At the end of August, over a period of eleven days I rode from Sydney to Melbourne. I'd been wanting to do this kind of bicycle tour for some time, but having not found anyone willing to accompany me and not keen too keen to go alone, I hadn't done it - until now. This time the opportunity arose when my sister Rosie had to go to Sydney for an interview for a course at Sydney Uni. She asked if I wanted to ride from Sydney to Melbourne with her. She also asked Josh, who was with us on our previous three-day tour to
. Josh, being fairly new to cycling, having just bought his bike a few months earlier, bravely accepted the challenge. And subsequently bought a trainer and determinedly dedicated himself to a few weeks of training to prepare for the trip.
We also asked around other friends who we thought might be interested in coming with us, and found one more recruit - Sam Panter, who'd just gotten back from a bicycle touring trip in Europe. That made four of us, which seemed like a good little group.
There wasn't a whole lot of pre-planning done for the tour. Josh and I booked in leave. We tentatively agreed a coastal route would be the way to go, with less paddocks/farmland, less hills and more scenic coastline. We asked a few friends we knew of who'd also done the ride between Sydney and Melbourne for any tips. We bought tickets for the train (which cost around $100 each) and I picked up some bike boxes, since the train company unfortunately requires patrons carrying bikes to put them in boxes. Rosie and I sent out some warm showers requests for a hosts in Sydney for the night we'd be staying there. Sam asked some friends of his in Sydney of we could stay with them as well. And that was basically it, we were ready to go.
Rosie caught the train to Sydney on Monday, a few days earlier than the rest of us, in order to prepare for her interview. Sam and Josh stayed at my place on Tuesday night, and we packed our bikes into bike boxes and luggage into panniers. Then we were up at 6:00 am on Wednesday to catch the train from Croxton. Carrying our three bike boxes and eight panners/bags from home to Croxton (about 1 km) was probably the hardest part of the trip!
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| Croxton Station, after carrying all our gear by hand for 1 km. |
We missed the first train, but caught the next an hour later, switched trains at Flinders St and got off at Broadmeadows where the train to Sydney was leaving from (since unscheduled track works meant coaches were replacing the train between Southern Cross and Broadmeadows.
We were about an hour early, as the train company had stipulated we be, though this seemed unnecessary, but at least meant we had contingency built in, had we missed an earlier train to get there.
The train was surprisingly quiet and smooth, and I enjoyed the whole 12 hour journey, which involved talking to Josh (Sam doesn't talk much when he's tired, and was very good at starting out the window for long periods of time, and sleeping), playing some Lumosity, reading emails, reading an article called "
Are We Violating the Human Rights of the Worlds Poor?" by Thomas Pogge (heavy with academic language but commendable, I can recommend it), and staring out the window at the passing countryside.
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| Josh with his Devonshire Tea on the train to Sydney. |
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| Sam sleeping on train to Sydney after an early start. |
The train served "Devonshire Tea" consisting of a coffee/tea/hot chocolate and a scone for $6 for morning tea/afternoon tea, and a hot meal for lunch and dinner for around $8 or $9. The prices seemed reasonable to me, though I didn't buy any meals because I had a container of left-over vego lasagne that we cooked up the night before, which provided lunch and dinner.
We arrived at Sydney Central Station just after 8 pm, and spent a while unpacking our bikes from their boxes and putting them back together again.
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| Putting our bikes back together at Sydney Central Station. |
And then we were off and riding, the cycle tour had begun...kind of. Josh and I were heading to our warmshowers hosts' house, a bloke called
Bruce Ashley, while Sam was heading to his friends house which was supposedly near Bruce's, so we were taking the same route initially. Bruce had sent as a Bikely link with a route along back-roads/cycle-friendly roads to his place. We'd only been riding a few minutes but realised we'd already missed the first turn. We back-tracked and were back on track. It was later than I would have liked, so I sent Bruce a message letting him know we weren't far away, and he replied with "good to hear, I'll put the kettle on!" He sounded like the kind of bloke I would like!
Sam decided he needed to go further north and parted ways with us, only for Josh and I to see him ride past again five or ten minutes later while we were trying to figure out directions at an intersection. We followed Sam and he found his street, and as it turned out, Bruce's place was merely a block away. He welcomed us in before we'd even knocked on the door, and showed us his place which was really cool, plenty of character, artworks, and some impressive renovations with second-hand timber used for his refurbished kitchen floor and benches.
