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Nowra - Coondoo, Superbowl & Butterfly
Am going to ride this area this weekend.
Can someone suggest the best starting point, ie parking spot...
Do these 3 trails link up top each other in one ride and how well marked is it?
What direction do the trails run? Clockwise?
Does anyone know the condition of the tracks?
Thanks for any help.
[Mod. moved to NSW]
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I think the trails are sort of linked. By the look of it you could surly ride fire trail between them. As for parking... depends which order you want to do it in and where you're coming from I guess.
Have a look at Nowra/Currambene State Forest, there are links several Garmin Connect GPS trails for the area linked there (under the External Links heading).
check out 'forest rd' . this road links the princes hwy at south nowra to callala bay, somewhwere along there will get you ont these tracks. I hope this is some help..
I attempted to connect up all these tracks when I was down there in January and parked in a small dirt carpark off Forest Road at the intersection with Western Road (which is a dirt road / firetrail).
I did the first half of Coondoo then rode along some firetrails back to Forest Road, along Forest road to Butterfly Road and did Superbowl. The plan was then to ride Butterfly and return back to do the second half of Coondoo but in January the trails were so wet and muddy that I gave up and rode back to the car along Forest Road. Not sure what the conditions are like now but you may be able to find out more information from the SCUM guys http://www.scum.asn.au/ who maintain the trails which are pretty well marked and run clockwise from what I recall
A past post from my Blog Roll - http://www.scum.asn.au/scum.html - check to see if there is any races on first.
To finish the weekend I then headed off Nowra the home of the South Coast United Mountainbikers (http://www.scum.asn.au/scum.html), a mountain bike club, based in the Shoalhaven area. The Club runs Cross Country and Downhill mountain biking, at competitive and social levels. My visit was to their Coondoo XC/Trail Track – Located 15 minutes South of Nowra, Coondoo is the original home of SCUM’s Endurance races. A 8.5km track surrounded by some beautiful wildlife, trees and natural scents created from the trees and flowers. My adventure took some time as this track isn’t signposted, so using Peter Gibson’s instructions I cycled the area looking for the trail and completed two laps. This track is smooth, fast and twisty, just how trails should be! Non-Technical, so, beginners can ride it. But for those confident riders, its an race track from start to finish.
From Nowra City on the Princess Hwy head in to South Nowra – You’ll pass a shopping district with the typical fast food chains, and furniture/electrical retails and a large motorcycle shop – continue for about 2km until Forest Rd (after B.T.U rd) – turn left into Forest – just before the sign to indicate a start of the 90km zone, is the car park – turn right and park – ride parallel along Forest rd (fire road) heading away from Princess Hwy – that should lead into another fire road (0.5km) – Continue until you reach a creek crossing (if you cross over and continue it will lead to another section of the loop) – 30mtrs before the crossing there is to entries onto the trail – take the right entry – this is one loop so follow it – you will then come to a quarry – you need to follow right – and head back into the direction you came from – continue the new fire road for about 1km to the opening of the single track – this leads back your start. There are other trails, but I haven’t explored them, yet.
I was there in Jan as well - just a touch damp!!!
Without the help of GPS I had little idea of where I was at any one time, and even if I was still on the 'correct' trail. Even following markers I would lose the accepted/marked trail. Lots of trails crossed each other, etc. However, apply a bit of logic and it was easy enough to work out the way home, and or on with trails. FYI these are either side of Forest rd - so you will have to cross the bitumen. The starting points are all close to the main road, so no real need to head up the parking areas. As I said it was a little damp when I was there and I was very glad for 4WD as the fire trails were severely rutted and very slippy, but the kids loved it!
runs clockwise but the one & only race I did there was anti clockwise , there are 2 shops in Nowra I think the Shack is the better one too ask, as they sponsor a few guys down there that I know they are brothers that are sponsored & are pretty good riders too . If you end up in Ulladulla go see Bart at the bike shop there next too Subway there are trails there too .