Countries visited: Australia, New Zealand
Cycled mileage in September: 1,096.3km
Cycled mileage per country: 994.5km Australia, 101.8km New Zealand
Total cycled mileage incl. September: 25,845.5km
September mileage not cycled 69.5km (walking, public transport) - Flight not included!
Days per country: 20d - Australia, 10d - New Zealand
Days cycling: 14d
Technical failures: 1 split tyre, 1 worn tyre, 1 worn chain ring, 2 worn chains, 1 rear pannier hook
Link to this month's route
Back in August we reached Darwin after riding the Stuart Highway in its entire length. From Darwin we flew to Brisbane and spent a couple of days with our friends Mele and Mark in Currumbin Valley near Gold Coast.
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| Pretty hilly near Currumbin Valley! |
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| Yet another state border |
From Currumbin Valley we continued our ride to Sydney. The way out of the valley was super steep with gradients of up to 20%. There would have been the option to get to the highway for the way to Byron Bay but we opted for secondary roads - and more hills! Byron Bay was nice if a bit too touristy so we pushed on a bit further and made it to a holiday park in Skennar's Head. It felt so good to relax in the whirlpool there.
We were able to stay on back roads a bit longer but after Ballina we had to use highway 1 which turned out stresful. There was construction work everywhere and there were many places where the road narrowed to only one lane. No need to mention that there was no shoulder anyway. Once we reached New Italy Rest Area thing were more relaxed and the revamped highway had ample shoulder all the way to McLean where we stayed for the night.
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| New Italy Rest Area |
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| Sugar cane plantations at McLean |
The next day we bashed out 100 kilometres on a hilly secondary road that was almost traffic-free. We ended up camping at an equestrian centre where we had a great campfire evening with French backpackers. A rather uninspiring day of riding took us to Valla Beach where we celebrated hitting the 25,000 kilometres mark with a bottle of wine.
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| Kangaroos near Valla Beach |
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| Celebrating 25,000 cycled kilometres |
We powered on first to Kempsey and then to Port Macquarie. Port Macquarie felt way too touristy again so we settled on riding on to Laurieton that didn't feel touristy at all despite its 4 campgrounds.
The next day was pretty tough with a long corrugated gravel road to begin with, some highway cycling in the middle and another offroad stretch to finish with. Even though we felt shattered the next morning we pushed on to Bulahdelah along a scenic but unexpectedly hilly back road. We called it a day after an exhausting 85 kilometres when we reached the outskirts of Bulahdelah and figured out that there was free camping at the golf club.
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| Gravel road in a national park |
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| Lonely beach near Port Macquarie |
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| Free camping in Bulahdelah |
We had been looking forward to continuing to Nelson Bay from Bulahdelah but it turned out that all sailings across Nelson Bay were cancelled that day due to strong wind. Instead we ended up cycling on highway 1 for most of the day and stayed in Stockton for the night. We took the pedestrian ferry to Newcastle the next morning and were pleased to find a cycle trail passing through town. In fact cycling the Fernleigh Cycle Way was great fun. We made it to Shelly Beach in the early afternoon and felt too tired to ride on. Unfortunately the holiday park was a dump but we were so tired we didn't care too much.
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| Fernleigh Cycle Way, a former railway track |
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| There were so many pelicans! |
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| On the ferry from Ettalong... |
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| ...to Palm Beach |
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| The next ferry - from Manly to Sydney CBD |
From Shelly Beach it wasn`t too far to the outskirts of Sydney the next day. Taking a ferry from Ettalong to Palm Beach saved us some kilometres and some highway cycling.
There have been a lot of inquiries about details on our route from Brisbane to Sydney so we have created a separate post about this topic here.
Former Swedish touring cyclists Ida and Robin have settled down in Sydney for a while. We had met them before in Bishkek when we all stayed at the AtHouse and later we unexpectedly met them again on a random road in Laos. It was nice to meet them again in Australia and to spend some time together!
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| Sydney CBD |
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| Strolling around Sydney |
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| The famous opera house |
On 21st we flew from Sydney to Auckland. Our plan was to spend a few days in a quite suburb finalizing our plans for New Zealand. After 3 days we felt ready to tackle this new leg of our journey but noticed quickly that something was wrong with Simon's bike. Part of the drivetrain unexpectedly needed to be replaced. Spare parts weren't available anywhere in Auckland and had to be shipped in from Christchurch on New Zealand's south island.
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| Bicycle assembly area at Auckland airport |
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| Cycling into Auckland |
During the waiting time we moved from the outskirts of Auckland into the centre and spend some days exploring New Zealand's biggest city. It was only after 1 week that the spare parts finally arrived and we were good to go.
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| Auckland skyline |
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| New Zealand is famous for excellent coffee! |
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| Symonds Street Cemetery in Auckland |
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| View from Auckland's Mount Eden, an extinct volcano |
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| Posing on Mount Eden |
The weather was okay when we set off from Auckland. We made good progress and nearly got to the Coromandel Penisula. If there wouldn't have been a severe weather warning we would have continued to Coromandel and beyond the next day but as things stood we finished September in Orere Point.
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| Cycling the Pacific Coast Highway towards Coromandel Peninsula |
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| Cherry blossoms in Orere Point |
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| First glimpse of Coromandel Peninsula |