We sat down with a mug of T2
Rooibos tea and Bruce showed us the route he recommended us taking. His knowledge of the bike paths and cycle routes was incredible, he knew them like them like the back of his hand. He's been a bicycle advocate for some 30 years, and also written some
cycling guidebooks, so his intimate knowledge was understandable. We couldn't talk too long though, as Bruce was working full-time and had to get to bed. Josh and I set ourselves up very comfortable in the pool room, and I slept very well.
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| The Pool Room in Bruce's house where Josh and I slept for the night. |
There was only one minor hiccough, when it started raining over-night, and the leak in the roof which Bruce had pointed out and which we had assumed wouldn't be a problem because we'd thought it wouldn't rain, started dripping on my sleeping bag. Not to worry, a quick relocation of my mattress to the other side of the pool table, and relocation of the bucket to catch the drips, and I was fast asleep again.
Apologies for my verbosity, I haven't even gotten to Day 1 of the actual ride yet. I'm no good at writing with brevity; once I start writing I can't help but go into lots of detail...but I've tried. Anyway, I've set the scene, here's how the trip went.
Josh has also volunteered to contribute his perspective of the trip to the blog. So I've added his writing below mine at the end of each day in blue text. Josh is a better writer than I am so it's great to have his words as well, thanks Josh!
Josh's Perspective: Intro
I arrived at Ned's house at around 9:30 pm on the Tuesday, anxiety-ridden and exhausted. The three hour drive from Horsham gave me plenty of time to imagine all the trauma that awaited me. I had numerous things to do: take my bike apart to fit in the box for the transit to Sydney, make sure I had everything I needed for the trip (though it was too late anyway), pack everything I was taking into the two pannier bags my road bike could accommodate, we had to sort out logistics for the next day, and figure out how we were going to get 3 bike boxes and all our bags from Ned’s house to the train station. But all of these anxieties paled in comparison to the dreadful belief that I was about to embark upon an undertaking that I wouldn’t be able to finish. What would I do when my knees gave out? when relations with my fellow travellers broke down? when I’m hundreds of kilometers from home, exhausted to the point of paralysis slumped by the side of a country road in southern New South Wales?
These thoughts were never far from my mind.
But I got my bike in the box eventually (though I mutilated it like a deranged serial killer, with bits and pieces flying everywhere, until Ned came and brought it back to life), and we got to the train station with our bike boxes and panniers the next day (though it was absolutely torturous, and ironically far more physically demanding than anything we ended up doing on our bikes), and we caught our train to Sydney.
So far so good.
Day 1: Sydney (Dulwich Hill) to Otford (Thursday 28/08/14)
Josh and I woke up fairly early, just before 7 am and Bruce made us Vegemite on toast using a camping style toaster over the flames of the gas stove, as well as freshly squeezed orange juice - perfect!
Bruce headed off to work and left Josh and I to finished packing before we headed off as well.
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| Josh in Bruce's kitchen before we headed off. |
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| Bruce's kitchen. Loved all the artwork in his house! |
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| Looking out one of Bruce's windows into the streets of Sydney - an early passing shower. |
First stop was Rosie's Warmshowers host,
Nick, which was about 3 km down the road. After a brief meeting with Nick, Josh Rosie and I headed back up the road to meet Sam at his friends place. Once the four of us were together, Rosie surprised us with T-shirt for each of us, each with a matching prints of a bicycle. Mum and her partner Tex has printed them especially for us which was very thoughtful, thanks Mum and Tex!
Sam's friends Alex and Amy kindly offered us second breakfast consisting of freshly dumpstered (see
here if you don't know what I mean by that) toasted fruit-bread and cups of tea. I ate some of Sam's muesli with powdered milk.
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| Out the back of Sam's friends house in Sydney |
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| Rosie and Josh playing ukulele and singing before we headed off. |
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| Sam's friend Alex's house in Lewisham, Sydney (Alex in the centre). |
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| Ned |
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| Josh |
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| Sam |
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| Josh and Ned |
No-one seemed to be in any hurry to get going, so after washing up, filling drink-bottles, another rain shower and a decent amount of loitering, we eventually headed off.
