After years of bike touring I know this to be true. You realise you are on the seat for a number of hours.. and you haven’t quite adjusted to the pace. This is how I felt today – but the weather certainly made me feel better.
Just look at the road.. it was like this for the majority of the day
But despite the corrugated roads… of which there were many (seemed never ending) it was good. I made it up this hill without stopping… not that you expected anything less from me.
As you can see there certainly was not many people around. But on the ride we did manage to meet another cyclist on the road who was in an ebike. Brian was cycling from Edithburgh to the lighthouse and return. He stayed with us for a bit and we chatted about bikes and past rides. always good to meet a fellow cyclist on the road!
The cyclist route separated from the walking route… and rejoined for shelter, and it was where we ate lunch early afternoon…
Thankfully.. after this we had about 8+km to go… but it felt longer with all the corrugations! Apologies to my ride companions for the complaints today – here’s to a better ride tomorrow!
This is where cosmopolitan Yorke Peninsula ends and the rugged south starts. There were two public toilets en-route – but under construction much to the dismay of my fellow cyclists.
We planned to deviate from the Walk the Yorke cycle route at a couple of spots because despite the intentions of the Yorke Peninsula Council for all intents and purposes these sections are unpassable for most cyclists. The path from Sultana Point to Heel Road and the path along “Diamond Lake Road”. We took road route alternatives, which are on our GPX files.
Having said all that, we even deviated from our own GPX so we could check out the wind farm visitor centre.
Wind farm.
This is one of my favourite parts of the tour. It is very exposed and very beautiful coastline supervised by the modern 1980 brick Troubridge Point lighthouse. Along this segment we met Brian who rode with us for while – even though his extra electric horse power meant he had to cycle very slowly to keep up with us.
Riding around the lighthouse
Not only are there no toilets but there are no places to eat lunch. So we brought our own supplies of snacks and had lunch at a delightful shelter between Troubridge Lighthouse and Port Moorowie as recommended by Brian. Vivienne’s Anzac biscuits are the best.
Hopefully Helen can find a photo of our lunch spot and post it tonight!!
Vivienne at the end of the ride.
Tomorrow will be a big adventure – roughly 45 kilometres along a route we have never ridden or driven. What could go wrong. Today’s GPX can be downloaded from Strava – Day 4 – Port Moorowie to Hillocks Drive
Certainly perfect for cycling. One of the usual topics on any multi-day ride is.. ‘how long is the ride?’ Doesn’t matter how much prep.. question is the same. But in reality it doesn’t matter as you always just keep pedalling. The Walk the Yorke is a little like that.. the path right around the peninsula can be a little rough.
Sometimes it also just stops… and the path does not exist.
… but you just keep going.
Depending on who you ask (there are only three of us) each one at the end had a different… 47… 50 something or if you ask me 60.81!
This is undoubtedly this most cosmopolitan part of the Southern Yorke Peninsula Tour. We start at Port Vincent and visit the towns of Stansbury, Wool Bay, Coobowie and Edithburgh.
The morning segment of the ride did have some lovely cliff top views, but also involved some riding along the Highway. Fortunately only a very small part of it was on the Highway. Other parts were on a gravel track next to the highway,
A relaxing view.
The morning segment finished at Stansbury where we ate at the excellent Dalrymple Hotel. I would highly recommend a stop here.
The PM part of the ride involved a ride on good quality dirt roads that connect to the Klein Point mine, good quality bitumen into Wools Bay and next to Port Giles. You can ride on the track next to the road near Port Giles it is a bit hit and miss. The road seems to be pretty quiet. But this wouldn’t be guaranteed during harvest.
The final part from Coobowie to Edithburgh is nice off-road path through the scrub with good views across to Port Giles. We arrived in time still with the sun on our side.
It started off well. The sky was heavy with cloud. Then it rained.
The photos are pretty deceptive.
Thankfully before lunch it didn’t rain for very long. It really wasn’t a long ride to lunch… but who is counting?
In preparing for the ride we have been to this coffee shop in Ardrossan a few times… and it’s pretty good. After lunch Vivienne and I push on to Rogues Point. As you might of expected it rained… that annoying light type of rain which is damp enough to annoy you but not too heavy.
