Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 121 - Parramatta to Terrigal

Day:  121

Date:  Friday, 30 October 2020

Start:  Parramatta

Finish:  Terrigal

Daily Kilometres:  90 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  12975

Weather:  Cool to mild and mostly sunny

Accommodation:  Home

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Muffins

  Lunch:  Ham, cheese & tomato sandwich/Beef & chutney sandwich

  Dinner:  Fish & chips/Steak, salad & chips

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Completing our COVID-19-truncated circumnavigation of Australia.

Lowlight:  We're a bit disappointed that it's over.  It will be good to catch up with family and friends, and to sleep in the same bed for more than a night or two, but I can already sense that within a week or so we will wish we were still bike-packing.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We wheeled our fully-loaded bikes through the foyer of the Parramatta Holiday Inn and out the door at 5am to the bemusement of the night manager, and headed north through the dark streets of town.  Initially, we rode along footpaths and through pedestrian malls for a more direct route to the notorious Pennant Hills Road which we planned to follow to the northern suburbs of Sydney.  (With exquisite timing, the NorthConnex tunnel, designed to remove most of the traffic from Pennant Hills Road, opens tomorrow after five years of construction!)

We hoped that being very early might mean there was less traffic, but there were still plenty of trucks and tradesmen.  We clung to the left-hand gutter, riding up onto the footpath for the steeper hills when we were travelling very slowly, and trusted that the drivers would treat us well.  Despite the traffic, it was a beautiful clear dawn and we could hear lots of birdcalls from the trees in parks, gardens and woodlands we passed.

At Hornsby, after about 18km, we joined the Old Pacific Highway, a popular cycle route, for our journey to Gosford.  Our first stop was at a bakery in Berowra, where we met Julie's brother, Troy, who came down to ride the last 60km with us on his road bike.  It was a happy reunion, and we had a good chat over breakfast, before riding north on the very scenic highway, including a long descent to the Hawkesbury River, then an equally long ascent on the other side.  The good weather and social banter helped the kilometres pass easily, and we soon reached a cafe at Mount White where we stopped for a pleasant morning break.

From there we had another long descent to Mooney Mooney Creek and a last long climb to Somersby before rolling down the long hill into Gosford.  It was surreal to be back cycling along very familiar roads, with all of our gear, after four months away.  We bade Troy goodbye with about 7km to go, negotiated one last hill, and then rolled into Terrigal soon after noon and took some celebratory photos at the beach before going home.  The Central Coast has a population of about 350,000 people, but it's a small place, and not really surprising that we separately saw three people we knew as we rode the last 15km.  We must be home!