Roughly following Bruce's turn-by-turn directions, we rode down Cooks River, stopped in at Woolworth's for supplies, then to the coast which we followed south. Some parts were on bike paths, but other parts were unavoidably on main roads. The roads weren't as busy and dangerous as I had expected after warnings from a number of people. Rosie's warmshowers host for her first two nights in Sydney, Oliver, had even suggested we catch the train for the first leg. I wasn't keen on the idea as a matter of principle - you should be able to safely cycle out of a city!
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| Cycling out of Sydney by the beach. |
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| Crossing a bridge on our way out of Sydney. |
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| Sam attempting to ride around these obstructions after I wagered he couldn't. |
We turned in to the Royal National Park, which is really just beyond the outskirts of Sydney, and stopped for first lunch. We stopped at the top of a descent, about a kilometre too early I'd say, as the area down by the Hacking River a kilometre further on was more scenic.
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| Me at our lunch stop in Royal National Park |
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| Josh at our lunch stop in Royal National Park |
After crossing the river, we decided to take the off-road short-cut along Lady Carington Drive, which was a great decision because the scenery was magnificent. It had everything: rocks, waterfalls, undulating terrain, puddles, moss, ferns, a river - it was great!
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| Lady Carington Drive in Royal National Park. |
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| Sam and Rosie on Lady Carington Drive in Royal National Park. |
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| Lady Carington Drive in Royal National Park. |
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| Sam and Rosie riding through one of many puddles on Lady Carington Drive in Royal National Park. |
Back onto the main road and with some climbing we got to some beautiful views of the coast as the sun was setting.
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| A view of the coastline from Otford. |
We were all getting tired and ready to stop for the day, but weren't sure where we were going to camp. Some friendly bogan's were sitting in their car enjoying the sunset, so Rosie and Josh went over and asked them if they knew of a good place to camp. They reckoned they did, and even offered to drive there while we followed them. They took us down a steep window road heading inland, and after a kilometre or two, pulled in at a little clearing beside a creek. "That should do ya's" one of them remarked with a smile. "Cool, thanks a lot mate" I replied, and they backed out and drove off.
The site was actually quite mediocre - muddy with patchy grass, no real flat spots to pitch a tent, and rather exposed to the road nearby. "Yeah, I'm not sold", I admitted to the others. "I'm going for a quick look around". I left my gear and rode off on the unloaded bike, back to the road, over the creek, up the hill and into a nice open area which looked promising. I went a little further, and found a nice little secluded area under some trees, with relatively dry ground (though everything was pretty wet), and even a table. It was perfect, so I dashed back to the others who were already starting to set up, and told them we had to move! With some reluctance, they packed up and we moved to the new spot which was literally only a hundred metres away, but a much better spot!
Dinner consisted of the camping staple, a simple but tasty meal - pasta with tomato-based sauce, cooked on the Trangia.
Josh's Perspective: Day 1
Woke to the sound of persistent rain. Actually Ned had been woken several hours earlier by the equally persistent dripping from the ceiling falling directly on his chest. Though to be fair to our host, he did warn us.
By the time we’d had a few pieces of toast and some freshly squeezed orange juice (what hospitality!) the rain had mostly cleared and we made our way to where Rosie was staying. From Rosie’s host’s place we went to meet Sam at his friend’s house, and after a second round of breakfast, we were on our way.
But before we left Rosie revealed a surprise to the touring group: a screen-printed cycling themed T-shirt for each of us, thanks to Rosie and Ned’s Mum. I wore mine every day for the rest of the trip.
The going was fairly slow as we made our way out of Sydney, but the cycling track around Botany Bay was very Beautiful.
After a short stint on the Princes Freeway we turned back coastwards, and decided not long after lunch to take a short-cut. I was expecting this to be a disastrous decision, but in the end it was well worth it. It was rocky, muddy, slippery and good old fashioned hard work, but there was also waterfalls, rainforest, dramatic rock formations, a deer at one point (!), and because it followed the meandering of a river it was relatively flat compared with the alternative route. I must admit though, I was tired by the time we got back onto the main road. In fact, I took this to be clear evidence of my incapacity for the type of sustained activity required for touring. My heart and my mood sank, but I hid this from the group as much as I could.
