St Albans Road. This is the 20 km road from the Webbs Creek ferry and crosses the bridge at St Albans to reach the ride base. There is one section of dirt road of 5 km in length from Boyds to 300 metres out of St Albans. This report is for the dirt road section only. I drove along this section at 4.45 pm 20/8/07. It has small pot holes in part but the flood damage has been fixed up. Full credit to the council team. The dirt road is also quite dusty when its dry and this road has the least amount of dirt road. The St Albans bridge has a load limit of 15 tons, a length limit of 7.5 metres and a width limit of 3 metres due to the gantry on the bridge decking on both sides of the single traffic lane. Long vehicles will need to make a wide turn. Please note the 10 km/h speed limit on the St Albans bridge. If your vehicle is too big, length, weight or width, do the sensible thing and use the main ferry at Wisemans ferry and travel via Settlers Road.

Settlers Road. - This is the 20 km road from the Gosford side of the main Wisemans Ferry to the St Albans village. There is 10 km of dirt road in this route, twice that on the St Albans Rd. On 19/8/07 the landslips onto the road between the main ferry and the St Albans village have all been cleaned up. The unsealed road surface is in good condition for an unsealed road. Full credit to the council crews for their efforts after the flood. I used this road when towing a trailer into St Albans. Please travel with due care. The road is dusty in part in dry conditions.

Wollombi Road. - (I have not recently driven this road, thus the comments from 8/7/07 may still apply). This road starts at the George Downes Drive at Bucketty. It is 35 km of rough dirt road with nasty drops and enters St Albans via the St Albans Common. This road has multiple washaways which include the outside edge on hillsides. Avoid the outsides. There are numerous rough areas where the flood has washed across this road and in some of the temporary reconstructed wash away areas the road is just ONE vehicle wide. This is a road to avoid at the moment, especially with floats and trailers. The photo of the sign at St Albans sums it up, take notice. That sign is still in place at Espie St, St Albans on 20/8/07.
21/8/07 - The lagoon in the St Albans Common received a lot of water from further north and went into flood this afternoon. It was OK about lunchtime 21/8/07, (Neil and Allan used the road). By about 4pm Joan Opbroek advised that there was a metre of water over the road in the Common. Neil and Allan checked it a little after 5pm and found that it was down to about 0.7 metres. Chris O'Grady (resident in the Common) is quoted as saying that the water peaked about 4 feet and there was likely to be debris on the road.

0840 22/8/07 - The Wollombi Road in St Albans Common still has 0.2 to 0.3 metres of water over the road surface. The course of the road under flood is not obvious since there are no road side markers in this part of the road.
There is also a land slip on the river side of the Wollombi Road about 200 metres south of the St Albans Guest House 4km north of St Albans. There are road barriers around the problem, keep clear of the side of the road.
At present the recommended route from the north is Wisemans Ferry Road and Settlers Road.

Roads to Avoid. - Bicentennial & Lower Portland Roads are totally unsuitable for floats, trailers & caravans due to road width and a very tight hairpin bend. Wollombi Road has washed away sides and is very narrow in some parts.

On ALL ROADS in the area. - All roads in the area are narrow & winding, drive with care and observe the low gear signs on the hill descending into Wisemans Ferry on the Old Northern Rd.

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