Kambah to Crookwell on the BNT
I only discovered this thread recently, so this trip report is a few months old. Last weekend in May to be precise.
Gaz (Giraffe Boy) made an attempt on the whole Bicentennial National Trail (Healsville to Cooktown) in April, but mechanicals thwarted the attempt. So as a way of accumulating more experience for a later attempt, we decided to do a section of the trail from Kambah (near Tuggeranong in South Canberra) to Wallerawang (west of Lithgow) up the Western side of the Great Dividing Range. The plan was to cover Kambah to near Crookwell on Day 1 (about 150ks), then Crookwell to Kanangra Boyd on Day 2 and then to Wallarawang on Day 3.
The interesting thing for me was the use of an ExtraWheel, kindly loaned by Dirt Works. Details and photos at
www.extrawheel.com. My KHS Tuscon 29er doesn't have rack mounts, so this was the only way I could carry panniers. It's a trailer that attaches using an expandable fork/spring that fastens to a special rear QR skewer. When you first put it on, you think "there ain't no way that will stay on!", but it does an tracks the back wheel of the bike beautifully and rolls so you don't know it's there. I descended down some tricky little chutes in Canberra and had no issues with it at all. I highly recommend it if you need to carry more stuff than a single set of panniers can fit.
Following the BNT around the Western edge of Canberra is a pain. As horse riders use it, there are many gates and styles that need negotiating and getting to Gungalin took a few hours longer than expected. Then its back roads (asphalt and dirt) to the top of the ridge above Lake George (the highway runs between the ridge and lake). After starting at 8am, we reached the lookout around 5pm as it was getting dark and was still 50k's from where we were going to camp. There's also some LONG climbs leading up to here. We rode another 25k's in the dark to another camp site. We built a fire, ate heartily, set up tents and crashed out.
Next morning was beautiful sunshine, so we breakfasted, pack up and was on the road by 8am heading for the Hume highway and then Crookwell. Gaz was having problems with a sore knee from smashing the climbs the day before. The terrain was mostly rolling, 50% dirt, 50% tar back roads. We covered the 75k's to Crookwell by 1pm and stopped for lunch at a very good take away. Gaz's knee was getting worse so we decided to stop in Crookwell. There's a very nice campground near the river at the end of the main street with hot showers. Next morning we were rescued by Gaz's wife.
So now we have unfinished business. The best part of the ride was looming as we would have headed to Taralga, then up through Kanagra-Boyd on fire trails up to Jenolan Caves. We will do this, but it will have to wait until my broken collar bone is strong enough to handle the 300k.