As it turned out though, it was just a really rough track, and after a few of my now famous home-made muesli-bars, I was right as rain.
Just as darkness began to threaten, we came over the top of a hill to see a coastline of cliffs and rough seas leading all the way down to the lights of Wollongong. We stopped at a lookout and searched in vain for a spot to put up our tents, until we asked two nice bogan gentlemen drinking beer at the lookout if they knew of anywhere nearby to camp. They guided us (literally) to a spot at the bottom of a big hill by a creek, and though upon further exploration Ned found somewhere better (and ever so slightly less completely saturated) up the road, their help was very useful, as we never would have looked down there if not for them.
The main downside to our campsite for the first night was the fact that it was about 50 meters from a train line. The commuter trains were all right, we hardly noticed them, but there was also the occasional freight train, which rattled heaven and earth, and pierced our brains with disturbing frequencies from very heavy metal on metal. I’m not sure about the others, but it made for strange dreams for me.
Rosie missed the little dry patch that Sam and Ned and I had erected our tents on, and she suffered dearly for the mistake.
Day 2: Otford to Gerringong (Friday 28/08/14)
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| Our campsite in Otford. |
I was the first up, just before 7 am. The best part of the morning I reckon is eating breakfast, and the best breakfast is cereal and milk. So a few bowls of Weet-Bix and Uncle Toby's was the go. Rosie was complaining that she'd had a terrible sleep because everything inside her tent was wet. For some reasons she'd apparently set her tent up on a puddle. Once she'd packed it up, it was clear from the squelch of ones foot on the site of her tent that it was pretty wet there. The freight trains running every half hour on the railway a hundred metres away didn't for a good nights' sleep either!
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| A convenient puddle at our campsite that we used for washing up. |
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| Rosie and Josh wearing the T-shirts that Mum and Tex printed for us. |
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| The potential campsite that our mates had shown us the previous night. |
The first kilometre or two of riding was up a hill back to the coastal road. The views were quite scenic as we headed towards Wollongong.
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| The Sea Cliff Bridge on Lawrence Hargrave Drive, Coalcliff. |
But before we got to Wollongong, I noticed my rear tyre was getting bouncier. I kept going, hoping I was only imagining it, but eventually had to accept it was slowly going flat, and pulled over to fix it.
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| Rosie and Josh playing uke and singing while I fixed my puncture. |
The problem turned out to be a $5 note that I'd left in there to cover up a hole in the tyre. The corners of the folded note had actually cut into the tube after many thousands of revolutions of the tyre, with supposedly slight rubbing between the note and tube each revolution, and eventually worn a little hole right through. I was surprised, but then again, using a $5 to cover up a hole in the tyre should really just be a temporary solution, a stop-gap until you get a new tyre at the next opportunity. I had been meaning to get a new tyre since I'd noticed the hole on the
previous tour...but hadn't gotten around to it. Not to worry, Wollongong was nearby and I could get one there.
I repaired the tube, re-positioned the $5 to cover the hole in the tyre and we kept going into Wollongong where I found a bike shop. Unfortunately though they didn't have the tyre I wanted (the Schwabe Marathon), and having used mediocre tyres in the past and gotten many punctures, I decided not to compromise on quality, and figured I could keep going on the current tyre for a while longer.
For lunch, we stopped in at a little "Heritage Park" by Lake Illawara, definitely the pick of the lunch-spots in the area.
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| Pulling up at our lunch stop in the Heritage Park by Lake Illawara |
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| Our lunch stop in the Heritage Park by Lake Illawara. Apologies for the poor quality image, it was from my iPhone 4. |
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| Some crepuscular rays, one of Sam's favourite things! I didn't know what they were called before Sam enlightened me. |
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| Sam and Josh riding the bike path, with the crepuscular rays in the distance. |
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| The crepuscular rays again. |
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| Josh presents...a rainbow! |
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| Somewhere on the coast with nice views. |
At Kiama we serendipitously stopped in at the blowhole, and I'm glad we did, it was pretty cool!
