My first full day of riding started early because I wasn't particularly comfortably sleeping and felt a need for some water. I arose at around 4am and rode the rest of the way into Nelson Bay, stopping at a servo to refill my water bottles which I had foolishly neglected the day prior. There I grabbed a big subway breakfast and chatted to a crazy old man about the floundering mullet in the water. There was also some time for more sleep before the ferry to Tea Gardens departed.
The ferry ride was not uneventful, with a stop to watch some dolphins partway. I also met a guy, Tom, who was riding to Byron Bay and had the same route planned for the day as myself through Myall Lakes and Booti Booti National Park. We got off at Tea Gardens and headed along Mungo Brush road. We stopped at Dark Point which was an aboriginal site, but looked like a whole heap of sand dunes on a beach. At Mungo Brush we lunched and I had a kip, then left Mungo Brush road for some adventure.
We had both planned to head down a road between Mungo Brush and Seal Rocks road which was marked as a walking track on some maps and a road on some others. We certainly weren't sure what to expect. It turned out to be an unsealed road which had been closed since 2005 and was in not a great condition. It was very rocky for the most part, and about 30cm deep in water for the rest, and we had to go about 10km at close to walking pace. I never fell in the drink, but Tom got a little wet. The rest of the way to Seal Rocks road it was good graded dirt road. My pannier rack broke at once stage and I fixed it up with zip ties, and Tom had some gear trouble, but otherwise a mishap free adventure.
After that it was Seal Rocks Road then onto Lakes Way and a bottlo. I was getting fairly tired towards the end of the day and Tom, who was a stronger rider, wanted to push on to the campsite at Booti Booti. He left me as it started to rain and made it to the campsite ahead of the coming storm, but I managed to get caught in a huge deluge. I was very glad when I finally pulled into The Ruins campground at Booti Booti and got out of the cold rain.
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Distance: 37km
To celebrate my unemployment and to get a bit of riding practice in I thought it might be a good idea to ride from Newcastle to Coffs, arriving in time for the Australian Ultimate Championships. I had a time limit of a few days, so the plan was to get to somewhere between Taree and Wauchope and catch a train.
On Saturday afternoon, still with somewhat of a hangover, I caught a train to Newcastle, the ferry to Stockton, and started pedalling towards Nelson Bay. I made it most of the way but was pedalling in the dark for a while so camped next to some grape vines. I was too lazy to set up the tent initially, thinking the weather to be fine, but it rained a little so wasn't completely comfortable.
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After reading around it seemed a good idea to get a Camping Card International (CCI). A CCI gets you discounts at a number of campgrounds in Europe, has some insurance associated with it, and (apparently) can be handed in in lieu of a passport at dodgy Balkan campgrounds that want to hold your ID hostage. To quote the CCI website, it "has the same value as a passport for the campsite owner." It seems to be a fairly common thing in Europe, but not so well known in Australia. You can get them from your local automobile association, so I went into NRMA and hung around for an hour and a half while they found the form. They required me to get NRMA membership, which doubled the cost of the card, but I only needed to get one between Millerine and myself.
Anyway, same value as a passport? My arse! Now I've got it I'm not sure if it will be accepted anywhere we try to use it. $50 for a card with my details (handwritten), laminated to look pretty. And Millerine's name is apparently associated with it, but in a magical non-visible way. They seem to think anyone who sees the card will just know, because they notified their partner automobile associations in Europe.
Dodgy!
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For my entire travelling life I've had access to airline staff benefits. This means access to cheap flights on many airlines around the world. Staff tickets are also standby tickets, which means I've been able to plan dates and buy tickets within a week of flying. This time it's different. I'll only have limited access to the benefits, so any flights in Europe, North America, or between the two continents, are commercial. To and from Australia will be on standby.
The biggest expense is of course getting between Europe and Vancouver. Air Berlin had a fantastic deal of €650 from Berlin to Vancouver, so we've locked that in.
The next issue is getting to South Eastern Europe. We've decided we want to see Budapest, Croatia, perhaps Montenegro, and everything else is a bonus. We're picking up our bikes from Tallinn, Estonia, from where there are no direct cheap flights to any of these places. Doing two flights with bikes is both a bitch and expensive. Easyjet charge €22 or so per bike per flight. Estonian Air had fairly cheap flights to Vienna which end up about AUD200 each including the bikes. This is reasonable, so now the plan is to take the train to Slovenia, then travel down through Croatia to Montenegro, then train back up to Budapest. This will probably take up three of the four available weeks (even covering large boring distances by train or ferry), so we'll be train travelling tourists on the way back to Tallinn.
Currently I'm excited about the thought of Slovenia and a little apprehensive about Croatia and Montenegro. The former seems a lot more cyclist friendly, although the latter are supposedly more visually stunning.
As the greater part of the trip will be in the Balkans, I've found this site particularly useful.
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In May my partner Millerine and I are going to head to Europe for the months leading up to WUGC in Vancouver in August. A portion of this time will be spent catching up with family and friends in Estonia, while another large portion of our time will be spent cycling through countries like the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Croatia. Hopefully we'll fit a couple of frisbee tournaments in there as well.
This blog will be little more than a record of this trip, so probably won't be of interest to the average passer by. However, I'm finding in my own online research that a lot of the most useful information is coming from other blogs of cycling trips through the area. There is not yet a lot of information available for the areas I'm travelling to, so my hope is that this blog will provide useful information for people following in my footsteps.
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