Friday 15 Feb 2019

What I couldn’t see yesterday in the fog.

The day started out at 9º but no fog, which was a great improvement.

The Nundle State Forest, from the looks of it, is to a great extent a pine plantation, here and there disguised by some native trees. But there is some real forest too.

I came by the old site of Hanging Rock, with the old cemetery.

There isn’t much else left. Here the forest road joins a paved road again and descend steeply downhill into Nundle. The last 10k were pretty well all downhill, from 1,300m to 625m. What a ride!

My first stop in town was at the old woollen mill, where they card wool but don’t make anything from it. The clothing they have for sale is all made elsewhere, like Tassie and various other places, and “Ice Breaker” like the shirts I’m wearing. They have them at a very good price actually.

Next I thought I’d check in at the caravan park, the Fossickers Tourist Park, but they don’t do unpowered sites and $32 for my little tent I decided was a bit (?) excessive. No wiggle room here.

I phoned Lydia, the local trail coordinator, and she put me in contact with the people who run the Pony Club, where BNT users are welcome to stay for a much more reasonable $20. She said I can stay in one of the cabins and have a real bed even! What a deal.

Had coffee and scones at the Gold Mine Cafe, which has an interesting little gold mine museum attached to it. It’s underground and there are several (closed off) mine tunnels going in various directions. Apparently a lot of the old tunnels are still accessible in the hill sides. (Why it was so necessary to fill in our own Dividend Ridge Gold Mine in Osoyoos with 2,000 dump truck loads of fill will forever be a mystery to me.)

Today’s total 53k 4:00h 570m+ 1,245m-