Day 11 - Woolamia - Woolongong

Wednesday 17th February 2010


I got up at 7.30 and went with Chris and Rebecca into Huskisson for a tasty breakfast of pancakes and strawberries. It was a beautiful sunny day, already getting warm. We took this photo by the bay there:

Huskisson’s a pleasant place but there were no old buildings left, the architecture isn‘t very interesting.. After breakfast I came back to look around Chris’s garden and admire his tree house:

I was on the road again by about 10 am. After 10km I was back on the Princes Highway again. In this section, the hard shoulder was only a few inches wide which made it rather unsafe for cycling, in view of the speed of the passing traffic:

After about 20kms I passed through Nowra and crossed the bridge over the Shoalhaven River:

The route then turned off the highway to follow the course of the Shoalhaven River east towards the coast, about 15kms. Along this road I was able to visit 2 excellent wineries and enjoy tastings there. The first one, the Two Figs winery, was high up on a peak which afforded superb views in either direction, towards the coast and back towards Nowra:

…so it was a bit of a trek to get up there, but worth the effort:

The other winery I visited, a bit further along, was called the Coolangatta winery which also supplied me with tastings of some very enjoyable wines. By this time I’d had quite a lot of alcohol, and needed some food. The road for the next few kms was nice and shady which was very welcome as it was getting very hot by now.

I stopped off for a steak sandwich at Gerroa. There were some great view to be had of the beach there:

The route took me back onto the Princes Highway again for a while until I reached Kiama, where I turned off to take a look at the famous blow hole there - a hole in the rocks where the sea explodes through at intervals causing a large splash:

I had a brief look around the town as well, it’s an attractive place:

Then it was back on the highway again aqs far as Woolongong where I’d decided to spend the night. I arrived there about 8pm, having taken in the sunset over Lake Illawarra:

I checked into the aptly named Downtown Motel which was the first place I found near the centre, and went for a very tasty Thai meal at one of the many nearby restaurants.

Total distance today - 109kms. From here to Sydney is only another 80 or so kms so my journey will definitely end tomorrow!