Hello from Narooma,

As a result of the track closures in the Deua & Wadbilliga National Parks, I elected to visit the South East Forests National Park, further south. I was underway at 8:20, stopping at a bakery in Cobargo at 8:50 for supplies (I’ve had some excellent picnic lunches provided by motels, but yesterday’s wasn’t one of them!).

A few kilometres beyond Bega, I headed west to Candelo. From there I took the Tantawangalo Mountain Road, for my first foray into the SEFNP, heading for Cathcart. Along the way, at a quarter past 10, I stopped for morning coffee at the Six Mile Creek Rest Area. It’s a very pleasant spot, well shaded by tall timber, adjacent to a small, gurgling creek.

The SEFNP is a patchwork of fairly small areas of remnant old-growth eucalypt forest, so not long after leaving the rest area, I was back in cleared grazing land. I continued, south-west through Cathcart, to Bombala, where I refeulled. From Bombala I headed south for about 30km, then turned east, through a plantation pine forest, before reentering the SEFNP. On seeing a small sign proclaiming “Picnic Area 5km”, I headed in the direction it pointed, and stopped there for lunch at 11:55.

The Coolangubra Forest Way then took me back north, eventually exiting the SEFNP into pine plantation, then grazing land. I rejoined the bitumen at Cathcart, and headed east along the Mount Darrargh Road, to Wyndham, passing into, and out of, the SEFNP yet again. It was a quite long and twisty descent; I hadn’t realised that I had gained so much altitude.

At Wyndham, I head north again, along the Myrtle Mountain Road, partaking of afternoon coffee along the way at the Myrtle Mountain Rest Area at 2:50. On reaching Candelo, I returned to Narooma the way that I had come, having covered 410km.

Cheers,
Julian