A gentle tour (except for the Lions Road border crossing and the detour via Nimbin) on relatively quiet roads. Beautiful scenery all the way with abundance of wildlife. A great introduction to longer distance cycle touring.

Ride in Summary:
Days' riding - 4.5
Total distance - 506km
Roads - old highways, narrow sealed roads (barely single lane),


52km - Ipswich train station to Boonah
Left Ipswich at 3pm so had to ride fast to beat the light. Camped at the showgrounds. Seriously over-priced but we befriended some climbers in the popular Dugandan Pub on the southern side of town (turn off to Mt French) and shared their fee. Not many prospects for wild camping. The pub offered a patch of dirt for the night.

115km - Boonah to Kyogle via the Lion's Road
Chose the Lion's Road as it is extremely quiet. Traffic jams of cattle are very common. There is a nice looking campsite before the steep final climb to the border.

87km - Kyogle to Casino via Nimbin (very hilly) - start of the Summerland Way
The detour ride to Nimbin was for the benefit of my German cycle touring chum, Uwe, as a cultural adventure. Ther ride was very beautiful but added significant distance and effort.
Camped the night at the big picnic area south of town. Showgrounds a little further out were suggested to us for camping.

129km - Casino to south of Grafton - Summerland Way
Hoped to wild camp but had difficulty finding somewhere to pull off so befriended some free-range egg sellers and they let us camp with the chickens and goats and gave us a dozen eggs to cook up for dinner!

123km - South of Grafton to Bellingen via Coffs and very circuitous forestry road


Then, cycled back to Coffs to catch the train home to Brisbane, with overnight stopover at friend's at Bundagen.