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After the hustle and bustle of Sydney we set off for the South Island of New Zealand for a complete change of pace. Before heading to my wife’s home town in the far south of the country we decided to … Continue reading
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As we almost reached the end of the Australian leg of our journey we spent two days in the wonderful Blue Mountains of New South Wales. Running right down the Eastern coast of the Australian continent is a range of … Continue reading
As soon as we arrived at my in-laws house in the northern suburbs of Sydney I was looking at the map working out where to get in a ride or two, especially as I had a very nice road bike on loan. My expectation was encouraged by knowing that the landscape is really interesting and the amazing weather forecast was promising around twenty degrees and mostly dry weather every day. You cannot do better than that for a winter holiday and I certainly wanted to get some kilometres in because the weather prospects for New Zealand were much less promising.
The map was extremely enticing. To the north of my start point in Beecroft is the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park and it had some brilliant looking roads running up to the coastal inlets that define this area. However I was less clear about the actual topography or the road quality and to get there it seemed I had some busy highways to navigate so I was a little hesitant before my first attempt.
I can report now that over a week I found three outstanding rides which offered the low traffic volumes, spectacular views and exciting riding that I was looking for. The numerous cyclists I saw on each route confirmed that I must have dropped on to some real local favourites.
My health warning is that while the scenic roads were brilliant the access was much less so. I was exposed to more high speed traffic and unpleasant riding conditions than I am happy with. This may explain why many locals seemed likely to have driven out to the National Park before riding. It was also my first exposures to the fact that any in suburban Sydney are a very distinctive group with a completely different perspective on what constitutes a good bike ride to anywhere else I have been. However that will be a later post, for now let’s concentrate on the positive.
My first ride was about an hour and a half through a feature on the map called the Galston Gap. The attraction on the map was an area of green adjoining the National Park called the Berowa Valley Regional Park with a very wiggly road running across it which could only be hairpin bends – oh yes please! The ride up to Hornsby was a bit of an induction, it involved a very nervy crossing of the multi-lane Pennant Hills Road and then a road that can only be called a roller coaster, there wasn’t a flat bit on it. I was puffing like a steam train by the time I even thought about the Galston Road.
However I was then rewarded by a 4 km descent and a 3km climb on quieter roads through a wooded valley which cheered me enormously.
The next ride was my longest and by far the most spectacular. I was quite sure that I wanted to ride the road right through the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park out to the great looking headland at West Head but I decided to Google a bit to see if a dead end road like that would be worth it. I was very pleasantly surprised when almost top of the Google ranking was a very positive 2010 description of the ride on the excellent “Richard Tulloch’s Life on the Road” blog which I follow.
Richard and his son went by car but I was determined to make a half day ride of it so I wanted to ride out. My sister-in-law assured me that the long link via the Mona Vale Road was a popular cyclists’ route because “there are always cyclists on it” so I decided that it was all quite possible.
I can say now that I am incredibly pleased that I made the effort, the West Head Road is a spectacular triumph of a cycling road on a quiet sunny week day in winter. I saw perhaps a dozen cars, far more cyclists, the road surface was spectacularly smooth and rolled up down and around the contours for about 20km in each direction.As I approached its north end and the head itself the peninsula narrowed offering great views over the sea inlets on either side and then ended in the West Head lookout itself.
I enjoyed a very pleasant twenty minutes or so just taking in the views and taking pictures before I retraced my steps. This really is an amazing route, not to be ignored just because it is a dead end. It is one of the highlights of my Sydney trip.
I could say I am really pleased about the other 45km of the ride through the suburbs. I am pleased for my fitness and because I was out on the bike. However in all honesty it was really hard riding on many of those roads because the hills are ferocious and the traffic is really busy. There’s no escape from the noise and the fumes anywhere. Mona Vale Road may suit Sydney’s head case cyclists, but it isn’t for me if I could avoid it. I kept hoping that I would discover the secret back roads that the local riders use for scenic cycle touring but in that part of the city the back roads don’t seem connect because of the steep sided valleys so bikes are using the same corridors as the cars and freight.
That explains why my final offering for the “three great rides” was a car assist, after a lunch at the beach I got dropped off to complete the third leg of my valleys’ triple. This time it was back into Ku-Ring-Gai Chase for the Bobbin Head ride. I started at St. Ives and had a fantastic long descent of about 3km down to the sea at Bobbin Head, right at the heart of the national park. This secluded inlet is only home to an exclusive set of moorings on the water and a visitor area on shore, otherwise it is a silent green haven with steep sided valleys cutting it off like walls on all sides. It was almost deserted apart from a few fishermen and occasional passing cyclists.
