Days 59-64 (December 31 to January 5)

We’ve been in Sydney for two days now, so it’s time to begin the final phase of the trip – car touring along the southeast coast. After 48 days of traveling at 10 km/hour, we’re looking forward to the wonders of internal combustion by traveling 10 times faster with 1/10,000 of the physical effort.

Our bikes and gear shoehorned into the back of a small Kia Rio

On the morning of the 31st, we picked up a rental car a couple of blocks away from the hotel where we stayed. It was a small Kia, so we had to disassemble our bikes down to the frames in order to get both bikes and all eight panniers in the car. It was a bit of a Tetris game trying to get everything in, but we did it.

We decided to stop at the airport on the way out of town in order to check on the availability of bike boxes at our airlines. After sitting in a traffic jam for an hour on approach to the airport, we figured it wasn’t worth it, so we ditched that plan and just headed straight out of town. We ended up traveling south along the route that we biked into Sydney on, and in just a few hours we were back in Kiama, where we were four days ago. Another hour of internal combustion, and we arrived in the little coastal town of Ulladulla, where once again, we were lucky enough to get the last available room at one of the local motels. We capped off the day by watching the New Year’s eve fireworks show at the harbor.

A little bit of the New Year’s Eve fireworks in the town of Ulladulla. It wasn’t as spectacular as the Sydney fireworks, but at least there was
1,499,000 fewer people to have to deal with!

On the 1st of January all we had planned was to continue the drive down the coast. We ended up in the town of Mallacoota, which is at a point we’ve been calling the “corner of Australia”. It’s at a point where the coastline makes a sharp westward turn from the south-trending eastern coast. Mattie took a quick swim in the ocean, which now makes it the third ocean she’s swam in – Indian, Pacific, and now the Southern.

The Southern Ocean near the town of Mallacoota

The next day, on the 2nd, we drove northward from Mallacoota to Jindabyne, a distance of around 250 kilometers. We got there in the early afternoon and quickly found a place to stay for the night, then headed out to “climb” the highest mountain in Australia, Mt. Kosciuzko (2228 meters, 7310 feet). It wasn’t, in the true mountaineering sense of the word, a real climb, as it consisted of just  a 19 kilometer round-trip walk on a well-maintained, wide trail. Regardless, we can now say that we’ve been to the highest point in Australia. As a bonus, the trail also crossed the source headwaters of the Snowy River, and we got to touch snow in Australia during the summer!

The source headwaters of the Snowy River

Mattie, doing her best Lewis and Clark impersonation near the summit of Mt. Kosciuzko

The view from the summit of Mount Kosciuzko

On the 3rd, we didn’t really have much in mind, other than starting the drive back north toward Sydney. We left Jindabyne in the morning and decided to see a bit of the nation’s capital, Canberra. We stopped at the Parliament Building and got a few pictures, then we were back on the road, eventually stopping near Wollongong for the night.

Colorful bedrock at the beach in Bouddi National Park

Interesting circle formations in the bedrock at the beach in Bouddi National Park

Mattie wanted some more beach time, so on the 4th we decided to head to a beach in Bouddi National Park, located about 50 kilometers northeast of Sydney. We thought it would be a quick drive up there, but we ended up on a maze of city streets and traffic jams, so what should have taken only a couple of hours took about four hours. It was worth it though, as the beach had only a few people on it and had some good wave action for Mattie to play in, while I investigated the sea cliffs, rock formations, and tide pools. It was a nice, leisurely afternoon at the beach.

Waves crashing on the rocky coastline in Bouddi National Park

Today is the 5th of January, so our primary mission today is to head back to Sydney, check into a hotel, return the rental car, and get our bikes and gear boxed up in preparation for our flights home tomorrow. So this is our last post from Australia. We’ll post one final update when we get home in a few days.

Posted by Scott