Fairy Meadow – Berry: BlueSteel City
On a bike tour it usually takes a few days to settle into “surreal”, but by day two we were there:
Dist: 82.0 km; Climb: 1090m; Ave Spd: 15.7 km/h; Total Dist: 145.4 km
Miranda expresses early outrage at an unprovoked comment:
The peloton departs 6:15 am
Who would have thought that Steel City could be so pretty?
And interesting. Guided via GPS through the Illawarra bike paths. This is where they make Widgets:
This is a tank full of GreenEdge:
Here is a steam shovel that can be controlled over the internet to move massive concrete blocks:
Then we ride into a Pink Floyd album cover:
Totally awesome! talk about Non-Ephemeral Art, these blocks have been around since WWII. A clicking frenzy ensues:
Merida:
Nishiki Cresta:
Synapse (Feminine):
Vulcan (It is a little known fact that much of Egyptian numerology is based on the tetrahedron and the seat tube angle):
Also note that the colour for this year’s Vulcan flower is orange:
And a glorious Malvern Star:
You just have to imagine the “Piper at the Gates of Dawn” soundtrack.
We continue south along the bike paths. A “grease-mark of shame” is noticed:
Lunch at Kiama:
The local bike shop does well: two tyres and a seat post.
After a brief squiz at the blow-hole, it’s time for the optional Kiama-Gerrigong cliff-walk (“How hard can it be?”)
Everyone found it pretty hard…
except for the young dudes:
At the end there is a stye…
and the beach to negotiate:
How is it that this photo shows no traffic?? The road into Berry was bad.
Woosh is the sound the peloton makes as we pass this point:
Suddenly we are relaxing at the showgrounds amoungst the Winnabagos. Jasper has either developed very cool tan-lines or impressive road-grime:
Mark goes for Tiger stripe tanlines, to offset his sunburn swollen ankles:
James, a nice return for a day invested on the bike:
A huge re-fuel at the Berry Pub. The publican “Boof” says he’s rung ahead to Nerriga Pub to arrange our accommodation out the back. We are dubious but buy up the raffle tickets. Malcolm wins 2nd prize in the raffle! In the coming days that toilet paper is worth its weight in gold:
Tomorrow is a crunch day as we attack The Great Dividing Range with a destination campsite that even the locals don’t know about.
New photos from James (days 1,2,4)