Monday 5 December 2011

Cycling Port Macquarie, Crescent Head, South West Rocks, Macksville, Coffs Harbor


December 1st Port Macquarie

Raining hard so we are going to stay here and catch up with stuff, washing blogging etc.  We have even moved into a cabin for the night, first time in OZ!  We took a walk along the sea wall and there are loads of body boarders out and the skate park is also full of kids.  It must be a good place to grow up.  Got some tinsel for the flag pole on the trailer, it is Christmas after all!

December 2nd Port Macquarie – Crescent Head 40km

A little drizzle but we left anyway.  No big rush as we haven’t got far to go but most of it is on dirt roads.  We made our way out of town and got a ferry across the river which only took a couple of minutes.  Once on the other side there was next to no traffic and we were soon on the dirt road.  It was actually in pretty good condition and we managed to do the 30km of dirt in about 2 hours leaving just a short run into Crescent Head for lunch.

Nice beach and loads of guys surfing, we set up camp and went to see if we could hire a board.  We found that randomly the post office hires boards but are closed on the weekend so we would have to take it today and return it on Monday and they charge $50 a day.  We thought that was a bit pricey but the reason we didn’t hire them was that we couldn’t hire a wetsuit anywhere and the water is pretty cold!

We were going to stay here for another day but as we can’t surf we are going to move on.  The campsite doesn’t have a kitchen so it was a great excuse to go out for dinner, Thai again!
Crescent Head


December 3rd Crescent Head – South West Rocks 52km

Not the original plan but it sounded like a nice place in the guide book and the girls in a café along the way said it was beautiful so we change our plan from Macksville to South West Rocks.  The road is very quiet and flat passing through farmland for most of the way.  The beach is awesome so we walked from end to end.  At the far end is a prison used to house convicts who were building a break water in the 1800s.  Whilst we walked around it we got a good picture of a kangaroo and its baby.

The campsite has a kitchen and a TV room so food and then chill out and watch the TV for a while.
South West Rocks



December 4th South West Rocks – Macksville

It was really hot when we left at 8.30am so we knew we were in for a scorcher.  The mozzies here are

some kind of mutant breed with huge stabbers to bite you with.  I covered all of my exposed skin with repellent and then they started getting me through my shirt!  This was the only downside to this campsite and it only affected us at the tent as all of the common areas had electric mozzie zappers.

We headed for Macksville today and stopped at Grassy Head.  The beach here is lovely as they all are so we stopped for lunch and a break from the midday sun.  For the next few km we had to work as the road had the steepest climbs we have come across in Oz so far but thankfully they were only short.  Soon the road flattened out again and we made good speed along the quite roads until we hit the highway once again.  It wasn’t long before we hit Macksville but we passed right through looking for a campsite which was 3km out of town.

The campsite had a great pool and facilities and it also seemed like we were the only ones there!  I guess it was more park homes style with people living on site and just camping and caravans in peak season.  It suited us perfectly.
Grassy Head



December 5th Macksville – Coffs Harbour

Not a brilliant ride today as a lot of the time was spent on the highway.  The shoulder was ok most of the time but had a habit of disappearing leaving you at the mercy of the trucks.  We took a short detour to get of the highway for a while.  It lead us to Urunga where we stopped for lunch and took pictures of these birds with very long beaks.

Back on the highway for a few km then we took the old road and then a short dirt road, the change was good although slowed us down a lot.  When we popped out we expected to be on the highway but instead we were on the old highway which is now hardly used because of a new dual carriage way.  It was weird as this huge road in great condition had no cars on it, just us!  Best bit of the ride today!  The odd car passed before we turned off and headed into Coffs harbor.

We found a campsite close to the center and pitched the tent near the river.  After returning from the shops we found the tent surrounded by ducks and ducklings.  We must have moved into their spot.

We are going to take a day off tomorrow if it rains which is looking very likely.

Check out those beaks!

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