we headed north out of town on the main Federal Highway, to cover as quickly possible the 90kms to Goulburn, where we could get the City Rail service back to Sydney.
It turned out to be a very quick 90kms, even though there was something of a headwind, the smooth wide shoulder allowed for an average speed of around 25kms to be easily maintained.
We arrived in Goulburn in time for a good meal at a Thai restaurant, before getting the 7.25pm service back home. We had to change trains at Moss Vale, Campbelltown, and again at Central, but for a fare of just $8.20, the 4 hour journey to Artarmon was certainly good value!
We arrived back to Carole and Rob's house just afer midnight, after a most enjoyable trip.
Diistance today - 102kms - total trip journey 481kms.
No comments:
Post a Comment