Yet More Bushfire Hell

Our current bushfire crisis is far from over with it flaring up bigger than ever on the NSW South Coast and Eastern Victoria on New Year's eve and it's still raging. The fire fronts are so big that our fires services are so stretched that some fires are unattended, they just simply can't be everywhere.  These fires are bigger in size than the Australian Capital Territory(ACT) with over 4.5m hectares burnt out in NSW alone. Here is a map of the current fires in NSW. There are predictions the worst is yet to come this saturday with temperatures in the mid 40's.

The eastern Victorian town of Mallacoota had 4000 residents and holidayers evacuated to the beachfront as the bushfire swept through the town destroying hundreds of houses. Daytime was turned to night as residents stood on the beach in blackness at 9.20am. Truly horrifying and frightening stuff. These fires are now so big that the smoke is reaching across the Tasman sea and engulfing New Zealand's South Island as seen here on the BOM sat view. http://satview.bom.gov.au/

Screen grab of satellite view - smoke trails bottom right out across NZ

It was similar scenes in the NSW town of Batemans Bay with residents and holidayers evacuated to the beaches. There are photos on the Internet of the main street at midday looking like night time. Very scary. Our hearts go out to them and everyone that has been lost in the fires. So far sadly 9 people have lost their lives in the new years fire, but it could have been so much worse. Photo below is of the fire at 11am on new years eve with batemans bay in the centre of pic.

One of the major problems with these fires is that when the smoke rises up it forms cumulonimbus flammagenitus which cause dry lightning strikes making the fires even bigger. The above picture shows the cumulonimbus flammagenitus rising in front of the fire front. The RFS has confirmed 382 homes have been destroyed and they're expecting to find more.

Cobargo is small town in southern NSW which was also devastated by the fires with the main street being hit. We regularly travel through this pretty little town on our annual snowys ride.

Speaking with Geoff on new years eve we  decided we would take a new years day ride out across the Bells Line of road in the Blue Mountains and have a look around. This was where the bushfire's ripped through here about one week ago. What we found was more devastation.

The first sign of any fires was in Bilpin about 30km from Windsor were the Tutti Frutti shop has been burnt down. For the next 52km into Lithgow the entire Blue mountains has been burnt out. There are small patches here and there not burnt.

Geoff spotted smoke and thought he'd better put it out before any more fires break out.

The W30 sign is for Windsor one of Sydney's outer suburbs so the fires are within 30kms of Australia's largest city, that's how close they have come. We actually had a watch and act fire alert sms come through on our mobile phones on new years eve for an out of control grass fire only 10 minutes from our house. That's getting a bit close.

We stopped in across from Bilpin Fruit bowl for a coffee and homemade apple pie. The apple pie was delicious and I was desperately needing a coffee pick me up. A RFS brigade stopped in for some lunch at the table next to us. Members of the public were stopping to talk with them and thank them for their efforts. This was great to see. Well done lads and ladies.

Coming up Mt Tomah you could see through the tree lines on the side of the road that normally blocks your view. But now with the fire defoliating the roadside there are clear views out over the surrounding hills. They have been fire devastated as far as the eye can see.

It's a sad sight indeed to see so much destruction of a once beautiful area. Our only hope is that we get some rain soon so that it will help with the trees to grow back and help put out some of these fires. Sadly there's no rain forecast anytime soon.

Mt Tomah devastation

Mt Tomah area is the worst hit. Coming up the hill to Mt Bell 998m the signs have been completely melted off and lay on the road as pieces of molten aluminum. I believe that aluminum melts at over 660°C that's how hot these fires are getting up to. Even the steel railing was buckled from the heat.

Melted Signage

Riding on a couple more kilometres I saw a rock vantage point on the left side that looked out over the surrounding hills looking towards Mt Banks. I climbed to the top which is never easy in Motorcycle boots. The view here would normally be beautiful but not today. But it does show the size and scale of the destruction.

Looking South towards Mt Banks(Centre)

Looking North from the location above

From here we rode into Lithgow, the fires had burn out tree's all the way into Lithgow coming down the twisty hill at the end of the range. Looking across the other side of Lithgow the hills were covered in burnt tree's.

We decided to head back via the Great Western Highway and it was getting quite hot up here today, up to 36°C. It's not normally that hot up here but perhaps that due to not tree cover and everything is now black absorbing heat? On our way back through Katoomba the temp dropped by 6°C in less than a kilometre. That was like someone switched on the air conditioning. Just a short ride today but great to get out for a ride on the first day of the year.

