| Bicycle Touring
and/or Activist Groups
Bicycle
Tasmania has an extensive tour planner for the island state
Bicycle Touring
101 is a very comprehensive US site on bike touring information and
well worth a good look
Bicycles Network
Australia
lists a variety of travel operators and tour websites
Michael Rogers ride along the
Bicentennial National Track (also known as the Big Nasty Track) -
serious MTB, remote riding.
Newcastle Cycleways Movement - check their Links page
for more sites.
RailTrails Australia for
current information on Australian rail trails
Randy
and Jody's Website - fellow bike tourists with their trips detailed
Rob
Taggart's Website - bike tourist
Bike Shops
Bicycle Victoria
Find a Bicycle Shop lists bike shops around the country and can be
sorted by any of the columns of data.
White
Pages
Yellow Pages
Train Routes, Timetables, Fares
Australian Railway Timetables
NSW -
CityRail - metropolitan service for Sydney;
Sydney airport, Wollongong and Nowra; Campbelltown and the Southern Highlands;
Newcastle and the Hunter to Dungog, Maitland and Scone; and Blue
Mountains. They also have an excellent
trip planner
where you can enter your start and destination to have it select the
best times for your trip incorporating bus, train and ferry services.
NSW - CountryLink - regional train and coach
services.
VIC -
Metlink - metropolitan and suburban Melbourne.
VIC -
Skybus - Melbourne/Airport bus service to/from Spencer St Station.
VIC -
V-Line - regional train and coach services.
Ferry Routes,
Timetables, Fares
NSW - Newcastle Buses & Ferries
- passenger ferry across Hunter River - Newcastle/Stockton.
NSW - Sydney Ferries
- passenger ferries around Sydney Harbour.
VIC - Queenscliff to Sorrento Ferries
- passenger and vehicle ferries across the mouth of Melbourne's Port
Phillip Bay.
VIC / TAS - Spirit of
Tasmania - passenger and vehicle ferries across Bass Strait between
Melbourne and Devonport.
Airline Routes, Timetables, Fares
(check their prices for a boxed bike - is it included in luggage limits
at its actual weight, or something else and what are the excess baggage
charges). At this stage, VirginBlue is my preferred airline by a
long way.
VirginBlue
Tiger Airways
JetStar
Qantas
State and National Parks
NSW -
Department of Primary Industry
and National Parks
and Wildlife Service cover most of the parks in NSW
VIC -
Parks Victoria
School and Public Holidays
Oz Tourism lists all Australian
school
holidays and
public
holidays.
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Maps
Australia Map Guide allows you to select a location and zoom in to a
high degree of detail, particularly in major cities. Off road
cycleways are marked on the detail maps and 1:250k topographic maps are
a part of the levels of zoom available.
For Garmin GPS owners, there are two free mapsets available that provide
an excellent basis for planning your trips, as well as being able to use
them on your PC you can download them from your PC to your GPS.
Tracks4Australia
seems to be the more accurate of the two, but only the paid version gets
all of the bells and whistles, while
Shonkymaps is also
based on the same initial mapset as T4A, it has the accuracy of the
1:250,000 Auslig topo maps and most of the info included on them.
I use both for different reasons and recommend them both.
NSW -
RTA cycleway maps for Sydney and regional areas.
NSW - NRMA -
state based motoring group
VIC -
TravelSmart maps of Melbourne and suburbs
VIC -
RACV
- state based motoring group
TAS - RAC of Tasmania - state
based motoring group
Accommodation
NSW - NRMA
- state based motoring group
VIC -
RACV
- state based motoring group
TAS - RAC of Tasmania - state
based motoring group
Kosciuszko Hut
Association shows maps and details of huts and camping for the Kosciuszko
National Park in NSW and VIC, as well as huts around Cradle Mountain in
TAS
YHA - international youth hostels
group - some of the hostels also allow camping onsite at reduced rates
Camping in Victoria and Caravan Parks of Australia
Weather
Elders
Weather provides one of the most comprehensive and easy to use
Australian weather websites. Its rain forecasting and climatic
history for regions is quite useful.
Climate Statistics for
Australian Locations for various recent periods for weather stations around
the country is helpful for gaining an understanding of what the weather
was like in the past in the areas to be visited.
Climate and Seasonal Outlooks
from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology
- useful to get an indication of what the expected weather may be like.
Wind roses across Australia - will you be riding with the wind or
against it?
Sunrise and Sunset Times
anywhere in the world on any date.
Odds and Sods
ABC Radio is the national emergency broadcaster for disasters
such as fire, flood, earthquake, cyclone, etc. This site will provide you with
all Australian ABC Radio frequencies, and their reception areas.
It is best to have an AM/FM radio, as the major areas of the country are
covered by the AM band. By comparison, the areas covered by FM
radio stations is relatively confined.
Rental Car Australia & New Zealand
- compare prices for rental cars and motor homes on standby.
Lonely Planet has a number of
touring books for Australia, and at least one for cyclists.
OziExplorer is
one of the best mapping and planning programs that I have seen. It
is able to work with many maps such as UBD, Hema and NatMap for
Australia, etc., along with others around the world. It is
available at a very reasonable price, and it can upload/download to/from
most GPS units. The maps and profiles used on this site have been
prepared to some degree from this software.
ExplorOz is
essentially focussed on 4WD travellers, but it has some really useful
information for those looking to travel to some of the less populated
areas of the country.
GPS Information.Net provides a
wide variety of very useful information including advice on selecting a
GPS, GPS product comparisons, etc. |