Last year we had done this part of the ride a couple of times… clearly we had not gone far enough given the amount of sand we had to walk through!!
Nice view… but yes this part is better walking than cycling- not that you could if you wanted!
While it was a short ride – certainly a great start. Tomorrow… is going to be a longer day – let’s hope the weather is better.
This tour is planned as a weeklong tour from Port Vincent to Point Turton on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. While we have ridden Brompton’s on the Yorke Peninsula this time we opted for bikes more suited to corrugated gravel.
The first day is a “transition day”. We left Adelaide at 9:00am and enjoyed the North-South Motorway – especially the bit between the T2T and the “Superway”.
The first ride was the prologue – not really part of the tour, but fun nonetheless partly because it starts at Tiddy Widdy Beach and ends at Rogues Point and partly because Ardrossan is a nice part of the world. It was only around 15km.
Ardrossan from near the town jetty
Given the short prologue, we were meant to do a second ride in the afternoon from Port Vincent – a loop ride through the golf course! But it was wet, so instead we just tootled around town. Luckily getting to see some sea-lions (or seals?) at the marina.
There are sea-lions over there.
Tonight we are staying at Port Vincent and have just eaten garfish and chips at the famous Port Vincent Kiosk. We were hoping for the world’s best pineapple fritters – but circumstances conspired against us – like many things these days – there appears to be a shortage of slice pineapple rings!
For today’s reccey we drove to Port Vincent from Wallaroo. After your typical fish & chips lunch and the obligatory walk on the jetty (by heck its cold out here) we cycled off towards Point Pearce.
From the jetty there is no sign we could locate to where the walk the Yorke trail continues. Although truth be told.. there are not many options. We went down a little path near the foreshore which needed up in front of a number of holiday shacks at the local caravan park. Be where if you take this path you end up walking up stairs – which we did.. but there are not on many.
The path to start off is bitumen.. but don’t let this give you a false sense of security about the rest of the ride. The path takes you along the foreshore with picturesque views out to sea. The path directional signage takes you on to a rocky path.. but as a bonus we managed to see 5 pelicans.
After a few turns the trail takes us inland through the Nharangga Aboriginal Lands and Point Pearce. As we were cycling along we saw a large number of holes in the ground. Based on the signage the area is home to the Southern Hairy-nose wombat. Unfortunately we did not see any – just lots of evidence of them being in the area.
The direction we cycled was into the wind. If you have ever cycled into the wind on a sandy rocky track you can imagine how slow the ride actually was. If you had a mountain bike it might of been better for the conditions – but not much. Along the way there are seats and signage about the area. I must admit they look a little like you are waiting for a bus… but I know one is never going to come. As we were cycling there was the fence to our right and lots of shrubby plants on the left. It was so peaceful, with no other sounds apart from birds… oh and us on bikes.
Despite the wind we made it to the mid-way point, and saw clouds get darker, and decided it was time to head back. Unsurprisingly the cycle back to the turn off was only 20-25 minutes as we had a tail wind nearly 1/3 of the time!
Cycling is always a good start to the day – so we decided to cycle to breakfast.
Cycling from Wallaroo to Kadina is a mere 8km. The route is simple – as it is along the old rail trail. The benefit of this means the route is largely flat – and easy to find.
AS you can see but he photo the path is pretty wide and good enough for gophers. Just take a closer look at the symbols on the signed post.
There are a few times you have to cross roads – but the sight lines are really good, and there is not much traffic. Along the rail trail there are a number of historical signs, and shelters and seats. The scenery surrounding the ride was farms, run-down buildings, fields.
The weather for the ride was pretty good – as you can tell by the photos it was a perfect morning.
Getting to Kadina is easy.. and getting to the centre of town when you reach the end of the trail is even easier by the large sign which tells you “town centre”. Following the road takes you to the centre of town and the array of small shops and historical buildings.
Thankfully we easily found our breakfast spot – corner of Hallet Street and Taylor Street. Just perfect!