This ride is apparently popular for local clubs because it isn’t just a dead end, it climbs up to Hornsby on a similar long shallow climb which conveniently has been spray painted with 500 metre intervals all the way up. (3km I can report).
Again I just thrashed the final 25 minutes from Hornsby and rode the final kilometre into Beecroft on the pavement to avoid the trucks but it wasn’t enough to diminish the pleasure of the overall ride.
Conclusions?
There is probably a way of combining these rides into a spectacular set of touring and training routes that would be one of the most outstanding cycle routes you could imagine anywhere. (I have put them all together in this Google Map) Unfortunately from my perspective the horrible access roads currently make them rather exclusive to serious cyclists who feel comfortable on busy roads or those who drive out to the national park.
As a set of shorter rides each can be exceptional, especially the West Head ride which is a superb ride by any definition. Possibly the ferries that link some of the beaches could be the “missing link”, as could access by mountain bike which opens up a lot of tracks and trails, I didn’t quite work that out in the time I had. If I lived there maybe I would work it out.
However that doesn’t stop me saying that I am really glad I did these three rides, the chance to ride in the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park was a cycling high spot on this holiday.
This gallery contains 21 photos.
If anyone ever asks me what to do in Australia I always say “spend at least two days in Sydney, go to the harbour and ride the Manly Ferry.” This might upset my Melbourne friends because of the rivalry between … Continue reading
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One thing was absent for seven days during my recent trip to in Melbourne. Cycling. Catching up with family and friends is always special. We explored some lovely settings. We consumed large quantities of excellent food and drink. But my … Continue reading
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Another of my short gallery posts from Australia, this time leaving Melbourne to visit Fish Creek, two hours south-east from central Melbourne in the farming region of South Gippsland. This could so easily have been a cycling post. Having arrived … Continue reading
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Next in my mini-series of the Melbourne suburbs where family and friends now live. By contrast to yesterday’s post on the country suburb of Yarrambat this time we go back to the waterside and the boating heaven of Patterson Lakes. … Continue reading
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I always understood that Sydney is Australia’s glamour city in terms of tourism but Melbourne is the constant winner in terms of lifestyle. From this trip we certainly found that our family and friends in Melbourne have developed amazing variety … Continue reading
Not two words often combined – cycling and dolphins.
I have had not one but two encounters with these beautiful creatures and both times it happened while cycling. I am sure some readers come from places where they are common but for me they are an extraordinary treat, a fascination from nature programmes on TV since childhood.
On Monday I took a Melbourne bike share bicycle out from the city to revisit the area I lived nearly 30 years ago when I was working in the city. I was returning along the beachfront cycle paths in Middle Park when I spotted the few people on the beach were staring out to sea and taking photos. I couldn’t pick up what it was while riding but I assumed an interesting boat or some divers so I stopped against the beach wall.
I was absolutely delighted when I realised that there was a small family of dolphins, two adults and a youngster, circling around about 200 metres off shore. The water was millpond smooth on the almost windless afternoon so every ripple was visible. Sadly they never jumped right out of the water but I spent nearly 15 to 20 minutes watching and trying to coincide my photos with the places they surfaced. I was told there were dolphins in the bay when I lived here before but despite coming to this beach to run or swim for much of that year I never saw them. They cannot be that common off these beaches because their appearance was reported in a local paper the next day so I felt even more privileged.
My mind was also taken back nearly nine years to my previous dolphin encounter which remains one of life’s cycle touring highlights. My son Ben and I had a special cycle tour down the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island in December 2005 when he was 14 years old. On the longest day’s ride from Fox Glacier to the Haast Pass the road passed right along a beach and we decided this was the place for our lunch stop. Obligatory stone throwing and larking about ensued before we tackled the sandwiches sitting on the low sea wall. (Bruce Bay I think)
However the notorious West Coast sandflies soon discovered their own free lunch and despite the prodigious amounts of deterrent spray we were about to give up when we had our magic moment. A little group of black and white dusky dolphins started surfing in the waves. They clearly seemed to be playing as they returned time after time in ones and 
twos to race in just under the wave crests. Then as quickly as they had come they disappeared with just a departing fin and a splash on the surface.
On both these occasions I really feel I would not have stopped if I had been in a car or on a tour bus and I would not have recognised the dolphins at driving speed.
Slow travel with the ability to stop and start almost anywhere is part of what makes cycling so special and I treasure my wildlife encounters almost as much as my human ones. I also perhaps wish I carried a bigger, higher quality camera when I am photographing animals because they are even more difficult than cyclists for reasonable images.
But the quality of the photos cannot take away the memories and dolphin encounters remain rare and precious moments in my cycling life.
