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‘It’s a walking path, but, yeah, you should be able to make it down!’
My plan of returning back down the dead-end road back to Lithgow was transformed into a beautiful loop through pristine Blue Mountains landscape.

The return was also on a dead-end road, through the Wolgan Valley. Dead-end roads are the best. There are hardly any cars. People are too busy going from A to B to worry with dead-end roads. Cycling on them is like being on a different planet.

And the kind of people driving on the road are cool. Some cycling fans recognised my bike – a Koga with Rohloff hub. They were so excited they stopped for a photo opportunity, and then offered me food and water. It was like being on the world bike trip all over again!

At the end of the dead-end road is an old pub that now runs as a kiosk on weekends. Entering there makes you feel time has stood still.

Going backwards in time through the day, to get to the Wolgan Valley, I had to descend from the Newnes plateau, where I passed through the Glowworm tunnel (I’ll come to that). The plateau comes abruptly to a halt at some vertical rock walls. There is a little walking path that makes its way down, but, it involved a little bit of carrying the bike.. 🙂

The actual trip was inspired by a turn-off I passed last week to the ‘Glow worm tunnel’. That sounded too good to miss. The glow worm tunnel is at the end of a 35km dirt road from Lithgow that passes over the Newnes plateau. In the middle of the tunnel, total darkness reigns. After a few minutes, when the eyes adjust, little green points of light appear. Everywhere. Like millions of stars in the night sky, the glow worms dot the blackness with life.