Fire, Thrill, Race.: Sydney or Bust: Melbourne to Sydney

I have spent the last few weeks cycling from Melbourne to Sydney and here is my brief recap of the trip to cure boredom and spread the message of Urana.

The Group Jeremy Nagel, James Schultz, Anand Iyer, Jonathon Jacobson, Matt Zonneveldt and myself.

Early on July 4, six guys decided to waste their uni holidays and ride a bike to Sydney.

Day 1 Federation Square, Melbourne to Seymour (115km)

We set off from Fed Square at about 8.30am and made our way through Plenty and Whittlesea to avoid the Hume Freeway. About 10-12km in, our first puncture..... and it was my puncture, well it wasnt a puncture but a messed up tube. As we tried to put the brake back together after replacing the tube, my brake cable snapped which meant I had to ride without rear brakes until we found a bike shop, which fortunately, wasn't too far away at all. So half an hour later we were back on the road on the way to Sydney or, well, Seymour for the night. We stopped off in Wandong for lunch which was probably the worst place we stopped at. The woman in the fish and chip shop told us off for putting our bikes against the shop window and then suddenly about 8 or so smoking kids or as Jono called them - rats - got out of an ordinary 5-seater sedan. They were a bit feral but were alright to talk to..... 'you're riding to sydney?.... fuck that!'.

This stage was the highest in terms of elevation gained, but raw energy got us through it and when we got on the Hume for the last 30km, I belted through it at over 30kph - mainly trying to get in the slipstream of trucks plus a nice flat fast road helped.

We eventually got into Seymour at about 5.30pm and went to the first caravan park who seemed more interested in smoking whatever it was they were smoking and told us to go elsewhere. So we did. Fortunately the next caravan park was very accomodating, even letting us lock our bikes up in her daughters car port. As we were setting up tents, Jeremy realised something.....

....... he forgot his tent poles! Forunately we found one in Coles of all places. They even had a very customer friendly employee who upon being asked where Creamed Rice was replies 'fucked if I know'. At least he was honest.

Day 2 Seymour to Shepparton (78km)

The second day was a belter. We followed the Goulburn Valley Highway to Shepparton averaging about 24kph. Which was good because I wanted to find a pub to watch the St Kilda v Geelong match! We stopped at the fruit fly border for about 10mins to eat all the fruit we had before continuing on to Shepparton. We got in at about 2.30pm but still missed the first quarter of the footy. The pub was an interesting place and if it was any other game, watching and listening to the people in the pub would have been more interesting!

Day 3 Shepparton to Wangaratta (107km)

Day 3 was probably the most frustrating day. About 2/3 of the way to the lunch stop at Benalla, Jeremy's pannier rack broke and we spent ages on the side of the road working things out. We managed to get to Benalla where Jeremy made us wait while the dopey angry old bugger at the bike store 'fixed' his bike rack. We finally got moving just before 5pm toward Wangaratta where Justin, a fellow Cool Runner, had offered his house for the night. He and his wife, Sharon, are incredible. Awesome dinner of pasta bake awesome people with their stories from their ultra's. I can't seem to find a photo we took with them.

Day 4 Wangaratta to Urana (128km)

Sharon woke up with a sore back but still rode with us to the Victoria and New South Wales border (some 40km away). We can't thank Justin and Sharon enough for their generous hospitality and motivation to get through what would be a very boring day. Almost 130km of a dead flat, dead straight and dead boring road. At one stage the line marking disappeared so we figured we'd ride 6 abreast!

This lasted until a truck tried to pass us......

The night in Urana was very interesting to say the least. We bought expensive sausages, sauce, bread and beers and proceeded to the BBQ's near the caravan park. Soon after the caravan park lady, Marion, came out in her dressing gown with a CD player and CD and says to us she wants us to learn about the town we were in! Oh god! It was recently the 150th anniversary of the town whose aquatic park is a lake with no water and their tourist attraction is a giant spider made of used machinary. Anyway, writing this, it is hard to explain it. The CD was pretty interesting as the guy singing it tried to stretch the syllables to make words fit. Now I can't understand why we later bought the CD! But Marion went on for ages on how she wants to turn the town into a tourist place.... as she said all the town needs is water in the lake and birds and people are apparently going to drive for 6 days to see water and birds? She wanted us to spread the name of Urana throughout all our travels - and wanted us to list Urana in our uni papers as a place for groups. I've no idea what the groups would do there! She also kept saying that the town was central. I'm still puzzled as to what it is central to, I mean, its in the middle of nowhere and not even on the main Melbourne-Brisbane route. It was a very cold night there, it was minus 2 overnight. Marion put a heater in the toilet and said we could sleep in there. Only James was brave enough to do that and as it turned out, became sick after that. I couldn't sleep that night with trucks going past all night and the light behind me staying on all night.

Day 5 Urana to Grong Grong (108km)

This day was tough. For the first 50km we copped a massive headwind which sucked. Our lunch spot was Morundah Pub. The only building in the town and we had to get them to open the pub for us. I think we kept the pub open for another year just on what we spent on pies!

From there we followed the Newell Hwy (the main Melbourne-Brisbane route) to Narrandera where we picked up supplies before staying the night at Grong Grong Pub. It was a really old place. When I went to bed it felt like the beds were about to collapse.

