TRAVERSING THE TABLELANDS
A “NEW” ROAD TO RIDE
ANOTHER GREAT motorcycling road in the central/southern tablelands has recently been opened to the bitumen-only motorcyclists. This is the road between Bathurst and Crookwell.
I’ve been watching the gravel section diminish from about 40km a few years back to 3 km late last year to an uninterrupted tarmac runway earlier this year (2018). There’s still a lot of new line-marking to complete; but that’s no issue.
It never made the Bear’s top rides probably because of its frequently changing and unpredictable gravel surface as it dipped some 400m down the southern side of the Abercrombie Valley. It’s marvellous what a coat of bitumen can achieve: a transformation from a slow and careful descent or climb on twisting washed-out gravel to a fast and furious (loosely metaphorical!) zip along a deserving competitor to the Goulburn-Oberon top #28 ride.
On a practical level, continuingfor transiting between the central and southern tablelands – the other options being Bathurst/Goulburn via Oberon and Bathurst/Bowning or Yass via Cowra. At 192 km, it’s equal with the Oberon option as the shortest route to the Hume Hwy; but overall shortest between Bathurst and Canberra by some 20 km, losing out to the Oberon route by 4 km if the south coast of NSW is your starting or ending point.
