2017-12-30 Roxas - Santa Teresita

Day 2 of another bikepacking trip around Palawan. The aim of this trip was to ride roads I still haven’t ridden in the north half of the island.
The bike used for the trip was a cyclocross type Kona Sutra LTD with 700 x 47 tires and 30Tx10-42 gear. Wikiloc limits to 25 the number of waypoints to add to the track. If you want more waypoints (stores, places to eat and stay, etc.) just contact me and I will send them to you.
Route to Santa Teresita using the coastal road through San Nicolas, Tumarbong and Ilian. If you ask people about going from Roxas to Santa Teresita they will all send you through the national highway.
After the first two kilometers the unpaved road starts and it will be like this almost all the way to Santa Teresita except for some patches and the last 10km. There are I was expecting to find a bridge at San Nicolas to cross Baracbacan river and head directly to Tumarbong along the coast but there wasn’t any river crossing. I had to go back to the National Highway and ride for less that 2km before taking the turn to Tumarbong.
There are villages on the way where you can get drinks and food along the way at least every 30 minutes with a section of around 20km after Bagon Bayan (3km north of Ilian) where there aren’t any stores or villages along the road. There are a couple of hanging bridges over Baracbacan and Ilian rivers and a wooden bridge what was partially washed out and fixed with some bamboo over the Taradungan river mouth.
There are a few lodges at Santa Teresita with basic rooms for 200-250PHP. There are eateries, shops and a market and a nice beach with picnic shelters around 1,5 km east of town.
A boat to Dumaran Island costs 600PHP. Usually people will gather in the pier every morning around 7am and will fill up boats to different destinations of Dumaran Island and the price of the boat ride is 60PHP. It takes 45 minutes to get from Santa Teresita to Dumaran Town.