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Signs to guide people around Bantry Bay loop?


danielschipper's picture

By danielschipper - Posted on 22 February 2015

The new Gahnia and Serrata trails have bought many more people to ride in Bantry Bay which is great.

What I've noticed though is that there is no guidance for people to link the trails up... So people are just finding their own way... And the most obvious is to go across the southern oval in Forestville and up the walking trail that links to the Bluff. There's two issues with this:

A. It puts riders onto the same trail in opposite directions
B. It puts riders onto the rockshelf / carvings which are now out of bounds.

When I've come across people I've asked if they know of the other trails and the answer is almost always no.

So the thought was to create an informal loop map, to laminate a few of these and to place them at strategic positions to direct people around this informal loop. This isn't to say it's the only way to ride... Just some guidance to help people.

Two questions for the community:
A. How do you think the informal loop should work (Strava links would be good)
B. Do you support signs promoting the informal loop considering the unofficial nature of trails such as Austrian Enduro, Kayne and Possums?

Let me know what you think.

R_M.G's picture

My loop goes from gahnia then cuts through behind the houses and into Austrian enduro, serretta, then hike a bike back up the telegram pole trail (the really steep and rutted one) then continue on to possums.

I used to go down via garigal national park, but then I heard of the carvings, and the A. enduro is much better Eye-wink
Where's kayne? never heard of that before Smiling
As long as the local's see that we aren't damaging land and respect them whilst riding through possums and the back of the houses then I'd say promoting the loop wouldnt do any damage?

danielschipper's picture

Can of course start anywhere on the loop but I'll start at Currie Road.

Down Serrata and back up fire trail to Currie
Around the Currie Road gate, up the access road between the two ovals and then up Kayne to the top
Along the back of the houses and clubs to Bluff Firetrail
Gahnia
North along Bantry Bay Firetrail
North along possums
Exit possums then South along Bantry Bay Road, right into Grattan Crescent and into Bluff Firetrail again
Austrian Enduro to Forestville Park oval South
Around the outside of the oval, down the access road to the Currie Road gate.
Rinse and repeat if you still have legs Smiling

There's two missing sections in my mind;
- A single trail along the top of the ridge from top of Kayne to the Bluff Firetrail
- A single trail to link the bottom of Austrian Enduro to bottom of Currie road, bypassing the oval.

Putting these into Forestville Park would remove almost single trail shared with walkers, remove almost all road, and remove the need to ride the grass strip behind the houses. This has safety and privacy benefits for other users / neighbours and gives MTB a good loop that is virtually all single trail.

Keen for feedback on other options.

nh's picture

R_M.G if you go about one or two metres in the hike a bike track with the telegraph pole and turn left there is a track that snakes its way to the top. I guess that is the one called kayne.

Fill in the national parks survey http://nobmob.com/node/50180 and suggest that there should be a way to link the trails. That is what I mentioned in my comments for the survey.

Brenos's picture

Kayne? Do you mean Daisy Dukes? Or has the name changed?
Good idea though

danielschipper's picture

Theres two names on Strava... Not sure which is official.

hawkeye's picture

... is the name given by the trail builders.

Simon's picture

Definitely called Daisy Duke and is climbing trail only.

Descending on this track will blow out the climbing turns and stuff 6 months of work.

R_M.G's picture

Turns out, after checking the names on strava, I thought that Austrian Enduro was daisy duke..
A local showed me the way and we started from the top, I thought everything about it appeared to be a descending trail, turns out Austrian enduro is the one Ive been avoiding!
Sorry about that, its a fantastic trail and serious credit to the trail builders.
I'll try to ride it the other way then.

BT's picture

I come from Nth Balgowlah, so after crossing the Parkway from the top of the Dam loop, I head past Ararat reserve towards Gahnia, but then peel off and go down to Serrata via Austrian Enduro. Then after riding Serrata i come back up the hill using Daisy Duke, across the back of the houses and then go ride Gahnia and then back home/possum/dam/whatever

The main point is that I've worked my loop as to ride Daisy UP and the Austrian DOWN. I do see riders coming from the opposite directions on both trails though so I definitely think signs are needed, at least on these two. Although i'm not sure how this works given the unofficial nature of the trails.

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