Friday 7th November 2025 – Huskisson – 62km
We’d been told that Huskisson (aka Husky) was a nice place to visit and as it was only 25-30km away it seemed like an easy day out on our bikes. The bike route, unfortunately, took us along the Prince’s Highway, which is the main road that goes right around Australia. There is a better, alternative, route which would mean crossing a river, but rather annoyingly the ferry that we would have had to use only runs at the weekend, so Highway it was. And as expected, it was pretty unpleasant!
The first part took us through the outskirts of Nowra, so industrial units and servos (Australian for service station!). There was, however, a nice wide hard shoulder and although the traffic was moving fast we felt quite safe as there was a lot of room between us and them. Still, not the most pleasant ride we’ve ever done!
The very last part before we got off the highway involved negotiating a set of roadworks, which made things a bit harder as there was a load of bollards on the hard shoulder which put us closer to the traffic. Luckily this only lasted a few hundred metres and we were off the main road. We managed to find a nice, if rather indirect, road to Husky. Through a forest with the odd house dotted here and there, lots more interesting whooping and hollering noises coming from the birds in the trees telling us that we weren’t on home soil.
Husky itself is a nice enough, if a little touristy, town and we managed to find a place for coffee, which turned into breakfast number two, and excellent it was too. The local, very colourful and tame, parrots kept us occupied whilst we did a bit of people watching and chatted.
We dragged ourselves away from the potential of just rolling into lunch and decided to find the costal bike path south out of the town. We passed some stunning beaches and what we assume are very expensive houses which overlooked the beach. A really lovely leisurely ride south as far as Vincentia and then back to the town.
On our way out of town we decided to visit a mangrove swamp which we’d seen on the map earlier. A boardwalk took us over the swamp between the mangrove trees where information boards told us all about the flora and fauna – we saw plenty of crabs and frogs in amongst the roots of the trees. A beautiful place and a really excellent stop.
To be honest, neither of us was really looking forward to the trip back along the highway because we’d noticed that the hard shoulder on the northbound side didn’t look as wide as the southbound. Negotiating the roadworks in the opposite direction was trickier as we had to cross the main road. And once on the other side our fears about the hard shoulder proved correct and it really wasn’t a nice ride for the first 30 minutes or so. At one point there was a dead kangaroo which sprawled across the whole of the hard shoulder meaning that if we didn’t want to ride over any part of it then we had to stray into the road itself. Anyway, we managed it and the hard shoulder gradually got wider and we could relax a bit, even if the traffic didn’t actually let up at all.
We were back at our digs to get cleaned up and chill out before heading out for something to eat. We generally cater for ourselves when we are on our bikes as eating out all the time just gets far too expensive, but we also make sure that we go out once in a while. We’d got a recommendation from our AirBnB hosts (Kriss and Robin) about a Chinese dumpling truck parked behind a warehouse in town – very salubrious! Fatty Dumplings, for that was its name, had just had an amazing review in the Sydney Herald and was fast becoming famous, so we feel privileged that we got to sample the food before it gets too popular! We had a mix of dumplings and a rice dish, all of which were interesting, but to be honest, not amazing in our unprofessional view. However, the whole atmosphere around the yard was lovely, with kids playing and a general flow of people coming and going – great people watching!
Saturday 8th November 2025 – Nowra to Austinmer – 65km
Actually, we took the train for some of it – from Bomaderry, just to the north of Nowra to Kiama. This meant that we missed out the Highway out of Kiama and also meant that we could fill in the bit of coast that we hadn’t cycled yet. Off the train and we went straight to the blowhole again, but it wasn’t as spectacular as our first visit. We got back on the coastal bike path and headed north. To start with it was nice enough with some nice viewers of beaches and the sea, but before long we were back on the main road. There didn’t seem to be any way to avoid it, so we gritted our teeth and got on with it. By the time we got to Shellharbour we were ready for a break and an obligatory Aussie coffee! Everywhere was packed, but we did manage to find a place along the sea front and had a drink and cake, which was all very nice.
Back on the road and we made it to Port Kembla, which we have cycled to before on a day out of Austinmer (aka Austi), so we knew that this part of the journey would be next to busy roads. So, nothing to see here! Or so we thought – we’d miss some of the costal path on our last trip to Port Kembla and this time we did the whole lot which meant gurning our way up to Port Kembla beach, where we had an apple, and then further up the very steep Lookout Hill 60! Very tough and not much of a reward at the top!
At Wollongong we stopped for lunch and opted for a cafe we knew along the sea front. We managed to bag a seat under cover, which was a blessing as there was a short, sharpe thunder storm that quickly soaked everything. Once this was over we were back on our bikes for the final leg back to Austi, about 16km away. This is a route we know well as we have ridden it a few times already. Turns out that this is one of the nicer sections of the coastal bike path so we are lucky to have it on our doorstep!
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