The scenic route - cycle touring Coffs Harbour to Newcastle

The temperature each day is creeping higher and higher. It is hotter than November should be although the type of heat changes as our cycle touring adventure progresses – there is a dense humidity on the coast on day one through to the scorching heat of the bone dry tablelands. Each morning we start cycling earlier and earlier. We wake in the dark and wait for enough light to safely hit the road. Still, on day four and day seven we are caught out by hot winds, lack of water, tougher than expected hills and the many other, inevitable, ups and downs of cycle touring as we make our way from Coffs Harbour to Newcastle via the scenic route – Dorrigo Moutain, across to Ebor and Armidale, south to Walcha, then down to Gloucester and Dungog then back to the coast at Newcastle. 

Walls of Jerusalem National Park, Tasmania

Tucked away amongst an ancient pencil pine forest beside Lake Ball in Tasmania's wild Central Plateau, is a small wooden slab-and-shingle hut which houses a reflective story. 

Known simply as Lake Ball Hut, it was built in 1968 as a secret retreat by Ray 'Boy' Miles. This respected local bushman increasingly sought solace and healing in the high country of his childhood after returning from World War 2 and three harrowing years as a prisoner of war on the Burma railway.  A plaque in the hut explains the importance of the place and its wild surrounds: "Here he left behind the cares of the lowlands and found a relationship with the land that he was unable to replicate in the human world."