info about Wollongong, please

randallb said:

Hello all,
I currently live in Arizona but i am going to study abroad next year in Australia. So, ive been looking into different universities and such...so far NSW has caught my eye. So, does anybody have anything good/bad to say about Wollongong and the surrounding areas in general or specifically about cycling there? any good climbs!? Any info would be greaty appreciated, its tough to piece stuff together off the internet! Thanks!

Randall

I live in Wollongong. Wollong university is a top class university. I think it won university of the year a couple of years in a row.

Wollong is a beautiful place. 80km south of Sydney CBD. It is a coastal strip about 10 average in width. It is nestled between the pacific ocean and a long mountain range. In wollongong you have excellent surf beaches.

The cycling here is excellent. There are flat areas to ride as well as numerous mountains to climb. The length of the mountains range from a few hundred metres up to 12 km in length. The mountain range averages 300m alt to 750m and most of the mountains usually start at sea level There is a lot of quiet pastoral land to ride through as well as heaps of rainforest.

The roads are generally good in terms of traffic, epecially if you go out early on in the morning.

There is a cycling club here that have races every saturday www.illawarracycleclub.org.au . It is also close enough to Sydney's South so you can drive 40 minutes and race at Sutherland cycling club.

If MTB is your thing I know there are heaps of trails down here as well but you might want to check out the details from a local MTB club as some serious cracking down of MTB riding has occured recently due to erosion problems on the mountains.

As you can seen there are heaps of options.

Hope I have helped you a little bit

I live in Sydney rather than the Gong but can confirm that the cycling around there beats Sydney cycling hands down.
Best internationally recognised universities in NSW are U of Sydney, UNSW, and Macquarie. Wollongong U isn't bad.

randallb said:

Hello all,
I currently live in Arizona but i am going to study abroad next year in Australia. So, ive been looking into different universities and such...so far NSW has caught my eye. So, does anybody have anything good/bad to say about Wollongong and the surrounding areas in general or specifically about cycling there? any good climbs!? Any info would be greaty appreciated, its tough to piece stuff together off the internet! Thanks!

Randall

Agree

Wollongogn U is excellent.

The whole town (well the northern suburbs anyway) is one of the most beautiful coast towns you'll ever see.

Mountains that drop into the sea. Long flat stretches along with some very challenging hills.

You'll go a long way to beat that place, especially the northern beaches area (eg. Thiroul, Austinmer etc)

Scotty

wow, thanks for the info everybody, that is the kind of info i was looking for! I dont think i could live with out hills/mountains! Thanks again.

scotty72 said:

Agree

Wollongogn U is excellent.

The whole town (well the northern suburbs anyway) is one of the most beautiful coast towns you'll ever see.

Mountains that drop into the sea. Long flat stretches along with some very challenging hills.

You'll go a long way to beat that place, especially the northern beaches area (eg. Thiroul, Austinmer etc)

Scotty

Scotty, I think you may be selling the south of wollongong short.
I live on the south side of the gong and I have to tell you before I moved here I thought the same as you.

Most people think steel works Yuk. As did I. Sure the steel works is here but unless you live in about one or two specific suburbs you really dont even notice it.

I have to say it annoys me when people say "oh no the steel works".
If you take the total amount of pollution that is pumped into wollongongs air from the steel works, and compared it to the combined total of all the thousands of factories emitting pollution in Sydney, people would be horrified. Sydney out pollutes wollongong by a factor of hundreds.

I have to tell you the beaches are better here (safer, and less crowded) than the northern beaches. The lake is also here which has some great fishing, skiing and sailing otions.(lake illawarra is larger than Sydney harbour). There are bike tracks all over the place for recreational riding.

the traffic here is better as well.

The biggest downside to wollongong south as far as i can see is that there seems to be a bit of a red neck element here.

Dont knock it unless you have tried it.

randallb said:

wow, thanks for the info everybody, that is the kind of info i was looking for! I dont think i could live with out hills/mountains! Thanks again.

Don't get too excited about Australian "mountains"! European/ American visitors always glibly inform me that they are only hills.

artemidorus said:

Don't get too excited about Australian "mountains"! European/ American visitors always glibly inform me that they are only hills.

Thats because they come to Sydney and go riding. They never experience riding in wollongong hehe.

I remember when Jan ullrich rode the Commonwealth Bank Cycling Classic in the early nineties, he certainly showed a lot of respect for Maquarie Pass.

You also have to remember that yes our mountains are not 3000 metres high but they do (n wollongong anyway) usually start at sea level and go up fairly high.

A mountain in europe that starts at 2200 metres and finishes at 3000 metres is considered large. What is the difference in actuall altitude climbed? Not a lot.

MPCRUSHER said:

Thats because they come to Sydney and go riding. They never experience riding in wollongong hehe.

I remember when Jan ullrich rode the Commonwealth Bank Cycling Classic in the early nineties, he certainly showed a lot of respect for Maquarie Pass.

You also have to remember that yes our mountains are not 3000 metres high but they do (n wollongong anyway) usually start at sea level and go up fairly high.

A mountain in europe that starts at 2200 metres and finishes at 3000 metres is considered large. What is the difference in actuall altitude climbed? Not a lot.

I don't want to start a slanging match but our hill starts at about sea level (Penrith) and goes up to ~1200m (Mt Vic). Somewhat more gradual ascent, but!

I apologise if i sounded like a knob. I dont want a slanging match either. Some times I should learn to keep my mouth shut. I really do dig the Sydney bike scene. Thats where I grew up.

no hard feelings..

MPCRUSHER said:

if i sounded like a knob. ..

you didn't.

I dont even care if they arnt mountains like here....you can always climb em more than once if they arnt sufficient! What is the deal with macqaurie pass, stats? Again, thanks for the replies, they are helpful.

randallb said:

I dont even care if they arnt mountains like here....you can always climb em more than once if they arnt sufficient! What is the deal with macqaurie pass, stats? Again, thanks for the replies, they are helpful.

Macquarie pass is about 20 km from wollongong CBD. it starts at 40 M altitude up to around 750 M altitude. From the bottome to the top, the distance is around 11 km. There are quite a few switch backs. The road goes up through some beautiful rainforest and the views are stunning. At the top you enter the southern highlands. Lots of farming country, dairy farms etc..

Wollongong is an excellent place - good size city, close to Sydney but without the hassle or expense, excellent uni both academically and socially (I did a PhD in env engineering there), best beaches and a fantastic area for riding. I commute daily along a flat paved bike track adjacent to the beach - great for checking out the surf, seeing dolphins. Our "mountain" is a steep escarpment rising from a coastal plain to a plateau approx 500-700m above sea level. Its very spectacular.

There are pretty active road, MTB and tri clubs/groups based here, and its close enough to Sydney to compete seriosuly if thats what you do. A couple of ok bike stores - but I'd bring your own cause bikes in Aust (especially NSW for some reason) are $$$.

There are some really good hills south of the Gong and north of Nowra. KOMpm gives details of the climbs. Maquarie pass is one of the most scenic but also one of the easist hills of the region. Jamberoo, Saddleback, Camberwarra and Barrengery (all in both directions) are harder.

Australia does have some good hills if you know where to find them. Gibraltar Range 60k west of Grafton is a 970m climb averaging 5.8% over 17km. That's a cat 1 in European terms.

You have to know where to find them, otherwise Australia looks like an extremely flat country.