Bike Paths

On our walk yesterday (3.17km) I got to thinking about the differences between Australian disused railway lines, and French disused railway lines.

In France, over 6,900km of disused railway lines have been converted to voies vertes - cycle and walking paths. There is an ambition to increase that to a network of 20,000km by the year 2030.

This is our local voie verte, yesterday.

And this is the goods shed (also yesterday)

In Australia there is an ongoing - sometimes very heated - discussion on the wisdom of converting railway lines to bike paths. Many people are in favour of the plan, but there are those who want railway lines reopened. Even if they were closed in the 1940s and serve areas of decreasing population.

One of the schemes under "discussion" is the old railway between Tumut and Batlow. As far as we could tell, the residents of Batlow are generally in favour, and show this by displaying an old bicycle on their verandah roof.

This is the state of the railway - and goods shed - in Tumut.