Palm Beach

The ride from Newcastle was not a nice one. We had to be on the Pacific Highway, no alternative. Very busy, sometimes 6 lanes, very hilly and there was a head wind as an extra. We stopped at Budgewoi on a beautiful caravan park. From there we continued on a smaller but still quite busy coastal highway towards our next stop. As it was raining we decided to continue to Ettalong, take the ferry to Palm Beach there and join up with Jeff and Gerda. They were our Warmshowers' guests in August, now we are theirs. They have a lovely cottage on this peninsula, which is a northern suburb of Sydney. Mind, Sydney is so widely spread out that the centre is still 45 k to go. There is the ocean on the east side, with beautiful beaches and a nice surf, on the west side there is the bay, Pittwater, on which we have a view from the veranda. Hundreds of yaughts lie anchored here.

We have been in this house for some days now, taking a break in our tour. We have been riding over 2 months now, done over 2800 k and need some time without for a while.

Our hosts were so kind as to take us to the Blue Mountains for a couple of days. It's a good 100 k inland, 1000 meters altitude and a landscape with canyons, marvoullous views and some old nice little towns. We stayed the night in a cabin in the gum forest and made some amazing walks along the cliffs and into the 'Grand Canyon'. Now we are on our own in the house, have paid a first visit to the centre of this big city and will go there once more. After that we'll cross through the city by ferry and train, for the roads and the traffic here are so busy that not many people want to ride a bike here.