Today, I had intended to ride from Waterfall to Wollongong. A nice ride, along the Illawarra coast line, which should have taken a few hours. The sun was out, with a nice, cool, temperature. Perfect cycling weather. After catching the train down to Waterfall, it was time to start.
So, I set off down the Princes Motorway, for the few hundred metres, before taking the Old Princes Highway turn-off. After riding down the road, for about 9 kilometres, I took what I thought to be my turn-off to the coast. After a quick drink stop, I pedalled off down the road. A few hundred metres later, I was beginning to think that this road did not look right. I couldn’t remember the sharp right, or that it was as narrow as it was. Silly me, had taken the wrong turn-off – one too short. In the end, I found myself at Helensburgh station, at the bottom of a steep gradient. I decided to abandon my ride to Wollongong, as I would not have had enough daylight hours to make it (after backtracking).
However, it wasn’t a total waste. This station still uses old, manual, indicator boards. Probably a handful of stations that do. A nice throwback to the past, when things were so much simpler! Railways have been a major interest of mine for many, many years.
Depending on the weather, next week, I may actually complete my ride. Or, I may end up going somewhere else. That’s the wonderful freedom of riding a bicycle.
At least you ended up in a pretty decent place after the too-early-turn. Could have been worse. That station does look interesting seeing that it’s nothing like the stations in Melbourne and Sydney. Suppose it’s one of the quieter stations around too and it doesn’t look like that many trains pass by there each day, and probably not more than a few hundred passengers pass through it.
Helensburgh is just outside Sydney. It’s pretty much just a village. It does have a regular rail service (about one or two trains every hour, each direction), but it’s not used by all that many people.