Cycling – Page 7 – Travelling reflections

Australia, Cycling, New South Wales, Trans Oceania

D34 TransOcenia Mittagong to Wollongong

Via dingadong is the temptation, we avoided it. Instead we took the pretty route via the magnificent 1898 MacQuarrie Pass, Hewn into the hillside, with 8km of steep twists and turns as it descends from the Southern Highlands to the coastal plains below. It is still resisting pressure to develop it further and I hope it is allowed to remain in it’s present state. Much like our own Bealach na Ba, it needs looking after.

The Sydney ‘sprawl’ effect starts quite far out near Albion Park with multiple new housing developments underway.

We enter Wollongong via its industrial park on another good network of cycle paths. The steel works, annual production of 3 million tonnes of crude steel, with supporting infrastructure reminds us of Port Talbot’s current demise – which was a similar scale of production until this October. Good things are still being made.

Wollongong is the third largest city in New South Wales (population 300k) after Sydney and Newcastle. An industrial hub and port. We even pass a TK Max in the centre.

Tomorrow to Sydney on a route which avoids one of the busiest commuter corriders in Australia. And the end of this leg of the trip, Wow!

Australia, Cycling, New South Wales, Trans Oceania

D33 TransOceania Goulburn to Mittagong

Mittagong, gateway to the Southern Highlands, Australia’s first iron works and 6000 people. We reached it from Mittagong via a mid day thunderstorm of biblical proportions. Crashes and bangs overhead, either side. Rain was impressively torrential. 1.5 hours of it – quite exciting in a way, frightening in another.

It’s also a wine, or rather winery region. Greener than previous days and the insect and bird-song has returned. Perhaps farmer’s chemicals have something to do with this?

All the places seem to have a claim to fame. Bundanoon is the world’s first bottled water free town. One shire is a coal mining free area. It doesn’t say if they boycott products or power produced by coal – I suspect not. Marulan is on the 150 Meridian East of Greenwich.

One thing they all do well, and common to all the little bit of Australia we’ve been in, is street art, murals and creative signs/post boxes.

The freight trains are impressive, many 10s of carriages long. A chap in a cafe in Bundanoon where we had a sheltering coffee, told us they were spending million of AUD just down the road to separate tracks so the passenger trains can go faster – seems they are doing a better/simpler job of that than us with HS2.

A lovely creek led us to a final hill to Mittagong. The request to wash our bikes before we brought them in was received with slight incredulity. We did that in the rain……

Tomorrow another gong….

ACT, Australia, Cycling, New South Wales, Trans Oceania

D32 TransOceania Canberra- Goulburn

A common thread between Canberra and the places we pass through / finish in today is again war memorials. Remembrance Days the world over, and the poignant signs, resound with “we will remember them”. I wonder why we don’t honour them by working harder at living in peace? The ones who returned still have their own, often untold, stories and pain. Worth repeating one story, my Dad’s framed by an extract of Eric Bogle’s song. https://gldbt.blog/jimmy-1918-1988/

Ah young Willie McBride, I can’t help wonder why
Do those that lie here know why did they die?
And did they believe when they answered the cause
Did they really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the sorrow, the suffering, the glory, the pain
The killing and dying, were all done in vain
For young Willie McBride, it all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again

I was chewing on this as we make our privileged way through our cycling day. Which we enjoyed!

Canberra didn’t take too long to get out of. Rush hour was on a small scale. On some excellent cycle ways, skirting the satellite town of Queanbeyan. A bit like the Scottish New Towns such as the one which I grew up in East Kilbride – post WW11 and 12 miles from Glasgow. Except ours sucked the life out of the old city for a while whilst Canberra’s circle of towns seem more like what Cambridge wants to do.

For a part the route becomes lined with large estates – probably Canberra’s gentry escapes. Then into more rural areas – a touch greener than before with hairy merino and cattle chewing the cud. Lots of heavy goods wagons in places to/from a quarry – all being careful as they thunder by.

Goulburn, 24000 folks, is a fine place (that’s a quick superficial judgement of course based on good coffee, fine old buildings, the rail history etc.). Sadly we’re on the outskirts so no major explore.

Tomorrow continue towards Sydney and maybe the first proper rain for a while. Yay!

ACT, Australia, Cycling, Trans Oceania

TransOceania Canberra rest-day

A six day cycling block so ready to have a recovery day.

Canberra is a planned city after a stand-off then compromise between Melbourne and Sydney over who should be capitol: create a new one. 1913 saw the start with the major expansion in the 1950s. Today it approaches 500000 population and became a Australia Capitlal Territory (an add on to the States) in 1988.

Today it starts to sprawl with other satellite cities (more like towns ) growing up around it, though with green belt. Quenbeyan and Tuggeranong amongst them. Commuter towns and we passed through the latter 13 miles out yesterday. I remember thinking a) how much further? b) interesting name – sounds like something you can get arrested for.

Along the [today] quiet broad streets, the car dominates, vs public transport. Which is a problem if you want to “green’.

Geoff – who we’d met on a previous trip – kindly took us to interesting places. Mount Ainslie afforded a great view of the planned layout, and the new 1988 Parliament Building. The New Parliament Building is excellent inside too: a celebration of tasteful design which feels lasting and solid. The old Parliament has been repurposed. A pity we can’t get on with our own Parliaments modernisation.

Sumptious Embassies must be hard for the poor foreign office workers have to endure. Other State buildings (Library, Gallery) reflect the Capitol status. Sadly we didn’t have time to go into the vast Australian War Memorial.

A good rest day: last leg of this part of the ride starts tomorrow en-route to Sydney.

Australia, Cycling, New South Wales, Orient Express

D31 TransOceania Cooma – Canberra

To avoid a dangerous road, our route changed to take the backroad through Namadgi National Park. The translation of Namadgi is shit roads. Shake rattle and roll along a bumpy track.

Only 2 years ago 80% of the park was destroyed in the bush fire which raged through the area. An amazing amount of vegetation has come back. Nutrients released by the fire are available to growing plants, and there is also abundant light and space. Animals have it tougher but they too have strategies to survive.

Fire causes the opening of woody fruits in resprouting plants such as banksias and ti-trees and seeds are released onto the soil surface after the fire has spread. Epicormic buds also come into play. Ecology is fascinating.

Of course these thoughts were dormant at the time of cycling, as survival is of a higher order. The views helped though as the eyeballs were bouncing around it was difficult to focus at times.

Thankfully this was only for 20 miles or so. The next challenge was a 15mile entrance to Canberra on a maze of cycle paths. Safely navigated, tomorrows rest day awaits……