Jindabyne to Sydney
12 November 2016
Click on the image for a detailed map
There was movement at the station,
for the word had passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses - he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.”
So opens AB ‘Banjo’ Paterson’s poem The Man from Snowy River, an Australian treasure and pillar of support for our romantic view of brumbies (or wild horses).
I was mildly surprised, as my hosts walked me around a small part of their beautiful property, to hear them cursing Banjo Paterson. The cloven hooves of Paterson’s much loved brumbies — which are not native to Australia — cause endless damage to the Kosciusko National Park. And the damage is getting worse as the number of horses multiplies. A draft plan by the New South Wales Government to reduce the number from 6,000 to 600 over the next 20 years has been greeted with howls of alarm.
I was more than a bit surprised when they went on to tell me that the brumby problem paled into insignificance beside the problem of feral deer. Indeed, having read stories of deer and motorcycles on the forum, I was alarmed at having to deal with the prospect not only of kangaroo, but also of deer on Snowy Mountains roads.
Deer breed more rapidly than horses and enjoy some bizarre historic statutory protection in NSW. My hosts told me they’d shot well over 300 deer on their property in 2016 alone and were struggling to keep up with the problem.
I wouldn’t have minded a couple of days of bucolic respite in the mountains near Jindabyne, but I was due in Sydney that evening, so a bit later than I hoped, I set off, hoping to cut across country to Braidwood and thence to the coast.
The road out of the farm
An irrelevant milestone shot
Of course, within about 10 km of hitting the Jerangle Road I ran into … no, not a deer … dirt. I was conscious that I had a full day’s ride ahead and that I had no idea how long the dirt lasted, so I turned back and headed up the main road to Canberra, where I joined the highway to Sydney. The only surprise was seeing water in Lake George just to the north of Canberra. It’s usually empty, but this day showed how big a shallow lake can become in the right conditions.
High country
I stopped for fuel and something to eat at Goulburn, home of the Big Merino—an Australian Big thing wonderful both for its size and attention to anatomical detail.
While there I was struck by the stunning selfishness of a bloke on a sports bike who felt it was OK to fill his bike with fuel and then abandon it next to the bowser while he wandered off to get something to eat and then sit down in the café to eat it. I guess it must have been a hard bike to move.
I hit the highway again for what I hoped would be a reasonably quick run to Moss Vale where I planned to turn off for the coast. It was not to be. About 15 kilometres up the road I was travelling in the outside lane when the blare of a police siren penetrated my noise cancelled bliss. I looked in the mirror to see a khaki police car bristling with ariels and lights-a-flashing. I wasn’t speeding, but nonetheless an innate paranoia kicked in and I wondered what I’d done. I accelerated and pulled quickly into the other lane.
The police car steamed by and, in another 5 kilometres I found out why: one of the old 4-door MGs with the rounded roof had collided with a Nissan Pulsar. The two elderly occupants of the MG were badly injured.
Australia’s main highway between Melbourne and Sydney. The police car on the left is the one that passed me and is stopping here, presumably to start slowing traffic before the accident
Traffic was banking up, but I was able to cruise up the shoulder and realised the accident had occurred at an intersection. Trusting that the road went somewhere, I turned off and had a quiet country interlude that took me eventually to Moss Vale. In Moss Vale the first thing I encountered was a minor traffic accident and further delays.
Another accident entering Moss Vale
I also encountered a large group of Harley riders leaving a pub to resume their ride. I tagged along at the end of the long line, letting the stragglers past and hoping they were not going the same way as me.
They weren’t, and I proceeded across the plateau to the Robertson Pie Shop.
The Robertson Pie Shop
From there it was down Macquarie Pass.
Macquarie Pass
By the time I reached Albion Park at the bottom of the pass it was a warm afternoon and I stopped to remove another layer or two.
Other than the Seacliff Bridge north of Wollongong, the Royal National Park north of that, there’s not much to report about the ride into Sydney. It was hot, the traffic was horrendous and I was later arriving than I had intended to be. Luckily my son has good taste in pubs and we were quickly ensconced at the Duck in Chippendale enjoying a beer and an excellent dinner.
A random milestone
Seacliff Bridge
Royal National Park