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| The blowhole at Kiama. |
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| Josh relaxing at the blowhole at Kiama. |
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| The blowhole at Kiama. |
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| By the blowhole at Kiama. |
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| Our four bikes, by the blowhole at Kiama. |
By the time we were riding out of Kiama, it was getting dark. We stopped and discussed what the plan was. I wanted to cover some more kilometres, the others were ready to set up camp, but we hadn't really seen anywhere suitable to camp. And Sam was complaining of a sore knee, and didn't want to go much further.
As we snacked and got lights out, a bloke who'd pulled over nearby walked over to us and started chatting. He asked where we'd been and where we were going, and recommended the caravan park in Kiama - a very typical conversation with randoms who'd stopped to chat to us. Though this guy set himself. He told us he was the school principal in Nowra, and he was planning to ride from Perth to Sydney, and flying to Perth the very next day. Rosie asked how long it would take him, to which he replied "oh, anywhere from 3 months to 3 years!"
Anyway, ignoring his advice "because I knew better", we attempted to follow a walking track shown on Google Maps, which ran by the coast, 10 km or so from Kiama to the next town, Gerringong. However, the track didn't seem to exist, or if it did, it surely wasn't suitable for riding on with touring bikes. So it was back to the A1 (Princes Highway). This involved climbing up to an elevation of 100 m before dropping back down to sea level in Gerringong.
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| Still 910 km to go to Melbourne. |
Rosie and I went ahead while Josh stayed back with Sam who's knee was giving him trouble. Rosie and I waited at the bottom of the hill on the other side...and waited. We began to wonder if something had happened to Josh and/or Sam. After about ten minutes they finally arrived. Unfortunately Sam had had an accident - he'd ridden into some roadworks on the decent and into a big step which he hadn't seen in the dark. He could have come off much worse, but got away with some cuts and grazes, including on his good knee. I guess that's why riding at night isn't a great idea, unless you've got good lights.
We pulled in at one of the beaches at Gerringong beside a toilet block, and thought considered what we would do for tea and where we would camp. I volunteered to go scouting for a camping site, and to bring back some fish and chips if I could find any too. I was fairly unsuccessful in both. I mean, there were some possible camp sites but no fish and chip shop - the town was a pretty small one, and the fish and chip shop by the beach was closed.
So instead we cooked up a curry, which had been the original plan. And it was a delicious curry if I don't say so myself!
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| Curry for dinner by the beach in Gerringong. |
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| Sam, Rosie and Josh around the dinner table by the beach in Gerringong. |
After washing up, we decided the hill ride beside us would be the best bet for camping, and pushed our bikes up. It was pretty exposed to the weather, and very windy, but we had the place to ourselves, and I liked it.
Josh's Perspective: Day 2
The dreaded nausea set in the second I awoke and remembered that the first and most important part of getting ready for the day (after getting dressed) was breaking my fast. And breakfast on a bike tour is not a token effort the like of which I can get away with in my normal day to day life. I would have to eat. Properly. So I got up a little early, released the already pestering butterflies from my stomach on a pensive stroll to the nearby stream, returned to fill a bowl with cereal, and set off alone again. Eating breakfast requires my full attention, so I mustn't be disturbed lest I lose it and have to start all over again.
Mercifully breakfast got a little easier each day.
We made our way into Wollongong before lunch, with the highlight of the morning being the glorious Sea Cliff Bridge just before Scarborough.
Ned had to patch a puncture, the cause of which was a not insignificant gash in his rear tyre. So once we got to Wollongong we were off to find a bike shop for a new *insert name of fancy tyre here*. After the first shop yielded no result, we were on our way to the second when Ned stopped abruptly, wheeled his bike backwards some metres on the bike track, and picked up an old rubber bike tube from the grass by the path. I had no idea what he planned to do with it, but apparently it meant that we didn’t need to go to a bike shop anymore.
We got to Kiama (about 40kms south of Wollongong) by late afternoon after getting back on the A1 after Shell Harbour. The blow hole beneath the lighthouse at Kiama entertained us for a good half an hour, as we enjoyed a well earned box of BBQ shapes. By the time we got on the road again darkness was setting in, so we considered our options. After finding no suitable place to camp, on either map, by eye-ball, or local knowledge, we decided we’d go on to the next town, only 8kms down the road.
