Days 51 and 52 (December 23-24)

Typical landscape in the hills west of the Great Dividing Range

Most days, our daily route shows as just a small squiggly line on the map. Collectively of course, they track our progress across Australia. But from day-to-day, the change is rather small. But today, December 23, we marked a bit of a milestone – we switched to the Sydney side of the map. We have a roadmap of the state of New South Wales, which shows the western half on one side of the map and the eastern half (the side with Sydney on it) on the other side. We got to the town of Coolamon last night, and this morning we had the pleasure of switching to the other side of the map to do our daily route planning. It’s a definite motivational boost to now look at the map and see Sydney getting closer day-by-day. Only a few more days now!!

An old-fashioned padlock at the Stockinbingal railway station

We departed Coolamon on the morning of December 23 and headed northeast to the town of Temora, where we stocked up on food and water, in anticipation of stores being closed on the 24th (Christmas Eve). That task done, we continued east another 36 kilometers to the town of Stockinbingal, a small strip of a town along the road. The afternoon was hot and sunny, so we decided to call it a day early, at 2:15 pm, and set up camp in the town’s park, next to the railroad tracks. It was a nice little campsite, with lush green grass, plenty of shade, covered picnic tables, flush toilets, and freight trains slowly rumbling past throughout the afternoon and night.

On the morning of the 24th, we woke up to a totally cloudy sky (that’s good for us, as it means it won’t get too hot) and a bit of a helping crosswind from the north. We made quick progress of the 48 kilometers to Harden and continued east a few more kilometers to a junction in the road. One road went northeast, the other southeast. The northeast one was a minor local road that looked to be quite hilly, but with little traffic and most likely the more scenic of the two. The southeast road connected to the Hume Highway, the equivalent of an interstate highway in the U.S. It would definitely have more traffic and be less scenic, but would be less hilly, be faster and more direct, and had a favorable tailwind. We decided on the Hume Highway route, riding on the shoulder with cars and trucks zooming past us at 110 km/hour. The road noise was often deafening, and we had to yell to be able to hear each other. It wasn’t the most memorable or enjoyable ride, but it allowed us to put 150 kilometers of road behind us today, our best daily effort so far on the trip.

We set up camp in the free caravan park in the town of Gunning, and for the first time since being in Australia, I can hear the sound of a tumbling creek only 20 feet away from my tent, while a light rain falls. We’ve left the arid parts of Australia behind and are now in the wetter, more temperate coastal region.

We’ve now done 4,057 kilometers to date, with about 300 kilometers to go to Sydney. It won’t be long now!

Posted by Scott