Day: 002
Date: Friday, 03 July 2020
Start: Tea Gardens
Finish: Taree
Daily Kilometres: 124
Total Kilometres: 257
Weather: Cool and sunny early, then mild and mostly sunny with a southerly breeze
Accommodation: Motel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Chocolate muffins
Lunch: Half an egg, lettuce & mayo roll and half a small vege quiche each (we got their last fresh roll).
Dinner: Pizza and garlic bread
Aches: I had a few niggles and some unmentionable chafing, while Julie had some saddle soreness and a painful little toe.
Highlight: Riding the Old Gibber Trail and Mining Trail through Myall Lakes National Park linking two sections of coast that would otherwise require a long detour inland. It was a park management trail, closed to vehicles, that crossed a scrubby floodplain then climbed over a low timbered mountain range. We saw two other recreational cyclists early on, but then had it all to ourselves as we cruised along in warm sunshine. It was rough and rocky in places, but elsewhere hard packed mud with a few large puddles to dodge.
Lowlight: About 10-15km either side of Forster-Tuncurry there was a narrow or non-existent edge to the road and a lot of fast moving traffic.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We left our Tea Gardens motel a little before 7am and cycled through the waking town and crossed the Myall River to Hawks Nest where we found a bakery to buy some breakfast muffins that we packed for a later breakfast. Then we headed north on Mungo Brush Road along the narrow spit of land that separates the Myall River from the ocean. In contrast to yesterday, we had the road to ourselves, seeing perhaps half a dozen cars in an hour and a half. It was fantastic. There were high sand dunes starkly lit by the rising sun occasionally visible to the right, and we passed through long stretches of temperate forest alternating with pockets of dense sub-tropical forest featuring palms and vines. Later, we could glimpse Bombah Broadwater through the forest to the left and eventually stopped for breakfast in a beautiful little picnic ground bordering the lake.
Shortly after we started riding again, we turned off the road onto the Old Gibber Trail (see above) and really enjoyed our first stretch of trail off the roads. After an hour and a half, we joined another sealed road and then wended our way along an undulating and windy road through forests, alongside lakes, and then through groves of palms before we reached the coast again at the magnificent Boomerang Beach where we took a break at a lookout.
From there we passed through the sub-tropical Booti Booti National Park and past some more beautiful beaches, before the long straight stretch into the holiday town of Forster. It was busy with traffic (Friday afternoon at the start of school vacation, so to be expected), but we were aided by a southerly breeze and made good time.
In Forster, we stopped for a late lunch, found a bakery with a few items left and then adjourned to a lovely little park overlooking the water. We were exposed to the cool southerly breeze and Julie soon had her jacket back on. After crossing the the long bridge over the Coolongolook River, we passed through the smaller town of Tuncurry and then rode north along The Lakes Way, again enjoying plenty of traffic and later some enervating climbs. I was struggling a bit on the hills, not helped by finding Julie glued to my tail every time I looked in my rear view mirror, when I was sure I was working hard enough to have left her behind. Despite the hills, we made good time, helped by the southerly breeze and reached the main Sydney-Brisbane Highway earlier than expected. From there, we had an easy run to our motel just off the highway in Taree where we arrived about 3:45pm.
It was another good day, with both of us going better than expected, enhanced by some great scenery, and well-behaved bikes.
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