An overview of the road covered during our first week of cycling in Australia after our eleventh weeks in NZ.

2018.02.10 – [AU] Coledale ==> Kiama (58 kms | Total: 3311 kms) – After leaving our “no vacancy” campground we cycled along the coastal road and on some busy pedestrian/bicycle paths. We were surprised to see how many folks were walking early in the morning and many others simply hanging out at cafés along the way. It seemed we cycled quite a bit of time in the urban core of Wollongong. We took advantage, once again, of a breakfast break at McDonald’s. Although our route was meant to be fairly easy, we felt tired by the time we reached our target holiday park for the day. The not-so-friendly campground attendant quickly informed us that the campground was full and that most accommodations in Kiama were also sold out – being a Saturday. We were directed to a nearby motel which still had one room available. Although the room was very expensive, we were not in a mood to cycle any further. We had our evening meal at a nice nearby Italian restaurant.

2018.02.11 – [AU] Kiama ==> Nowra (44 kms | Total: 3355 kms) – Before leaving our motel, we had breakfast at a nearby busy café. As we had booked a motel room for the end of our cycling day, this provided us with some peace of mind when we left Kiama. We had our morning workout tackling some good hills leaving Kiama. After the hills, we had some very enjoyable cycling on flat and tree shaded secondary roads for most of our journey to Nowra. We stopped for some snacks at a grocery store before making our way to our motel. Our motel check-in was done without anyone at the reception. We had a great evening buffet at an ex service man facility – which seemed to be present in most towns we had stayed in Australia.

2018.02.12 – [AU] Nowra ==> Milton (61 kms | Total: 3416 kms) – Our cycling day would be done entirely on highway. As we had done in previous towns, we leveraged the wide sidewalks to cycle on before the highway provided a reasonable road shoulder. The day was marked by up and down hills. Except for a few rest areas, there were little facilities along the way. Arriving in Milton, we had a late lunch at a nice bakery. We set up our tent at the pleasant holiday park. We encountered our first real-life kangaroos skipping around the campground. As the weather forecast predicted, the rain started in the early evening while we were enjoying some relaxing time in the kitchen/lounge facility. Still stuffed from our late lunch, we only had a light evening meal at the campground.

2018.02.13 – [AU] Milton ==> Nelligen (66 kms | Total: 3482 kms) – It rained lightly most of the night. We broke camp while the rain stopped briefly in the morning. We left the holiday park under the rain. It took us some time to follow our gps’ proposed route out of town. On the way, we stumbled upon a McDonald’s for breakfast. We cycled, once again, on the sidewalks to leave town before we could safely ride on the highway. It was another day of up and down hills. We were tired by the time we reached our motel in Nelligen, just north of Batesman Bay. We did some clothes washing and dried up our tent. We were glad the motel had a restaurant as there was not much else in the area. All the locals were warning us that some big hills were ahead of us before reaching Canberra. After our evening meal, we purchased some breakfast sandwiches to take along with us on the road for tomorrow.

2018.02.14 – [AU] Nelligen ==> Braidwood (52 kms | Total: 3534 kms) – We left our motel by 8am in order to start cycling under the coolness of the morning – as the temperature was expected to go up to 35C. By the 18th km, we started our climb on the road leading up towards the summit of Clyde Mountain located in the Great Dividing Range. We walked and pushed our tandem for over three hours uphill to almost 800m. By the two thirds of the way up, we ran out of water. I had consumed over 5 liters of water while Jenny had used her half liter of water. Miraculously, Jenny spotted on the side of the road, while walking in front of me, two half liter unopened water bottles. Jenny believed that an earlier passenger in a car who passed us going uphill might have dropped the bottles on the side of the road as Jenny had made signs of drinking to a car that waved to us along the way. As for me, as I’ve been reading the Harry Potter books, I believed the water bottles simply apparated! By the time, we reached the summit of the road, we had almost run out of water again and we still had another 18 kms to cycle before we would reach the town of Braidwood. To add to our challenge, we faced a strong headwind going forward. The wind did nonetheless help to keep us somewhat cooler. As we arrived in town, we stopped at the first gas station to purchase and drink a 1.5 l of cold water. We stopped to purchase some snacks and drinks before checking into our motel for the day at 4:30pm. Although we were fairly exhausted, we managed to do more clothes washing using the motel washer – which seemed to be often made available at motels as a courtesy to guests. We both agreed that today’s cycling had become our most challenging cycling day to-date. Jenny said she would never forget this Valentine’s day on the road in Australia! We had a great evening meal at a nearby restaurant. Our nice motel room greatly helped us recover from this difficult day.

