Day: 003
Date: Saturday, 04 July 2020
Start: Taree
Finish: Port Macquarie
Daily Kilometres: 102
Total Kilometres: 359
Weather: Cool and breezy early with some light rain, then milder and partly sunny
Accommodation: Motel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Apple slice/Egg & bacon roll and thickshakes
Lunch: Chicken Schnitzel sandwich/Chicken salad roll
Dinner: Lasagne and chicken bake, shared, and custard danish
Aches: A few niggles and saddle soreness for both
Highlight: The unsealed road section from Crowdy Head to about 7km south of Laurieton was our favourite. Much of it was through Crowdy Bay National Park, a vast heathland behind Crowdy Bay, and other parts were through undulating green forests interspersed with remote rural properties. Scarce traffic was the icing on the cake.
Lowlight: We paid for the "highlight", above on the last 7km into Laurieton. The road mixed jarring rocks and stones with even more jarring corrugations. Butts and bikes got a work-out.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
Last night, I spent some time working out our remaining days to the Queensland border. We are a little ahead of schedule, but can't cross the border until it opens to New South Wales residents on Friday, so we'll slow down a little and have a day off at Woolgoolga.
That meant that today's ride was going to be about 100km, less than the last few days. In an effort to slow Julie down, I suggested she go for an early morning run into Taree to see the Manning River at sunrise. She got some excellent pictures, but it didn't slow her down on the bike.
We left our motel soon after 8am, and made good time northeast along the freeway across the verdant Manning River valley with the aid of a nice tailwind. I even saw a fox running through the fields parallel to the road, harried by some angry plovers. It rained a little, but not enough to get very wet. We left the freeway at Coopernook, and turned east towards the coast along a quieter rural road. Excitement on this stage was provided by a woman in her pajamas working hard on a stairmaster on the verandah of her isolated property, probably not expecting a couple of nosey cyclists to cruise slowly past.
At the unexpectedly large residential development of Harrington Waters on the Manning River, we found a small mall, interestingly centred around a small church, and had breakfast at a bakery/cafe. Initially, we sat at a table outside, but the wintry breeze soon had us relocating to the interior.
From there we rode through the smaller original village of Harrington and then on to Crowdy Head where the vast sandy beach of Crowdy Bay stretched northwards dotted with 4WD vehicles. Then it was north to Laurieton on an unsealed, and much quieter road (see above), still aided by a nice tailwind. Laurieton was busy, and after a bit of searching, we found a cafe where we sat at a sheltered table outside in the sun enjoying our sandwiches.
The last 32km to our destination, Port Macquarie, was along a busy coastal road with a narrow edge that passed through a number of beach resorts and incorporated some short sharp hills that kept us honest. When we reached Port Macquarie, we "enjoyed" some even bigger hills as we followed the scenic Pacific Drive into town. Our granny gears got a workout.
At our motel, where we arrived about 3:30pm, we were asked to leave our bikes in a locked conference room. Our preference is to keep our bikes in our rooms, but this was a reasonable solution. After showers, we walked a few hundred metres downtown, rugged up against the cold wind, and bought some lasagne and chicken bake for dinner at a supermarket deli which we later microwaved in our room (along with some dessert). Another good day.
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