Day 6 Grong Grong to Junee (83km)

After 6 days of only seeing trucks, we saw.......

..... a train! I made sure I told my old man I saw a train. His some sort of train entusiast. I think! We actually saw two trains that day and the ride was really hilly but not too tough. Four of the guys were carrying a bit of a cold which slowed the day a bit. We got to Junee a little early (3pm) and tried to make the next town at Bethungra but upon ringing the place there, there was no vacancy for the night so we settled at Junee. A town that got moved because the NSW government in the 1800's didn't want to put the train line on the other side of the hill. Getting in early gave us a chance to kick the footy around although I picked up swollen ankles that day (that are still swollen today on July 19) it was good to go have a kick.

Day 7 Junee to Cootamundra (57km)

Day 7 was hilly. Very hilly, some claimed it was the toughest hills they've climbed. I'm not sure if it is for me. We got to Bethungra for lunch, which consisted of expensive pies (that had been sitting there a long while). It wasn't a pleasant place. So we continued onto toward Cootamundra for the next stop before going for Harden. Unfortunately at the top of a hill, James hit a reflector and came off his bike. Fortunately for us, a doctor was passing by on the way to Queensland and she helped us fix him up a bit. We later got into Cootamundra and stopped there and took a day off.

Day 8 (Rest Day) Cootamundra to Bethungra return (57km)

We took a rest day in Cootamundra to let the sick ones rest and get better. I stayed out as it was liek a sauna in the cabin! We cooked the best breakfast .......

....which fueled a 57km ride back up the hills to Bethungra and back. It was about an hour out and an hour back. I borrowed James' road bike which was good fun. I want a road bike!

We got back about 1.30pm after detouring to see the place where Don Bradman was born. But I didn't go in, $3 to see a bunch of signed cricket bats and maybe a baggy green cap?

I spent the afternoon with Anand and Matt (we were the non-sick ones) at Fisher Park watching Cootamundra v Tumut in rugby league. I found it interesting that the players warm up by having a smoke before running out onto the ground! It was a good lesson in different cultures.... the whole town turned out to watch the game....

The game ended in a draw with a conversion kick by the home side after the final air horn.

Day 9 Cootamundra to Yass (109km)

Another frustrating day as we got about 40km in at Harden, Jeremy's deraulier broke and got caught in the spokes because the old bugger in Benalla had put the new rack through the deraulier. So what do you? Jeremy got himself a train to Goulburn (the next bike shop) and went around the town trying to find a box big enough to put it in. There were two supermarkets, one was closed for stocktake, the other only hada fruit and veg box. Somehow someone found a box and the guy across the street who I thought may have been Ivan Milat helped out and drove Jeremy to the station and hung around with him to the train.

Meanwhile, we headed off to try make the 70kms to Yass in the 3hrs of daylight we had left. It was hilly, but we didn't take any rest stops and rolled into Yass at about 5.30 just as it began to get dark. We had an awesome, but filling dinner that night and ate a lot of other crap.....

Day 10 Yass to Goulburn (90km)

We got a late start out of Yass, delibrately sleeping in as well, we didn't have Jeremy to worry about so we left at about 10.30am and just rode till Gunning for lunch, it was a little hilly along the Hume but we had a tail wind which helped after about 4 days into a headwind. Once the climbs began to disappear we were able to capitalise on the tailwind which saw us get into Goulburn about 4pm to meet Jeremy who got his bike fixed while we rode there. I went out for a 10km that night, one of two runs for the tour (the other a 5km cruise in Wangaratta with Justin).

Day 11 Goulburn to Mittagong (91km)

The eleventh day came and all I could think of was Sydney! I was sorta keen on continuing onto Sydney that night but Jono wasn't willing to ride in the dark. I guess it was a good thing considering what was to take place the next day. We stayed on the Hume from Goulburn to Mittagong and it was pretty much rolling hills the whole way and in the end we dropped about 100m from 730m above sea level at Goulburn.

James and Anand re-enacting the Ivan Milat backpacker murders of the 1990's.

Day 12 Mittagong to Sydney (148km)

This was it. The last day. We set off at 7.30am (our earliest start by hours) and belted the first 60km at about 28kph and reached Campbelltown at lunch at 10.15am. We had some 50km to go. Or so we thought. Roadworks forced us off the Hume and made us detour for several kilometres before we got back onto the Hume before being diverted to the M7 at the junction with the M5. The M5 is the direct route to Sydney, the M7 goes north toward the Central Coast. Halfway along the M7 Jeremy wanted to stop and turn around. No one knew how to get to Sydney. I vaguely remembered that Paramatta Road runs into Sydney. So basically I navigated the way to Paramatta. But then the M7 junctioned with the M4 which ran into Sydney but we couldn't turn right so we had to go 3km out to the next road to go off the freeway and come back the other way! About 10-15km down the M4 and we stopped at McDonalds for a second lunch. This time we were 30km from Sydney. It seemed easy but then the M4 forced us onto a bike path which was frustrating to say the least as it kept crossing busy intersections before suddenly, I look to my right and see a sign saying Paramatta Road. Great! Although I knew it would be slow, I knew it would get us to Sydney. As we got closer to the CBD we had to find the Opera House so I asked other cars and taxi drivers for directions and then......