2018.02.15 – [AU] Braidwood ==> Bundengore (50 kms | Total: 3584 kms) – After a good night sleep, we headed to a bakery in the city center with the unloaded tandem to pick-up some take-away breakfast sandwiches. Before leaving our motel, we shared our difficult cycling experience with a motel maintenance worker and some motorcyclist guests. They provided us with some insightful information as to why this part of Australia was not as flat as we expected. The Great Dividing Range which runs, north to south, on the eastern coast is responsible for our hard cycling. They explained that the roads within the first 200km of the coast tended to be more hilly. As for the inland roads, they tended to be much flatter. We started cycling, with a bit of apprehension, but we were reassured that the worst was behind us. The road was not totally flat but most of it should be. We had our breakfast sandwiches along the side of the road. We continued to appreciate the Australian motorists for their on-going encouragements and road courtesy. The highway was consistently in good condition while providing us with a good shoulder – most of the time. We arrived in Bungendore at 2:00pm and checked into another nice motel – as a late Valentine’s day gift! We bought some snacks and drinks at the nearby IGA grocery store. We had some tasty pizza for our evening meal at a nearby hotel restaurant.

2018.02.16 – [AU] Bundengore ==> Canberra (45 kms | Total: 3629 kms) – We left our motel, after having a yogurt, with the expectation to stop along the way for some breakfast. The cycling was more enjoyable although a bit more hilly than yesterday. We had a late breakfast at McDonald’s mid-journey. Maps.me, our phone’s gps app, guided us through various bicycle paths and residential streets to our very nice hotel/apartment in the Woden neighborhood of Canberra. We purchased some groceries and drinks at the nearby shopping mall as we planned to cook all of our meals in our well equipped room kitchenette. We locked up our tandem at a nearby sister hotel’s underground parking lot. Jenny leveraged our room’s clothes washer/drier. We had some veggies and ready to eat roast chicken for our evening meal.

For a number of months, we had been planning to wrap-up our cycling adventure with a visit to China before heading back to Canada. As part of the plan, we expected to meet up in China with Jessica, our older daughter. As Jessica’s vacation schedule was somewhat constrained, I spent the evening planning out the remainder of our stay in Australia. Although, our earlier cycling plan had bravely suggested that we would ride the great Stuart Highway across Australia’s Outback, from Adelaide to Darwin, we had already given up on this part of cycling plan. As we already passed the mid-point of our six month travel schedule, there would not be enough time for us to undertake the Outback crossing and more importantly Jenny was not sold on that adventure. We had resolved ourselves at wrapping up our cycling in Adelaide and flying to China. One nice benefit of cycling on a tandem was that we could discuss various travel options throughout the day. Hence, we came up with the idea of stopping our cycling journey on Australia’s mainland in Melbourne instead of pursuing the road to Adelaide. In exchange, we would cycle for a week or two on the island of Tasmania. We would finally conclude our Australia visit by renting a car for two weeks to visit Uluru (Ayers Rock), a massive sandstone monolith in the heart of the Northern Territory’s arid “Red Centre”, a journey of over 2,000km (one-way). Although we had considered driving across the Outback to Darwin, but we discovered the associated one-way car rental surcharge and the additional airfare cost flying out of Darwin, as opposed to Melbourne, proved to be too high.

2018.02.17 – [AU] Canberra ==> Canberra (0 kms | Total: 3629 kms) – Jenny prepared a nice breakfast of eggs, bacon and toasts. We spent the morning reviewing the previous evening’s travel itinerary and plan. After confirming the updated plan, we committed ourselves to a few key dates by purchasing airfare to China (April 12th) and to Canada (May 8th). We would need to apply for our Chinese visa in Melbourne. Before lunch time, we returned to the nearby shopping mall for more groceries and other supplies. Late afternoon, I did our regular tandem maintenance while Jenny caught up with our travel expenses. Jenny prepared a great evening meal including some dumpling and ribs.

2018.02.18 – [AU] Canberra ==> Canberra (0 kms | Total: 3629 kms) – After morning breakfast, we left our room for some city sightseeing. We purchased a daily city bus pass as we hopped on a bus leading us to Australia’s parliament house. We learned that Canberra was purposely built as Australia’s capital in order to mitigate the polarity of the two largest cities of Sydney and Melbourne. After our visit of the modern parliament house, we visited the National Portrait Gallery where we enjoyed some snacks and lattes at their café. Later, we walked 20 mins. under the strong sun to visit the National Capital Exhibition facility. Although we had planned next to visit another museum some distance away, we opted to ride a random city bus in order to take a break. To our great delight, the bus brought us to the city center where a multicultural festival was in full swing. We spent the remainder of the afternoon taking in the various shows and salivating at all the international food being sold at dozens and dozens of stalls. We were very thankful for our spur of the moment choice of hopping on a random bus. By late afternoon, we once again took a city bus back to our hotel while surprisingly waiting less that 10 minutes – on a Sunday afternoon. A very relaxing and fun discovery day. Jenny prepared all of the remaining food as part of our evening meal.