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.

New Years Day Ride

I decided on heading out for a decent ride on new years day to kick the year off. I thought that this would be a great day as most people would be still in bed from a big night on the booze from new years eve celebrations, so hopefully there wouldn't be many people out and about. So the destination for today's solo ride was the Taralga hotel for lunch taking in as many twisty bits in between as possible. I decided to take my camel back today as it was going to be in the 30's. I'm glad I did. It's also double demerits here in NSW so I'll have to be careful.

First up was riding up through the Blue mountains via the bell's line of road. I've always liked the area around Bilpin where the tree's are evergreen, with apple orchards all along the road side. You can even come up here and pick your own apples. There are plenty of fruit shops along here too selling apples, apple pie and anything with apple in it.

Apple Orchards

Bilpin Post office & store

Leaving Bilpin behind I headed up into the Mt Tomah and Mt Bell sections of road where it becomes a bit more twisty and fun. It's funny how you build up a perception of how fast you think you can go on the road, then do a track day and suddenly find some new found speed. These sections whizzed by very quickly with little effort.

 I took a small detour down one of the dirt tracks to a lookout for Mt Banks. I didn't go all the way down but I still had some spectacular views of the canyon walls with Mt Banks on the left of that.

Mt Banks

I couldn't hang around for too long to look at the views as there was still a lot of riding to do to get to my lunch destination. I continued along until Bell where I turned off and crossed to Mt Victoria and headed down Victoria Pass. It was an excellent choice as there was hardly anyone around this morning, my hunch was right everyone had a big night and the roads were empty including highway patrol cars.

Victoria Pass Motogp track

The monument below was put there in 1832 when this section of road was built. The stone bridge was built by convict labour to cross the last point between the 2 ridges as the only way down from the mountains on the western escarpment and it was completed in 1832. It's pretty much unchanged today. There's a lot of stone work in that bridge. I wish they would upgrade the bridge to 2 lanes each way like the rest of the road here.

I soon turned off the great western highway and headed out towards Jenolan Caves. And started the long climb back up the ranges for the sudden drop down into the gorge where the caves are. No pics of the caves today as I've taken pics of them before you can find them here.

Plenty of wildlife to be on the lookout for

I arrived in Oberon for a quick fuel stop. Every time we've stopped here for fuel its been 20-30c dearer than anywhere else. Today I found out the BP in town was 6.5c per litre cheaper than the shell so if your riding  through try the BP(soon to be caltex) first.

Rather than ride out through the boring bit to black springs I'd back tracked out the Jenolan Caves road to shooters hill road which takes you down onto the abercrombie road and Taralga. I love this bit of road its very scenic and also high speed(but also very good at cruising speed). The road is basically here for the logging trucks and is very wide and very smooth much unlike other roads around here. There was a couple of kangaroo's that had been hit and were laying on the road just over a crest which became a bit tricky to negotiate at speed.

I was like brap, brap, brap.....lean over, then brap, brap. brap

As I was doing a solo run today there wasn't anyone to take photo's of standing next to their bikes so I had to get in some of the shots. Here's my first selfie.

As I got closer to Tarlaga I put the gopro on going down into the gorge. Not much to look at when I watched it back so it didn't make it onto the blog today. A bit furthur down the road I noticed that there was about 20 odd wind generators on the hills just out of Tarlaga. I don't remember seeing them before. Might have to take a closer look.

I got into town just before 12pm right on time for lunch. I was pretty hungry by now. There was only 2 people in the pub today, still it was early. I hope they are doing lunch today as I didn't ring ahead and it is a small country town. As luck would have it they were doing lunches. I ordered a steak sandwich and an ice cold beer to wash it down with. I can recommend the steak sandwiches here. It was fantastic. About 20 minutes later the pub had a good crowd in.

It was 1pm and time to get going again, I took a quick detour out to the wind farm to have a look at it. These definitely were not here last time I came out here. I saw a notice on the wall of the pub which said something about 50 odd wind generators would be installed as part of the project.

Just one of the blades on these things is the size of a semi trailer that's how big these things are. They are huge.

It was starting to get hot standing out here in the blazing sun in full leathers so it was time to keep moving. I was basically retracing my steps back to Oberon for fuel then home.

On the way back I stopped along Shooters Hill road at a turn off on the road. I was wondering what was down the road, it looked inviting so it was time for another quick detour. It turns out this road was just as good as shooters hill road with big wide smooth tarmac with forested verges all the way along with the road being like a roller coaster ride. This is R1 territory.

They should have locked me up, sorry your honor I couldn't help myself...did you see the roads on my blog. You would of too if you had an R1.

It turns out that the road comes to an end, well an end of the tar that is, but it continues on further. The road was only about 10km or less but oh what a road. So that was it for me I turned around and had to ride those sweet sweet roads again. Can you tell how upset I was about that?

Please please tar the rest of this

I'd made it into Oberon with the fuel light on for about the last 50kms. I filled up 16 litres for 238kms which is 6.72lt/100km. I normally get around 5.6lt/100km. These roads do make your bike thirsty.

By the time I left Oberon with a refilled camelback I went straight back down Duckmaloi rd and up Victoria pass and back along the bells line. It was hot, bloody hot. It was making me tired faster, so I slow it down to the limit across the bells line. I saw my first highway patrol and it was about 4pm. Not bad for today. It was 35°C when I got back into Richmond. I was knackered in the heat after a full days ride. The camelback was a life saver in the afternoon heat. You couldn't wipe the smile off my face for hours after. What a fantastic day and a great way to see in the new year.



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