Not all who wander are lost

The girls were going out on Sunday and as I wasn't doing anything much I thought I'd join my two hobbies into one fantastic day. What could be better than a sunday ride through the Blue Mountains and take my camera along and take some photos. Photo's of what you ask? Well anything really I didn't have a plan on where I wanted to go or what I wanted to take photos of. I thought I'd just go with the flow as they say and see what happens.

It was going to be a hot day in Sydney today at 35-36°C so the Blue mountains was an excellent choice as it was only going to max out at 26°C. I thought I'd try out my new Dri Rider all seasons jacket today to combat the heat from the last ride where I was positively melting in my leathers.

Internal liners out and dry mesh jacket on, camera backpack on and then hit the road. Stopping to top up the gas tank was priority before tackling the Bells Line of Road up through the Blue Mountains. It was nice and cool in the ventilated jacket. I stopped to take a picture at Mt Tomah Botanical gardens, not wanting to spend too long I left my helmet on. Today I learned that you can't put your eye up to the viewfinder on the back of your DSLR with your helmet on as it is too big to fit in the helmet opening. Dang, fail.

Mt Tomah Botanical Gardens

So I quickly packed up and moved on to the next spot. I caught up to 3 bikes that got stuck behind a slow moving semi, then another 10 or so bikes came up behind. Looks like it was going to be a busy day out today. Next stop was down a dirt track to Mt Banks lookout. It wasn't a great spot for a photo so I left after grabbing this little gem.

View over the Banks Walls from Mt Banks(Not shown)

I made my way back to the main highway then continued along and found a spot on the side of the road were I could stop in the shade. I thought it might be a good spot to take some pics of any bikes that happened by. I was in luck as plenty of bikes came by. I'll post a gallery up a little later. Looks like I was under exposing most pics today by about 1 stop, better luck next time. Practise makes almost perfect as they say.

 A quick half hour break was good to test out my camera and take some snaps of my bike, which I'd not really done with this camera yet. Packing it away again I continued on until I got to Bell.

Not sure which way to go I quickly decided to head down towards lithgow. Coming into lithgow I saw a sign that pointed back up into the mountains that said Hartley Vale. I thought I'd follow this along and see where it went. I meandered through the foothills of the mountains. I found a little pub called the Comet Inn. It looked in great condition for a country pub but also looked closed.

Oh well, this road continued on climbing back into the mountains, it was only a little one lane road with 2kms of dirt, bumpy narrow and need to take a lot of care if anything comes the opposite direction. It popped back out onto the darling causeway between Bell and Mt Victoria.

I thought I'd like to go and have a look at Govetts leap, which is a lookout near Blackheath so I set off through to Mt Vic and the great western highway. I got a parking spot right at the entry arch to the look out. It was a beautiful day to be up that's for sure.

 I've been up here a few times, but I always like coming back. I could sit here and look at that mountain landscape for hours. Why? Because I can.

The sign says the Fall of water was named Govetts Leap after the surveyor of the same name discovered it. The Blue Mountains gets it name from the blue haze that can be seen in the air here. This is caused by the eucalyptus oil evaporating into the air from the tree leaves. And today it was particularly blue and hazy.

The hazy Blue Mountains

The sandstone cliff faces give off very different colours through out the day, in the morning and afternoon the cliffs glow in a bright hue of orange colours which can be quite spectacular.












I decided to move on and head around Cliff Drive at Katoomba and check what lookout I could get a good view for some more pics, Cahills lookout was that stop. It was starting to feel quite warm standing in the midday sun and I was getting hungry and thirsty. One more stop before I grab lunch. I met a older gent in the carpark who came up and looked at the bike and said" I could have sworn that was a Ducati coming up the hill from the noise it makes". I love the sound of the crossplane engine. It sets this inline 4 apart from every other mundane inline 4 cylinder engine.

Cahills Lookout

The views out to the south and west from Cahills lookout were also quite good. Amazing vistas and scenery up in this part of the world.

The cliffs are a shear drop off the edge, wouldn't want to wander around in the dark up here otherwise your could go straight over a 3-4 hundred metre drop.

