Hi friends! Australia 2012 is coming;)

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Montgomery Brogan
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Re: Hi friends! Australia 2012 is coming;)

Postby Montgomery Brogan » Mon Jul 09, 2012 9:45 pm

Hi guys!!

Im here now and, as planned, I did whole the Great Ocean Road. Simply amazing!!!! Such a great show!! I was very lucky cause I have not had rainy days and always sunny. The good news ends here...because it was very very cold. Is not the temperature that impressed me, just 5 / 6° in the day and about 0° in the night...but the very high humidity. I spent 2 night in a camping, Port Campbell and another one in Cape Otway. The last one it was a nightmare and I have decided, after I took the flu, to change my plans and to move to north before looking for a warmer climate. Few degrees more are perfect to stay in tent and in general, enjoy the trip.

Now I'm in Sydney and I will stay here for 4 days, to visit the city and also, first of all, to prepare an alternative travel plan. I have to organize more time. I have now free about 15 days. Pratically the time I needed to get to Sydney by bicycle, as planned.

The next stop will be in Katoomba for visit Blue Mountain and from there I could start this new alternative itinerary. Have you some good idea about nice places that I could reach? Inland, Broken Hill is 1000 km far from Katoomba...could be a good place? Do you know if is a nice road to go there? Eventually, once reached Broken Hill, I could take a train to comeback in Katoomba and continue my original plan towards east coast and Queensland.

I need your precious suggestions guys, now I'm here and I have no much time to organize the B plan. :D


Ciao,
Monty

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il padrone
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Re: Hi friends! Australia 2012 is coming;)

Postby il padrone » Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:52 pm

Inland will be warmish by day and cold, cold, cold at night. The road is long, long, long, and BORING, with very little of attraction, especially once past Dubbo.

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Skip Broken Hill. From Sydney I'd recommend to keep heading north, mainly following the coast, and if you have more time go past Brisbane to head for Maryborough. Some of the routes inland through the mountains could be really scenic but again will be pretty cold this time of year.
Last edited by il padrone on Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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CommuRider
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Re: Hi friends! Australia 2012 is coming;)

Postby CommuRider » Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:53 pm

I'd recommend going up north after the mountains - Bathurst, Orange, Mudgee. Mudgee is wine country. Also, a bit long but Moree is good this time of year with its hot springs

http://www.moreetourism.com.au/

It is our natural hot springs...nothing like the hot springs of your Saturnia but the water comes from the Great Artesian Basin.
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Montgomery Brogan
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Re: Hi friends! Australia 2012 is coming;)

Postby Montgomery Brogan » Mon Jul 09, 2012 11:16 pm

il padrone wrote: Some of the routes inland through the mountains could be really scenic but again will be pretty cold this time of year.
Interesting, and I was thinking, even if could be pretty cold will be surely a warmer temperature compared Victoria no? Could you give me some indications about these scenic routes? It seems a great idea also to visit some inland territories..

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il padrone
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Re: Hi friends! Australia 2012 is coming;)

Postby il padrone » Tue Jul 10, 2012 12:15 am

The New England Tablelands in northern NSW (around Armadale, Tamworth, Glenn Innes and Tenterfield) are up at about 900-1100m and can be bitterly cold this time of year. North of there at Stanthorpe in Queensland they had snowfalls just a couple of weeks ago. Armidale forecast 2 deg tonight, 12 tomorrow, Glen Innes 5-11 deg.

Regarding routes up north through this region I'm no expert. The main highway is the New England Hwy - I don't know how pleasant or safe it is to ride. Others on here may have more local advice. Further west is the Newell Hwy but it is a very flat, open road and the main inland direct route from Melbourne to Brisbane, so I would not ride it by choice. The one place along this route that I would consider a visit to however would be the Warrumbungle Ranges near Coonanbarabran - a long way to get there but worth it for the scenery, wildlife and mountain walks.

