Bikepacking overnighter in Australia

I’ll tell my grandkids this was the d-day landing.

In fact, it’s eleven of us boarding Webbs Creek ferry, crossing the Hawkesbury River to the start of our overnight adventure.

Route at a glance

Start: Webbs Creek Ferry
Finish: Wisemans Ferry
Distance / Elevation: 42km / +480m
Highlights: Two free ferry services, Settlers Arms Pub, monopoly deal
Terrain: Road/Gravel

For half of the group, this was their first bikepacking trip. I was genuinely impressed by their intuition to pack and attach things to the bikes; it spoke volumes of the Australian instinct to be comfortable in the outdoors.

The route was simple. Up St Albans Road on the Saturday afternoon. Camp. Back down Settlers Road, on the other side of the river, on Sunday morning.

Twenty kilometres is still a distance if you barely ride. And this trip was proof that a decent reward goes a long way.

In this case, the incentive was a pub with free camping opposite it.

We arrived at 3pm, drank until 10pm, and were first to the bacon rolls and coffee at 7am the next morning.

Nothing says you’re thirty like the collective desire to get back and do an afternoon of washing in preparation for another Monday-Friday onslaught.

I did the trip on my Mongoose MTB, using panniers from my 2019 cycle across America, with a couple of Apidura packs from my last chapter.

This bike is seriously challenging the way I consider future trips: I’m dreaming of flat handlebars, flat pedals with a pair of sandals, and tyres that would be respected by rugged terrain.

< Happy pedalling >