Adjungbilly Bound

Some of you may know that I also dabble in photography, and one of my passions is capturing historic churches. To do this, I need to know their locations, orientations, and whether they are worth photographing. I’ve identified around 150 churches within 100 km of Parliament House, most of which are over a century old. Occasionally, I come across a church I can’t pinpoint, either in terms of location, orientation to the sun, or history.

St Patrick’s Catholic Church at Adjungbilly was one such discovery – I found mention of it but little else. The second church in the area, Holy Advent Anglican Church, sits opposite Tumorrama Hall in Adjungbilly. I knew it was built around 1923 and had a rough idea of its orientation from Google Maps, but I wanted a closer look before heading out with my full-frame camera.

With this in mind, I planned a motorbike ride to visit both churches, or at least where I believed St Patrick’s might be. Normally, I’d invite friends along, but this time I posted the ride in the ACT Adventure Riders group to gauge interest. I received one response – from someone I knew but had no idea rode an adventure bike.

After a brief mix-up over which Ampol in Weston we were meeting at, Mike arrived, and we set off towards Sawyers Gully Rd – the start of the dirt tracks. A quick stop to lower tyre pressure and snap a photo, and we were on our way to Wee Jasper. We paused in Wee Jasper to check out the restored police station and see if the general store was open. It wasn’t – barbed wire now blocked the entrance, suggesting it won’t be reopening soon.

​From Wee Jasper, we rode past Micalong Campgrounds and up Nottingham Rd towards Adjungbilly. At some point along Threeways Rd, the gravel unexpectedly gave way to asphalt. In Adjungbilly, I rode to where I thought the church might be – but found the public school instead. As we left, I spotted someone standing outside their house and stopped to ask for directions. Luckily, the church was along the road we were already planning to take back to Canberra.

We found it soon after, though it wasn’t at all what I expected – a simple 1960s-style demountable building. Still, we stopped to take a look around. The door was open, so we ventured inside and took a few photos.

​Leaving Adjungbilly, our next stop was Holy Advent at Tumorrama. We found it easily, stopping to explore the church and nearby memorials to local pioneers. Continuing on, we turned down Lee Archers Rd but soon encountered private property. A quick detour got us back on track.

Later, we ended up on a disused forestry track for the final kilometre before reaching Cockatoo Rd, which wasn’t too bad. From there, we made our way to Brindabella Rd to finish the loop. About 2 km from Gentle Annie Rd, Mike ran out of fuel. Fortunately, we’d planned for this – he had 5L strapped to his bike. A quick refill and we were on our way again.

At Piccadilly Circus, we paused briefly so I could explain the various roads branching from there. Then we descended Brindabella Rd, passed through Uriarra, and returned to our starting point.

The 228 km ride was incident-free, blessed with great weather – and all of it was new to Mike.

Route Map.