Omafiets’ Glow Worm Tunnel Ride: Bell to Newnes

Words by Oliver Cashman, photos from the participants

My first memory of Newnes is arriving on a Friday night, having fallen asleep in the car’s back seat and stumbling into a tent put up by my parents. In the morning, I peered out and was awestruck by the sheer sandstone cliffs surrounding the campground. Since then, I’ve been drawn back to this hidden gem just past the Blue Mountains out of Sydney.

Newnes is a ghost mining town with a population of four (as of the last census) on the unceded lands of the Wiradjuri and Dharug people. There’s a hotel with no beer (they sold the license in 1988). On a typical weekend, it’s overrun with 4WDers and their palatial tents, but that all changed when the only road in was washed away in November 2022. Since then, it’s been pretty quiet out there.

For years, we’ve run shop overnighters out to Newnes (with a couple of staff and customers), but COVID, fires, floods, and babies got in the way—we haven’t run an overnight ride since 2019. With the road to Newnes closed, the National Parks Service took the opportunity to do some trail repairs at the nearby Glow Worm Tunnel, which put the whole area off-limits. They finally finished up, and I thought, it’s time!

We met at Bell Station (cramming 16 bikes into a soon-to-be-replaced Blue Mountains train) on a foggy, quiet morning. Rolling through the eerie Clarence Colliery and along some chewed-up fire trails, we only saw a car or two. The spring natives were in full bloom: waratahs, grevilleas, a constant backdrop of pink Comesperma, and yellow native peas.

The traffic increased once we hit the main dirt road to the Glow Worm Tunnel—convoys of 4WDs making their pilgrimages, their trailers laden with illegal dirt bikes. Riding along the ridge through the Newnes State Forest, a former pine plantation that’s been clear felled in many areas, was pretty spooky in the fog.

By the time we started descending along the old rail alignment, the fog had burned off. There’s a short-ish, pitch-black tunnel that took a few people unaware, and then we arrived at the start of the Glow Worm Tunnel walking track. It’s mostly walking your bike with a couple of sections of hiking your bike down and up some extremely narrow stairs. Riding in a group was a real advantage in this section, and we all helped pass bikes and luggage up this section.

Round the corner, we arrived at the Glow Worm Tunnel proper, a cavernous black hole carved into the sandstone. National Parks have built a graded walkway with a handrail, greatly improving the experience of walking your bike through the darkness. As we entered, lights turned low, our eyes began to pick out the pale blue glow of the glow worms. In the middle of the tunnel, turning off our lights in the inky darkness, they cover the walls and ceiling like a doppler-shifted starfield.

After what seemed an impossibly long time, we emerged from the tunnel, crisscrossing a small creek until we popped out at the cliffline overlooking the Wolgan Valley. The track then sidles halfway up the cliffs, following the old railway line, with spectacular views through the trees. A sharp left turn, and we barrelled down a rough fire trail, the Old Coach Road (they took horses down this thing?!). At the bottom, the Wolgan River and a quiet, smooth dirt road led all the way to the campground.

Near the end of the valley, we reached the Newnes Hotel, one of the few heritage buildings that remains from the town’s glory days. With the Wolgan Road destroyed, to get in by car by the Donkey Steps, the hotel proprietor has to escort you in (for a fee), which means hardly anyone’s there.

The hotel has a fridge with soft drinks, ice creams, and some emergency tinned food. The manager even said that if cyclists stay at the hotel’s cabins or campground, you can place a click-and-collect order from the supermarket at Lithgow, and he’ll bring it in for you. That’s service!

We continued down the road and entered the campground I remember from my childhood: a huge grassy field ringed with eucalypts and those towering sandstone cliffs. A mob of kangaroos were mowing the grass, mostly unbothered by our presence.

Much has been said about the dangers of the Australian outdoors, but the main threat at this campground is the bindis (an introduced weed that produces small, sharp seeds in spring and summer). We had a few people nervously stuffing clothes underneath their sleeping mats to prevent punctures. You’ve been warned!

We relaxed at the campground, comparing cooking setups and camp recipes and hanging a bike from a tree branch for some bush repairs (it’s incredible how much easier it is to straighten a derailleur hanger with the bike off the ground). A bottle of wine appeared from someone’s bag. As always happens, there was too much food, and everyone was under pressure to eat more cheese and crackers.

After an early night and a sound sleep, we were ready to crack on up the hill. With the previous day’s cloud cover gone, it got hot quickly, and we probably should have started earlier. And it’s a pretty decent hill—we followed the fire trail back up the way we’d come and continued past the Glow Worm walking track to the top. After around 500 metres of vertical, we were back on the plateau and rumbling along the corrugated dirt roads. With the sun blazing down and no water available between the Wolgan River and the train station, the two liters of water we told people to bring probably should have been three.

We habitually understate the difficulty of our rides. Partly, it’s the overwhelmingly positive experience of riding in a group, but I think we also forget the hard bits. Any ride can be challenging depending on your fitness, equipment, and riding skills. One rider on a gravel bike washed out on a sandy corner, damaging his shifter. Stuck in one gear, he cramped up on the hills on the way back. Many walked their bikes up the larger hills, especially on the second day. This is not an easy ride. But it’s a spectacular one, and with car traffic at an all-time low, the ideal time to ride is right now.

You can learn more about the Glow Worm Tunnel route at Omafiets.com.au.

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