8kms is nothing. Unless of course it’s dark, the road is skinny and busy, you’re very inexperienced, you’re exhausted, and there’s roadworks. In the end it was this final complication that proved to be the danger.
After starting the descent from Kiama to Gerringong, Ned sped off ahead, as is his custom, and Rosie went off after him. Sam had been struggling with a bad knee for most of the ride so far, and because of this Ned’s pace was usually too much to ask. So we split into two: Ned and Rosie up front (and eventually a long way in front!), and Sam and I behind. When we got to the roadworks we had two options: go left onto the new asphalt being laid, where there was no traffic but it was totally dark, or stay right where the road narrowed and the shoulder was virtually non-existent, but where there was plenty of light from the headlights of passing cars. I was a bit relieved at the opportunity to escape the constant traffic brushing past my shoulder at 100kms an hour, even if only briefly, so we went left. It was a bad mistake.
The dark concealed not one even surface, but a segment of freshly laid asphalt, and running alongside it a segment where the old asphalt had been cut away, leaving a disparity of altitude of 4 or 5 inches where the two segments met. Sam was unfortunate enough to cross over this ledge with his front wheel while his back wheel remained elevated, with disastrous consequences. He came down with an awful sound; metal meeting stone, and flesh meeting both.
Sam was left with a nasty graze on one leg, and lots of little chunks removed from his other knee. I had a first aid kit with me, and I performed a horrendous imitation of someone who knows how to apply first aid, but Sam was lucky his injuries weren’t even further beyond my competence.
We eventually caught up to Ned and Rosie who were waiting for us some k’s down the road. They thought the whole thing was tremendously funny. I was not in agreement with them.
All you need to know about Gerringong is that its about the hilliest town in Australia, and there’s very few places to camp. Legally anyway. We had our tea in front of a toilet cubicle by the ocean, and after some exploring, Ned found somewhere to camp on top of a hill by a cliff-face. It rained all night, and the wind was even less relenting.
Sam mentioned that he was considering getting the train back to Sydney the next day because of his knee (not the one with chunks missing that was probably still bleeding, the one with the more structural discomfort).
| Destination | Distance (km) | Moving Time (h:mm:ss) | Elapsed Time (h:mm:ss) | Elevation (m) | Average Speed (km/h) | Maximum Speed (km/h) |
| Day 2: Otford to Bulli | 19 | 1:04:12 | 1:35:19 | 341 | 17.7 | 68.4 |
| Day 2: Bulli to Gerringong | 76.4 | 4:49:17 | 9:22:29 | 872 | 15.8 | 69.8 |
| Total Day 2 | 95.4 | 5:53:29 | 10:57:48 | 1,213 | 16.2 | 69.8 |
Day 3: Gerringong to Basin View (Saturday 30/08/14)
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| Our campsite on a hill in Gerringong. |
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| The cost beside our campsite. |
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| Our campsite looking towards Gerringong. |
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| Our campsite looking towards the coast (there's a cliff). |
We woke to some wet and windy weather. Though the view from the campsite was good. We packed up and rode to the main street to find some shelter for brekky. Fortunately there was also a power-point on the building where I charged my phone (my dynahub/E-werk/cache battery set-up which was meant to charge my phone while riding hadn't been working properly).
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| Josh, Rosie and Sam eating breakfast in the main street of Gerringong. |
Sam wasn't sure if he would be able to continue due to his injured knee. He decided he'd ride for an hour or two to see how it went, and then decide whether to continue. So we set off and rode for 30 kilometres straight, to a town called Bomaderry. Sam was lagging behind significantly, so once we got to Bomaderry he decided that was it, and that he'd catch the train home. Bomaderry is the end of the train-line to Sydney, so it was really the last chance to pull out. We stopped at the station and the train was leaving in 4 minutes; the next train wasn't for another few hours, so with barely a moment to say goodbye, Sam was on the train back to Sydney. And then there were three of us.
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| Sam on the train back to Sydney (though you can see Josh in the reflection off the window). |
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| Lunch at Bomaderry Bakery. |
We at lunch at the Bomaderry bakery and then rode over the river into Nowra. We were stuck on the busy Princes Highway for the next sections, though there were generally bike paths (or what we assumed to be shared paths) where the highway didn't have a shoulder, so it wasn't too bad.
