Chill-out at Fingal Bay

[Pterodactyl_imp]

G'day all. This week I took a short ride from Sydney to Fingal Bay, about 580kms (360miles) return. I have family at Fingal and I do this ride regularly. Thought I would share this one.
Fingal Bay lies to the north of Sydney, on the southern and most eastern shore of Port Stephens. Fingal is a small community that relies heavily on the holiday and tourist trade. It is a paradise for fisherman, surfers, whale and dolphin watchers, and those wanting a quiet beachside holiday. Retirees form a large part of the permanent population. The Port Stephens Game Fishing Club runs an internationally recognised marlin fishing tournament on an annual basis. The main marina for game boats is at Nelson Bay, inside Port Stepens and just a few kilometres from Fingal. For those interested a Google map is linked here:
[url=http://goo.gl/maps/Cr5pZ]Sydney to Fingal Bay - Ride Map

The ride itself can be good or bad news, depending on the route chosen. Quick and easy is straight up the main highway. There are other more attractive alternatives and I took the one illustrated in the above link. Briefly, out of Sydney to the north and on to the Old Pacific Highway to the Road Warriors Café for breakfast and then to Peats Ridge and the Wollombi Rd to, naturally enough, Wollombi. The road itself quickly puts you into the bush where there are few people and mobile phone reception is, at best, patchy. Wollombi Rd has only been paved for a few years and it is rumoured that the locals, as few of them as there are, resisted the development of the road. It is a two lane (one each way) road with centreline and some passing lanes. The surface is variable. A great ride, fast sweepers and twisties to suit all tastes. An interesting feature of this road is Lemming Corner. This corner has achieved legendary status among bikers, police, ambulance services and grieving families. In Australia, it is one of the few country road corners that are named. Prior to Lemming there are some fast corners that get the blood flowing and lead those with more ambition than ability into trouble as they pitch into the 45kph advisory turn that quickly decreases in radius to a 25kph advisory with a distinctly unfavourable camber. If you run wide then its either into the ARMCO or over it into the gully below. The shoulder of the road is gravel so the result is often out of the rider's hands. The outside of the turn against the ARMCO is littered with clutch and brake levers, bits of fairings and a fair bit of DNA. It is rumoured that in the gully whole chassis lie there slowly and sadly rotting.

Lemming Corner
[/img]


Anyway, with the blood still flowing hot it is into the Wollombi tavern for lunch and refreshment. Very biker friendly. On any given day with the weather half decent the outside of the tavern looks like a used bike lot.

Wollombi Tavern
[/img]
[/img]
[/img]


After lunch it is through the Hunter Valley wine district and around the steel and coal city of Newcastle to Fingal. I'll leave you to the photographs. They speak for themselves.
Fingal Bay - Inside
[/img]

Fingal Bay - Outside
[/img]

The Staintune didn't make them even blink
[URL=http://s847.photobucket.com/user/tonys_mail/media/Fingal/IMG_0390_zpscce1d224.jpg.html]

Cheers

[Cormanus]

Great report and great pics, Pterodactyl. I hope, if I ever get to ride the Wollombi Rd I don't get half way around Lemming Corner racking my brains for what it is I should remember about it. The weather looks magic.

[Aussie_imp]

Thanks for the ride report Ptero. Reminds me to pull out my proverbial and do a little local SA ride report.

Is that a Kawasaki ZRX1200R I see parked next to you at the tavern? Nice bike!

[Rocky_imp]

Great pictures

[Pterodactyl_imp]

Thanks Rocky.

Cheers

[the Ferret]

Beautiful shoreline photos.

Question about the one decreasing radii turn you spoke abput. What kind of warning signs do they have up there? We have one warning sign here in the states that shows a big curve with a rider being thrown off his motorcycle. Sounds like they need one of those there from your description of the debris

[Pterodactyl_imp]

Beautiful shoreline photos.

Question about the one decreasing radii turn you spoke abput. What kind of warning signs do they have up there? We have one warning sign here in the states that shows a big curve with a rider being thrown off his motorcycle. Sounds like they need one of those there from your description of the debris

If you zoom the photo you will see two types of road sign.

[/img]

The red one says REDUCE SPEED. Fairly self-explanatory. The yellow 45 with a direction arrow gives you the direction of the turn and the maximum recommended speed, kph in dry conditions, for that bend. It is a recommended speed only and is always below the enforceable speed limit for that piece of road. In this case, Lemmings, after you exit the 45 a 25 sign appears. If you are in boy racer mode and not on your game it can drain your talent bank. As far as the advisory speed signs (yellow) are concerned a very competent road racer on the right bike can double the advisory speed. I normally tootle round at about 1.5 times advisory speed or even a little less unless it's a good visibility sweeper where I might become a little more ambitious. If I don't know the road I will be more conservative. At Lemming I am cautious as I don't want to be known as another idiot who didn't learn from history.

Otherwise, there are other warning signs and some are motorcycle specific. Signs may vary between states. Maybe we can assign a project to Cormanus: Road Signs in Australia (early 21st century), interpretation and effectiveness.

Cheers

[the Ferret]

Wow that is NOT adequate warning for the turn you describe IMO.

We had one turn on a road we ride in the state of Kentucky that was a dangerous 90 degree right hander right after cresting a blind hilll..and they had NO warnings at all. Lots of people drained their talent banks as you so aptly put it on that turn. Contacting the Ky Dept of Transportation got the sign adequately signed and most riders that ride the road regularly are aware of it's danger, and heed the signage, but newbies still don't take the sign seriously and end up losing a lot of levers, mirrors and some body parts (bike not human).

[Pterodactyl_imp]

^^^^ I may have added to that post while you were reading it.

Cheers

[Cormanus]

Might or might not be happy to take on the assignement, Pterodactyl. My experience so far is that the signs are a bit random. That's not to say that the people posting them are being tricky; just that they're probably done by different people.

When I learned to drive a car, a well-trained policeman mate reckoned whatever was on the corner sign plus 10 mph (16 kph) was safe. My current research suggests you can't apply any formula to it. You have to ride the road very carefully first before aiming for hero status. Some corners give you a recommended speed that's way below what you can safely do; others you get half way through and realise you might not make it.

But, in the interests of research, I'll keep riding to find out.

Conservatively, of course,