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ALPINE WAY MOUNTAIN POSTIE RIDERS & NEAR MISS

Alpine Way

The Alpine Way mountain road begins from the town of Jindabyne in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales and travels to the Victorian state border and onto the town of Corryong in Victoria. The Alpine Way is a fully sealed road. Much of the mountainous driving is between Jindabyne via Thredbo to the small town of Khancoban in New South Wales. This section of the road is 110 km in length but will take two hours to drive. The drive from Khancoban to Corryong is 27 km and is over rolling hills and farmland. The Alpine Way, although two way and is sealed, is narrow in many area's between Thredbo and Khancoban. In my opinion it's not recommended to tow anything more than a small trailer along this section of road. This section is tight, twisty and meanders up and down with short straights and heavily wooded mountainsides.

Outside of the snow season snow chains are not required or needed. There maybe the occasional sight seeing snow on the higher shaded slopes in Spring or Autumn.

Above the Tom Groggin Campground the road often has a 15 per cent gradient rise or fall and a few 15\25 km hairpin bends are on these sections of the Alpine Way.

Mountain Postie Riders

Upon leaving the town of Jindabyne in the mid morning in a normal road going vehicle and no towed trailer soon the short turn off to Thredbo was sighted allowing for a five minute stop in Thredbo. On entry to the resort village a few dozen motorbike riders with their bikes were milling around the roadside 'Welcome to Thredbo' sign. These motorbikes are those as ridden by postal workers in Australia. Their bikes were scattered off and along the roadside.

Postie Bike

The Honda CT110 is a 105cc Four stroke single. Has drum brakes and a fuel capacity of 5.5L. Rated top speed of 80 km and about 8 horsepower. The bikes are often used by rider groups for charity rides within Australia.

Up Over and Down the Alpine Way

Expecting a fairly quite scenic mountainous two hour drive to Khancoban, it was a bit of an unpleasant surprise to share the road with so many motorcycles that are obviously not built for mountainous roads with their riders hellbent on riding to Khancoban and beyond. More riders were arriving by the minute. These same riders were spotted the previous day numbering greater than one hundred at the Banjo Patterson Hotel carpark in Jindabyne. Now at this very time all deciding to ride the same direction as I was driving. Most appeared to be in groups of roughly ten or so allowing for a few km of spacing in-between.

No point waiting for all riders to pass which may take hours I continued on the Alpine Way.

Within a few km of leaving Thredbo a line of postie bikes formed behind my vehicle. I slowed a little to the left and allowed space for all to overtake. No problem. A short while later another swarm of bikes were behind and I let them go by. I began ascending a steep bit of twisting road as more riders were approaching from behind. I rounded a tight bend and came across a gaggle of riders trying to climb the steep hillside. Their bikes seemed to be at full throttle at around 50 to 55 kmh. Following for a while I overtook on short straight sections of road where eighty km or more was possible. The road would top out and begin to descend allowing the riders to catchup behind quite close to the rear of the car on the narrow twisting Alpine Road. One or two overtaking. The next section of steep raising road slowed more bikes in front again to a low speed inviting myself to overtake once again. This back and forth carried on for quite awhile. Many of the riders appeared to have a five litre jerry can of petrol strapped behind them on the bikes.

Near Miss

A few road sections of the Alpine Way are cut through rock out crops allowing high crests to be driven through to the next downhill part of the narrow road. All well and good but with underpowered postie bikes all around front and rear made for an unsettling experience.

The view was one of a rather comical appearance of swarms of postie bikes catching up very close and then falling behind. Same could be said for bikes out in front. Catching up to bikes on the steep inclines for them to only pull away as the road ahead flattens out. In my opinion a dangerous situation could develop.

I descended a long section of road with a sharpish right turning bend at the bottom followed closely by a large group of postie bikes. I looked to my right a postie bike appeared to be a car door length off of the side of the rear passenger door trying to brake for the quickly tightening bend. Turning forward I focused on the road ahead expecting a scrape of metal on the car but heard nothing.

I continued driving. Soon another downhill section of road appeared. Again descending and turning right with postie bikes on my rear bumper I unexpectedly came across a very narrow single lane bridge with a span of fifty metres or so. An approaching SUV was soon to get off of the bridge.

Not wanting a head on accident I steered to the near verge of the road with a drop and certain roll over, all of the while watching my rear vision mirrors and depressing the brake pedal as much as I dared to not wear a postie bike on the rear. I could see the closest four riders brake to the left of what little of the road verge there was behind to avoid hitting the rear of my car. Everyone coming to a momentarily stop before moving off again over the single lane bridge crossing Swampy Plain River at Geehi. A very close call.

A little later and about twenty km further on to the approach to Khancoban there were roadworkers with a stop sign. Looked like a five minute stop for roadworks. A long line of postie bikes pulled up behind. I got out and had a bit of a chat. Most seemed to be in their thirties. I as a former motorcyclist, said the mountains were not the best place for these types of motorbikes and I had a close collision just before. The bikes are not powerful enough for these roads. They agreed and said they were at full throttle much of the time and still not really going fast. One rider said there were eighty in the group. I said it looks like we are over the worse of it and continued on into Khancoban without incident.

Traveldriven

DRIVE THREDBO - KHANCOBAN - CORRYONG