Sunday April 13, 2014

Once again we had an early start.  When we do not have a tent to pack up we tend to get going quicker.  The forecast is for more rain, but the day started clear and dry and the sun came out later – it was a good day.

We followed Paul’s directions towards Nowra and then took the coastal route towards Gerringong. Nowra is a big industrial town.

The coastal route was flat but a fairly busy road as this is the start of school holidays for NSW and as we found out later there were some major road works on the Princes Highway. Often on this ride we have cycled through a town which is just a dot on the map and there hasn’t been anything else there – just a dot on the map. As were coming up to the dot on the map called Gerroa, we were hoping for a small café that we could have lunch (or a second breakfast) it had this wonderful sign – Ralf commented let’s hope it has more than a road sign and is not just another dot on the map.

Gerroa has a lovely caravan park, and next door to it had a great café, we had a very good bacon and egg sandwich and coffee which was reasonably priced and carried us through until dinner time.

As we cycled out of Gerroa and towards Gerringong the road turned gradually upwards and we started climbing up the hills through Gerringong.  At Gerringong, we couldn’t find the coastal route to Kiama so had to take the Princes Highway.  It had major road works for about 3 kms, as it was Sunday no works were being undertaken. We managed to get on the other side of the concrete dividing wall and were relatively safe.  When we joined the main road again we were on an incredibly busy road into Kiama.  The first exit we could take off the A1 we took it and we came into Kiama through Kiama Heights.  We cycled straight to the Information Centre and found the thing that makes Kiama famous and that is the Kiama blow holes.

The surf along the coast was very high due to the winds that resulted in the cyclone in northern Queensland.  Lower down the coast we got high winds and big surf.

The Kiama blow holes also were very active.  We spent about 2 hours watching the surf and the blow holes.  We found a great campsite right on the hilltop overlooking Kiama town site.  It was clean and had good facilities, and was inexpensive.

We managed to get a load of washing done and I have sent some emails out for warmshowers in Sydney.  There are a lot of hosts in Sydney so hopefully we should be lucky and get somewhere to stay.  The only disadvantage is that it is coming to the Easter week-end and it is school holidays.