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Meditator
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Re: Hi friends! Australia 2012 is coming;)

Postby Meditator » Tue Jul 10, 2012 3:21 am

I thought you had been researching this trip for months and months but you seem to have ignored one of the most important and obvious factors - the weather.

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Re: Hi friends! Australia 2012 is coming;)

Postby Uncle Just » Tue Jul 10, 2012 9:44 am

From Sydney I'd recommend to keep heading north, mainly following the coast, and if you have more time go past Brisbane to head for Maryborough.
+1. A couple of weeks ago I drove to Qld from Melbourne on the Newell stopping at Moree for a few days to enjoy a soak in the hot springs. :D I did one ride around the area and it put me off. It is cotton harvesting time and the highways are full of long road trains loaded with cotton. Now I didn't have local knowledge in Moree but the Newell as Pete says is a main route for interstate trucks. You would be far better off imo enjoying the coastal route to Brisbane from Sydney using quieter roads. Keep off the Pacific hwy as it is very busy and narrow in places. This area with its lovely beaches and mild temps is, apart from Qld and the top end, a far better place to tour at this time of year than the cold SE of Australia.

BTW I drove to the Gold Coast on the Gwydir, New England and Bruxner Hwys through Glen Innes and it had overnight temps of -6c.

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Re: Hi friends! Australia 2012 is coming;)

Postby RonK » Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:27 am

As we warned you at the beginnIng of this thread, it gets cold here in winter. Maybe not as cold as a European winter, but too cold for comfortable touring. For some reason foreign visitors seem to assume that Australia is always warm and sunny.
Anywhere inland will be cold overnight, even in Queensland, but the daytime temperatures will get warmer the further north you go.
Your best plan now would be to continue north along the coast. There are many nice little towns along the way, some that are worth spendIng a day or two now that you have time to spare.
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il padrone
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Re: Hi friends! Australia 2012 is coming;)

Postby il padrone » Tue Jul 10, 2012 10:31 am

Uncle Just wrote:You would be far better off imo enjoying the coastal route to Brisbane from Sydney using quieter roads. Keep off the Pacific hwy as it is very busy and narrow in places.
And it certainly is possible to ride from Sydney to Queensland and stay off the Pacific Hwy for all but about 30kms of the journey. This is my route north (from 14 years ago now).

Note - I took a few ferry crossings - Sydney Harbour Ferry to Manly, ferry across the Hawkesbury from Palm Beach to Patonga, and a ferry across the Hastings River at Port Macquarie to North Shore. Also some roads were fairly rough backtracks and forest roads, most notably the Point Plomer Track north from North Shore - quite OK on the MTB with 1.5" slick tyres, just lots of big potholes in the sandy clay track that would hold up a car. All the locals said "Oh no, I wouldn't ride a bike along that road". Just for reference, in case you haven't already encountered this, anytime a driver or local says this, chances are pretty good that it is an excellent road for cycling.
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Montgomery Brogan
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Re: Hi friends! Australia 2012 is coming;)

Postby Montgomery Brogan » Tue Jul 10, 2012 3:59 pm

Meditator wrote:I thought you had been researching this trip for months and months but you seem to have ignored one of the most important and obvious factors - the weather.

I wouldn't say that I have ignored the weather, morover, in the last months I tried to catch as much informations I can. But a number (degrees) on a screen is never the same once on the battlefield. Repeat, is not temperature the problem, is high humidity index. I was in Moscow in february and it was -20° but extremely dry so with the right equipment there was no problem. I live in the other part of the world and is not so easy to prepare a travel like mine, through a huge country like yours.

But no drama, I'm extremely flexible. I have decided to do all coastal route up to north. No inland, this time I'll follow your suggestions ;) I had a ticket with the Sunlander from Maryborough West to Proserpine, instead to go with train I'll ride with my bike. Are just the thousand km that now I missed along the road.

Thank you guys!

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