What I didn't notice at first when I took the photo above was that there was something unusual about it. I took a closer look and then snapped this picture. Not for me but each to their own and I know they were out enjoying their day.

I was now getting very hungry and thirsty, it was after 1pm so time to get something to eat and drink. I was getting a bit tired of getting this big DSLR camera out. Get backpack off, open bag get camera out, put backpack back on take pics, reverse order again. It was getting a bit old. I think I need a tank bag I can shove it in if I take it out again to make it easier. That complaint over it does take some great photos, I just wish I knew how to take those one's hahahaha. Oh and if anyone wants to know, I don't use Auto either. It's all or nothing. The 300mm lense was to big for most of these shots today and was used between 70-200mm.

I headed off around Cliff drive past the 3 sisters no pics of that today, perhaps another time. I made my way through Leura. The smells from the cafes was now making me very hungry. One thing I love in the Blue mountains is the small pockets that have ever green tree's lining the streets, pines etc. The one's below are not ever green but still really beautiful.

 I finally pulled into Mountain Pies at Wentworth Falls for lunch. A pie, coffee and water to rehydrate was dispatched in no time. I cooled down a lit in the air conditioning before making for home .

Dropping down from the mountains into the outer suburbs of Sydney the temp skyrocketed from a balmy 26° in the mountains to 36° in the west, it was damn hot and I was glad I had the Mesh Jacket on but it was still stifling, lucky it was only 30 min to home. Another great day out on the bike and only 1 tank of fuel. Here's a quick map of today's ride.

Short ride in the Blue Mountains

I've ridden through the Blue Mountains many times usually going somewhere else but today I decided I'd go for a short ride around the Blue Mountains and have a look at several of the lookouts. It was going to be 33°C today so what better place to go to, its about 10°C cooler up in the mountains.

For the non Australian readers the Blue Mountains is a dissected Plateau carved out of sandstone bedrock. The mountains range are not very high as far as mountains are concerned and range up to around 1189m (3901 ft) and have precipices dropping away suddenly of up to 760m (2493 ft). Eucalyptus trees grow throughout the valleys of the ranges and the oil released by these into the atmosphere creates the blue haze which the mountains are named after.

I'd first turned off the Great Western Hwy at Wentworth Falls and checked out some of the lookouts along here. The views were sensational.

Entry at Wentworth Falls

View from Wentworth Falls Lookout

Bike only parking at the lookout, cars had to park hundreds of metres away

After Wentworth Falls lookout I headed back to the great western and on into Leura where I turned off and headed down around Cliff Drive which winds its way around the cliff faces until it comes out at Echo Point with the famous 3 sisters.

I had to park the bike and walk down to the viewing platform to take in the views of the three sisters. If your not in the know the 3 sisters are three rock formations that tower above the Jamison Valley. This is one of the most visited tourist attractions in the blue mountains and it was very busy today. I don't normally like touristy spots like this but I made an exception.

Echo Point

The 3 Sisters

I was standing next to a family and I recognised their kiwi accents and started chatting with them. They were from Wellington but had moved to Brisbane recently. Lovely people they were. The father said to me "Hey you been arrested yet" Looking at my jacket. I said "luckily we don't have those ridiculous laws here thankfully". His wife was wondering what her husband was getting at then she noticed my boots and jacket. Then she said" I hope they don't have any spy cameras here otherwise when we get back to Queensland we could be arrested for hanging with bikies". I had a big laugh when she said that.

Jamison Valley

Hydro Majestic

Continuing on from Katoomba I went past the old Hydro Majestic building at Medlow Bath. It's been shut for years and it is having reconstruction works done. The views out the back are amazing. I eventually turned off just before Blackheath and went and had a quick look at Evans lookout. Again amazing views of buffs and vistas.

It's smee

Then it was into Blackheath and I headed down to look at the lookout at Govetts Leap. I hadn't been here before and was greeted again with even more amazing views. There was a strong wind blowing here and the waterfall was actually blowing up into the air instead of going down. I spent about 20 minutes here just looking at the views before deciding it was time to head home. I decided to head off to Bell and cross to the Bells line for the trip home and do a few more twisties on the trip back. There wasn't much traffic and it was a quick trip home. As I dropped down out of the mountains the temperature began to rise and it was getting uncomfortable. Lucky it didn't take long and I was home in about 30min with about 220kms on the clock.

Govetts Leap

Waterfall at Govetts Leap