Kiwarrak Mountain Bike Park: What You Need to Know
Kiwarrak Mountain Bike Park has about 80 kilometres of singletrack threading through the state forest. It runs everything from gentle, flat beginner loops to steep, technical gravity trails with wall rides and jumps built to international race standards. Most people driving up from Sydney or across from Newcastle already know about it. What fewer people know is that there's a second section — on our side of the highway.
The main park
The bulk of the trail network sits within Kiwarrak State Forest, west of the Pacific Highway near Tinonee. It's been built almost entirely by volunteers — local riders who started cutting trail in the late 1990s, well before community-built networks became fashionable. The Manning–Great Lakes Tip Riders club formalised things in 2010, and since then the park has grown into one of the better mountain bike destinations on the east coast.
There are three main loop options: roughly 10km, 15km, and 20km, though the trail network is extensive enough that you can piece together longer or shorter rides depending on where you want to go. The grades run from green to black, and there's a 2.7-kilometre adaptive trail built for wheelchair and adaptive mountain bike riders — one of the longest of its type in Australia. The network also hosts proper events: the Tippies MTB Trifecta and the PBM Hardrock 6 Hour cross-country race draw riders from well outside the region.
Trail conditions hold up well year-round. The forest floor drains quickly after rain, which makes Kiwarrak more reliable than a lot of coastal trail networks that turn to mud for days after a shower.
The section people miss
Between the North Fire Trail and Link Road, on the eastern side of the Pacific Highway — the same side as the retreat — there's a trail section that most visitors never find. It's not marked on the main park maps, doesn't get the same traffic as the forest loops, and feels like a different ride entirely: quieter, a bit rougher in places, with the particular character of trails that have been found rather than built.
It connects logically with the main network if you know the link points, and it means you can ride straight from the property into the trail system without loading bikes on a car. For guests who've come specifically to ride, that matters.
Getting there from the retreat
The main Kiwarrak trailhead is about ten minutes by car. The eastern section — the quieter one — is even closer. Old Bar Beach is another ten minutes east if you want to finish a ride with a swim, which, on a summer afternoon, is difficult to argue with.
The Tip Riders club website at tipriders.com has the most current trail map and conditions. Trailforks also has the network mapped with grades and GPS downloads if you like to ride with a route loaded.
Come in winter if you want the trails to yourself. Come in autumn if you want perfect conditions and a decent crowd. Either works.
