In 1904, the North Coast Steam Navigation Company published its Tourists' & Settlers Guide to the Northern Coastal River Districts of New South Wales. By then, the Great Northern Railway had attracted most inland traffic, but water travel was still the dominant transport mode along the North Coast and up the coastal rivers.
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The Guide is something of a classic period piece, one that tells us much about the detail of Australian life in a particular place at a particular time. It includes hints about cycle tourism.
By 1904, the safety bicycle had become a popular sporting and touring machine, but it was still more the workhorse for many working men in country and city alike. Bicycles were used to get to work, to collect orders and to deliver goods.
By the 1950s, bikes had become the province of young people, boys in particular. Both girls and boys peddled to school, all schools had bike racks, but boys were allowed to roam, girls were restricted.
"I still remember", Catherine Marker recalls, "learning to ride a bike when I was seven or eight with friend Beryl teaching me. However, as a girl I was not allowed to do the fun rides my brothers did".
Bikes gave boys freedom. They travelled.
John Caling recalls: "I used to ride out to my old mate Robin Munsie's place 'Strathhaven' on Burying Ground Creek most weekends. When I first started that ride the Grafton road was only sealed as far as Ralph Toombs' property at the edge of Armidale. The rest was gravel and pretty rough in places".
Dick McDertmott remembers riding to Woolomombi Falls, Dangarsleigh Falls, Gara Gorge, Thunderbolts Rock, the Dangarsleigh War Memorial and Gates, Dumaresq Dam, the Blue Hole, the Pine Forest, Bald Knob and Hillgrove.
Sometimes, Dick and his friends would travel with rabbit traps, slug guns over their shoulders. The skins would go to Thos Green and the meat to the Niagara cafe.
Most trips were day trips, but long trips were a rite of passage for many boys.
In 1956, 15-year-old Keith Douglas, Ken Sweeney and Richard Hoy set off for Port Macquarie down the then dirt roads. By the end of the first day they were at the bottom of the range. "Not a bad day's ride", Keith later commented.
Four years later, 15-year-old Philip Kitley and friend David Belshaw set off to ride to Sawtell, something that Philip recorded in a piece in the Armidalian. They made it in two days.
There wasn't a lot of money around following World War II. Many of our bikes were made from bits and pieces, heavy steel frame bikes, but they were well used.
Jim Belshaw's email is ndarala@optusnet.com. His New England life blog is http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com/: his New England history blog http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/