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“So what did you think of Adelaide?” will be the obvious question as we move on around Australia and then back home in a few weeks. Especially as I haven’t been here for nearly 30 years. The honest answer might be … Continue reading
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If I lived in Rimini I would spend a lot of time in the Café Delle Rosa.
I am a morning person. (If you regard mornings as a torture inflicted on you personally by the devil you can probably ignore the rest of this post!). I wake relatively early when I am at home and in hotel rooms it is quite common that I am awake at four or five am. More than a few of these blog posts have been written in the early hours, but more importantly I think morning is the perfect time to be out in the world. The light, wildlife, tranquillity, empty roads all add up to a great time to see a place or a country. Here in Rimini the view from my room to the mountains of the Marche was just so much sharper in the morning it was tempting me out immediately.
The frustration with that is that I am also a breakfast person and waking up in a hotel where I cannot even get a coffee until 7.30 am can really takes the shine off an early wander.
As a chilly morning started in Rimini I was tempted out of my hotel room by the prospect of a walk and a chance to catch the beach while it was deserted.
To my joy I discovered that close to the sea front was this wonderful 24 hour café serving delicious fresh pastries and confirming why the coffee machine is perhaps Italy’s greatest gift to the world. (More than Campagnolo?….now there’s a debate.) I needed some “me-time” and a passed almost an hour sorting out the world in my head.
I cannot imagine that I would ever want to live in a place that has 7 million visitors a year and in peak season sells its beach by the square metre. But if I did I would come down here on one of the shared Rimini bikes that have a parking point perfectly positioned in front of the café. My only dilemma would be whether to walk and cycle along the beach before or after my coffee.
Ever had that that moment when you look out and you see a cyclist in just the perfect place?
Tuesday evening, Rimini Harbour on Italy’s Adriatic coast. Looking out along the harbour walls I saw this cyclist positioned against the darkening skies, far from the noise of the town. He stayed there motionless as we passed by, clearly soaking up the sea air.
Magical.
More to come from one of Italy’s busiest cycling towns over the coming days.
I managed to get out for three decent bike rides on this year’s visit to Taipei, however it was a very different experience to last year. The defining factor this year was water. The downpours which hit us on almost every day could certainly have killed off my enthusiasm, but instead provided a backdrop to this year’s explorations. In the previous two years I didn’t get up into the forested hills that sweep down into the city on all sides and are the product of all that rain. They go up over 1000 metres from sea level within the city boundaries and apparently cover almost half the land area which must make it one of the hilliest and greenest capital cities in the world.
Through this year’s rides I became more aware of how this landscape links with the city and how much the residents value green space and plants which burst into life in the warmth and humidity of the island. And my very final stop on the trip was the steamiest of all – the hot springs district of Beitou which deserves not only a comment as a ride destination but will get a small post of its own to follow this one.
Not all things are publishable however. Our friends from Tern Bicycles put on their Thursday social ride again this year. It was social. It was a ride. As ever their bikes are comfortable and smart with some nice features. But it hammered down with rain. I have a lot of photos that look rather too much like this, and very few that look like the one below,
Their Facebook page has a much better selection, but you get the story. But good company and a bike ride are always highlights in the Idonotdespair world, so I enjoyed it and as ever the clothes dried out. Eventually.Thanks to the Tern team.
My two other excursions were better for sharing and learning about Taipei.
Monday Youbike Bimble
A brief gap in the showers before the Taipei Cycle Show allowed me to grab a Youbike and set off from my hotel. Last year I experienced the city and the riverside cycle paths so my ambition this time was to try and get into the hills I could see from my window.
Xinyi district is mostly known to travellers as the administrative centre, shopping and property hot spot of Taipei, focussed around the City Hall and Taipei 101, for several years the world’s tallest building and an icon of Taipei. The area has modern malls, offices and busy roads. There are cycle lanes and Youbikes too, which is handy.
But within just a very short distance by bike the very new developments end and disappear into a maze of residential alleys and back streets which rear up into the steep slopes and verdant forest of the hills. Out of curiosity I heaved myself up some of these steep ramps to the bemusement of the residents who were clearly not used to seeing tourists round here. There are also a number of waymarked and well signed walking trails that were leading up to the mountain tops which showed a considerable local demand for enjoying these green spaces. The Fuyang Eco Park was busy with walkers and joggers, plus it gave me the backdrop to my lovely moment with a Grandfather teaching his granddaughter to ride (see earlier post)
What immediately caught my eye is the way the buildings seem to just merge into the hills, only stopping at the steepest of overhangs.
And not only is the greenery outside, there is clearly a passion for plants with every balcony and doorway having a range of healthy looking plants in pots. Where there was a flat spot these would often be flourishing vegetable patches or in the middle class gardens there were beautiful flashes of colour from decorative foliage and flowers.
