CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 671 km round trip from Dorrigo - roughly 12 h 24 in the saddle. On the way it passes New England National Park, Mt Hyland Nature Reserve, Gibraltar Ranger National Park and back through Mt Hyland Nature Reserve. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 46 km this is Waterfall Way, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The Dorrigo plateau rises behind the coast of northern New South Wales like an island of rainforest in a sea of farmland, at about seven hundred metres, with rich red soil formed by ancient volcanic basalt. The national park protects the largest stand of subtropical rainforest on the plateau, and it is one of the Gondwana Rainforests sites on the World Heritage list. The trees are huge: strangler figs, brush box, tulipwood, and tree ferns in the shade beneath, with epiphytes and orchids on every branch. Walking in this forest after rain, the air smells of wet earth and leaves, and the sound of dripping is everywhere.
Read the complete Dorrigo National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dorrigo National Park is where the day begins. Next is New England National Park.
At Point Lookout, on the edge of the New England tableland in northern New South Wales, the land drops away so suddenly that on a clear morning you seem to be standing on the rim of the world. The escarpment falls more than a kilometre to the Bellinger valley, and on many days a sea of cloud fills the valleys below, with the ridges sticking out like islands. New England National Park protects this edge of the Great Dividing Range, and it is part of the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia, a World Heritage site that preserves forests whose lineage goes back to the time when Australia was part of the supercontinent of Gondwana. Here grow Antarctic beech trees, gnarled and draped with moss, in a cool temperate rainforest that feels more like a fairy tale than Australia.
Read the complete New England National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
New England National Park comes up 66 km in. Next is Mt Hyland Nature Reserve.
Ask a New South Wales local about Mt Hyland and you may get a shrug, which is partly the point. The nature reserve occupies high, cool country on the edge of the New England tableland, west of the Dorrigo plateau, in the same belt of mountains that holds the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia. Here the forest changes character as you climb: warm eucalypt forest gives way to tangled rainforest and then to stands of Antarctic beech, gnarled and moss-draped trees whose relatives grow in Patagonia and New Zealand, a leftover from the days when the southern continents were joined.
Read the complete Mt Hyland Nature Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
132 km in you reach Mt Hyland Nature Reserve. Next is Gibraltar Ranger National Park.
Gibraltar Range National Park lies on the high edge of the New South Wales Northern Tablelands, in a part of the country where granite rules. The range is a broad plateau at about a thousand metres, strewn with huge boulders, crags and rounded domes of grey rock, and covered in a mix of heath, eucalypt forest and, in the damp gullies, patches of rainforest. The Dandahra Crags and the Needles are the best-known rock formations, and the walks to them take you through low flowering shrubs that attract honeyeaters in spring.
Read the complete Gibraltar Ranger National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gibraltar Ranger National Park, about halfway. Next is back through Mt Hyland Nature Reserve.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mt Hyland Nature Reserve write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Mt Hyland Nature Reserve sits at 265 km, about halfway. Next is back through New England National Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete New England National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through New England National Park comes up 331 km in. Next is Dorrigo National Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dorrigo National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dorrigo National Park closes the day.
Dorrigo National Park → New England National Park is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
New England National Park → Mt Hyland Nature Reserve is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mt Hyland Nature Reserve → Gibraltar Ranger National Park is 106 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Gibraltar Ranger National Park → back through Mt Hyland Nature Reserve is 106 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Mt Hyland Nature Reserve → back through New England National Park is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through New England National Park → Dorrigo National Park is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.