A friend, Kat, had recommended we visit, and swim at, Jervis Bay, so we made sure we stopped in there. We got to Huskisson, a town on Jervis Bay and even though it was pretty cold, we decided to go for a quick swim. We hadn't had a wash in days anyway. It was pretty cold and refreshing! It probably took another hour of riding to warm up again!
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| Huskisson on Jervis Bay. |
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| Rosie and Josh swimming at Huskisson, Jervis Bay. |
We stopped at the road heading into a town called Basin View because we had to make a decision - should we keep go back out to the Princes Highway and keep riding, or go into the little town and find somewhere to camp. While we were deliberating, a woman who had pulled over ahead of us came over for a chat. She said she'd done some bike tours herself and even kindly offered for us to stay at her house which was just nearby. It was a tempting offer and we were grateful but declined. I didn't want to be a burden unnecessarily and the weather was nice for camping out anyway.
We did however take her advice on a camping site, and went down to the boat ramp by the lake. It was the perfect camping spot really, it had dry flat soft ground, tables, toilets, firewood, seclusion and a good view! It was probably the best camping spot we had for the whole trip.
We cooked a cous cous salad for dinner, then Josh and Rosie lit a camp fire while I attempted to repair the hole in my tyre, using some pieces of an old tube I'd opportunistically picked up along the way, and some pieces of an empty metho bottle. I used these items to make a patch, which I then stuck over the hole on the inside of the tyre.
Before bed we relaxed with a nip of some Stones ginger wine and some fruit cake. Rosie had also brought her ukulele and a songbook along with her, though the songbook didn't seem to have too many songs, because we kept singing the same ones. Or maybe it was just that we only knew how to sing a handful of them. The ones that stand out in my memory were "
Botany Bay", "
Bound for South Australia" and "
Que Sera Sera".
Josh's Perspective: Day 3
In the light of the new morning, we were able to see just how exposed our campsite was. All night the rain and wind had beaten against my side of the tent. I was more exhausted when I got up than I was when I went to bed. I must have woken up every 15 minutes all night.
It was still raining, so we rode into the town of Gerringong to find some shelter for breakfast. Again, breakfast took about an hour longer than necessary, and again, by the time we were on the road, we’d lost the best part of the morning.
It was a slow 30 kms to Nowra/Bomaderry, with showers and some poor stretches of road to contend with. Sam’s knee wasn’t getting any better, and after battling valiantly all morning, in Bomaderry he took the last opportunity to get the train back to Sydney, as this was the end of the line. He went into the train station, bought his ticket, and 3 minutes later he was rolling away as we stood waving goodbye from the platform. It was a strange feeling. One minute he was there, the next minute he was gone. It felt like losing a limb.
We took our time for lunch, sampling the delicacies of the two local bakeries, then we were off again.
We were finally able to turn off the Princes Freeway back towards the coast again, as we made our way towards Huskisson. I’d been spoiling for a swim in the ocean ever since we started, and I got my chance in Huskisson. It was bitterly cold, the skies a deep grey as Rosie and I walked out into the surf, with Ned following less enthusiastically behind. The crashing waves stole the air from our lungs, as we gasped at every new icy insult from the sea. But it was incredibly invigorating. I could feel the life-force well up inside me; my battery instantly recharged. And the opportunity for a wash was not wasted.
With my enthusiasm renewed, the bike felt 10kgs lighter as we made our way along Jervis Bay, then back towards the A1. But it was getting dark; too much time had been wasted that day; and the prospect of riding another 20kms down the A1 in the dark was not particularly appealing to Rosie and me. As we were discussing options by the side of the road near an intersection, a lady pulled over in her car and came down to see if we needed help. She offered to put us up for the night at her place, but sensing our reluctance, she informed us that there was a little reserve just down the road by a lake where we’d find somewhere to pitch our tents without too much trouble.
She was right, and as we were cooking our tea, she came down to the lake with her dog to make sure we’d found it, and probably because she was worried about us, as the rain again started to fall. She reiterated her previous offer to put us up for the night, but we were happy enough. We had a little fire, around which we sang and dried our clothes We’d picked up a bottle of ‘Stones’ ginger wine which we felt we’d earned. And so we had. We drank to Sam, and to good spirits.
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