Our early morning ride was just over 18km.
While the purpose of our trip was to scout the “walk the Yorke” this was a simple little rail trail which was worth the diversion.
Bakeries in Australia are fabulous. I may be a world traveller – but based on experience they certainly are at the top of my list.
So far we have visited two… the Ardrossan Bakery and the Maitland Bakery.
The Ardrossan Bakery is easy to locate – as it is I in the Main Street. There are a few seats outside, and over the road there are a couple of park benches under the Norfolk pines which are down the Main Street.
We had pasties, sausage rolls, chocolate doughnut and apricot turnover and sat outside given the weather was delightful. While I generally prefer tomatoe sauce put in the centre of the pastie with a squeezey bottle the usual presentation is the sauce in the takeaway packet you squeeze together and put over your food. Pastie was great, as was the apricot turnover. For me the doughnut was a little more cake-y than I prefer. I’m generally not a fan of large amounts of cream – but the apricot turnover was fabulous – and a real highlight. Not too sweet… just perfect. If you are in the neighbourhood – I recommend it!
The second bakery we visited was in Maitland.
It was late afternoon… and they were about to close for the day. We had just completed a cycle from Port Vincent to Point Pearce and back. The wind had taken a lot of energy out of us – what there was nothing better than a bakery product Again, I tried the apricot turn over and it was pretty good as it was eaten very quickly. You do have the option to eat inside as there are the usual few tables and you can also get a tea or a coffee
Both places are worth visiting if you are on the road and searching for a quick hunger fix.
The last time we caught a plane was in January, as we returned from our eight day trip in NZ over Christmas & New Year. It seems so long ago now. As luck would have it we had no holidays planned for 2020.. except for weekend trips to MEL, CBR, and SYD. We had lots of discussion – “we could go to Japan for three weeks”… (although this seems the default plan). Unlike many people who had overseas holiday’s booked and now cancelled, we are counting ourselves as extremely lucky for not reserving a lump of leave for far off exciting destinations. For those of you who are in that position – I can only imagine how hard/difficult/challenging this year is fast becoming.
At work I keep reminding people of the importance of taking a holiday for their wellbeing – I finally I took my own advice and we have taken a week off.
Originally the plan was to cycle the Yorke Peninsula (walk the Yorke), in preparation for a 7-9 day bicycle ride with some friends from VIC and NSW. Due to a combination of limited planning, wet weather and the general malaise it changed by the end of last week to a couple of days. Given the weather we now think we will return to explore the Yorke further in October/November.
This morning, we packed the Brompton’s into the car along with some clothes and headed off to Tiddy-Widdy beach near Ardrossan. Before you start to complain… the name comes from the Aboriginal name of Titty Witty Titty – and here is the photo where you can read it yourself.
Apparently the area is also well known for death adders. Yes you read that correctly – snakes. Thankfully we didn’t see them – but the coastline along the trail is very picturesque.
The ride is fairly easy, and the yellow markers along the trail at key turning points are well signed. There are many well known marked rides around the world (England…) which are not well signed. The Walk the Yorke trail itself is a mix of dolomite (its mined around in the area) and gravel. Some areas are better compacted than others. Meaning the trail is good for mountain bikes, hybrids, or if you have knobby tyres. Bromptons are pretty good too 🙂
We continued on the trail through Ardrosson, past the silos, lock out point to the open mine and down to James Well. At the end of the road there are memorials to nine female sperm whales which beached themselves in the area in 2014.
The trail from here gets a little bumpy.. and with the very steep hills walking always comes in as a good second option. At the point below we decided to turn around and go back to Ardrossan so we could pick up a late lunch.
Whenever you see a jetty on holiday – you know we are going to have to walk on it. As a bonus this one had concrete and we could cycle
After getting back to the car we drove further along the coast to check-out the trail. There are some parts of the walk they they recommend cyclists to go on the road – this section looked okay to cycle on. The other option would be to walk on the beach where the trail is….
After this we stopped briefly in briefly in Port Vincent, and headed over to Wallaroo where we are staying for a couple of nights.
Bromptoneering or bust 