This was the only day we couldn't find a way to avoid the highway! In our quest to avoid the Pacific Highway for the whole trip, beforehand I'd sussed that once upon a time a ferry cruise used to stop at both Harrington and Manning Point, but the company no longer takes that route. A …
Continue reading Day 5 – Harrington to Forster (map & notes)
First stop Lake Cathie (pronounced 'cat-eye') snack time. Only 17k in, but how could you not stop here? Hastings motorists were awesome. Overwhelmingly courteous, gave you heaps of room when passing. Marc had thought they might be used to cyclists because it's part of a triathlon route, and the motorists would be used to lots of bikes out …
Ocean Drive, heading south out of Port, turned out to be pretty darn bike friendly, almost through to North Haven. A combination of infrastructure - bike lanes, (even through most roundabouts) and familiarity with cyclists, and thus an unprecedented amount of passing courtesy. There are parts, of course, like most of Australia, where the …
Continue reading Day 4 – Port Macquarie to Harrington (map & notes)
Price you pay for avoiding the highway... We knew we were in for a dirt road of dubious quality.. We knew we'd have to take it slow. Oh boy. Very VERY slow. Hard to believe, but the one on the back was told to NOT PUSH. (That actually kept me rather amused and in high …
Continue reading Day 3 – Crescent Head to Port Macquarie via Maria River Rd
We really, REALLY didn't want to ride on the highway between Port and Kempsey. Wouldn't have wanted to before the upgrade with lack of shoulder, and speeds. It's possibly worse during construction, as in this section, a lot of the dual carriageway upgrade follows the alignment of the current/old highway. There are two dirt roads …
Continue reading Day 3-Crescent Head to Port Macquarie via Maria River Rd (map and notes)
A big day out. Add a couple of kilometres to that 97 total, because we forgot to put Strava on until we'd cycled down the road a bit of the way from the motel, doubled back to the cafe we'd missed, and then remembered to start recording a few hundred metres after a rushed 'come …
via Grassy Head and Stuarts Point. Link to Strava map We mostly took the riverside shared path out of Nambucca (because I knew it took us under the highway and onto a shared path on the western side. Plus there are some really nice riverside sections.) Pros and cons. Shared paths are often a pain …
Continue reading Day 2 – Nambucca Heads to Crescent Head (map & notes)
1. Final prepping saw us finally get away about 11am. (This app is a bit clunky, so I'm not sure how my patience is going to go!) The grand plan is to avoid the highway as much as possible, but for the first stretch familiar territory, we just wanted to get going, and get …
So, unfortunately it seems that these strava route maps don't really zoom. This link , however, will take you to a public strava page.. and you can at least zoom in and out on the map, albeit not full screen. [Looking more closely, I've just realised that there is some sort of glitch with the route through Coffs city …
Continue reading Day 1 – Sandy to Nambucca (route map and notes)
Tandem Tours 