It is such mixture in a small area. Small industrial plots, temples, shacks, apartment blocks and expensive villas catering for all levels of society. Given a different bike and a stronger constitution I might have climbed more of the side streets, but a three hour bimble around the different areas was full of variety.
The traffic was also well behaved too, the streets are narrow and busy which has a traffic calming effect which I appreciated.
Saturday touring ride.
My second memorable ride was on Saturday, the day we left. We were invited out by our new friends at Formosa Lohas Cycling Association www.flca.tw to come and see how they organise their touring rides. The club is relatively new but is making strong progress with a mix of promotional activities for cycling, especially based on cycle touring, events and cycling education for children. As my regular readers know I am very fond of cycling clubs and within minutes of chatting to Development Director Demi Huang and her colleagues it was immediately clear that we were kindred spirits, chatting away about rides, routes and advocacy for ages.
Demi offered us a ride with some of the club’s experienced Tour Guides and we suggested a half day starting in Taipei so that we could also pack our bags and prepare for departure. To be honest, the omens were not good because the rain just bucketed down all morning, but at least it wasn’t cold so Bernhard and I were up for the ride.
Gathering point for a small but hardy group was down on the riverside cycle path where we were kitted out with two nice sporty looking machines with straight bars. Guide James explained our route, a loop of about 20km around the river banks, then up to “Hell Valley” and the Beitou Springs area. The convenient planning board shows that we were to go out into the teeth of the rainstorm and then take a more sheltered line up to Beitou.
The opening kilometres were certainly exposed because our route was not down at water level like other sections of the path that I rode last year. This section sits right up on top of the typhoon defences and looked down on the homes and businesses behind the wall. The views were expansive, but decidedly murky. Clearly Bernhard was at home, this could almost be a Dutch dyke path.
Beyond the walls were mud flats and reed beds that are now popular for bird watching. It was hard to imagine our hosts description of the rivers as the centre for trade with waterside wharves everywhere. Today it is a world closed off from the city.
Once round the confluence of the two rivers we had the wind behind and swept towards a very impressive suspension style bridge. We were struck by the cycle ramps, huge cycle lanes and segregated sections for bikes, scooters and cars.
The view from the bridge was interesting too, it gave an impression of how committed the local authorities are to high quality facilities along these river paths. We could see a fun mountain bike park already completed and under construction a water filled park being landscaped to fit the land space between typhoon defence and river. Clever use of buffer land which will also improve flooding resilience. Now if only other countries were that sensible.
The benefits of local guides were apparent when we swung away from the river bank and headed north through a series of embankments and small roads. Our guides called this “our secret route” and it was a treasure. Almost vehicle free but taking us through something like a garden zone of rice fields and market gardens cutting right into the heart of the city. Several people I have talked to spontaneously started talking about the Taiwanese love of fresh fruit and vegetables and the expertise of their farmers, certainly the quality of the fruit and veg at meal times is outstanding. We were rewarded with herons and cranes foraging in the rice fields as we passed, oblivious to our presence.
It was almost a shock to pop out of the quiet lanes into urban hustle but we had been brought almost to the heart of Beitou by our guides. A gentle climb took us up to a range of sights in this popular visitor area.
The true finish of our ride was the thermal valley itself, which was a mass of steam and smells of sulphur where the hot water gushes up from the volcanic rock at a temperature of almost 90 degrees. All around us streams carried away hot water to be piped into the hotels and bath houses which have been a feature of the area since Japanese occupation from 1895-1945. The main bath house, now a museum, was built in 1913.
Our day finished with steaming hot baths in a hot springs hotel and a delicious meal with our guides, but more of that in my next post.
For now let me just say that once again the friendliness and hospitality of our Taiwanese hosts was unbeatable. The Formosa Lohas guides were knowledgeable and courteous cycling guides and I am absolutely sure that one of their multi-day rides around Taiwan would be a great holiday. James was clearly an experienced leader and Bike Lin (yes that is his name) is the author of two well-regarded tour guides about cycling in Taiwan so I am not surprised they are getting more and more enquiries from around the world. They are going to be popular and welcomed members of the ECF cycling family too.
In summary – another week in Taipei which turned out to be far more than rooms full of bikes on show. Increasingly the international travel media is saying that cycling in Taipei is one of the country’s visitor highlights. I am not going to disagree.
This gallery contains 22 photos.
Before we went to the UK a few weeks ago my wife and I were discussing the meaning of “home”. Although we grew up on opposite sides of the planet we both had the benefit of spending many of our … Continue reading
I Do Not Despair 