Day 1 - Tuesday 3rd February 2009

Hi there! Thanks for taking a look at this, my first attempt at this new-fangled blogging caper. I'm setting out today on a new adventure and I hope to use this blog as a diary to record all the exciting things that happen. I arrived in Sydney 2 days ago, on 1st February, just as the snow started to fall in London where I'm from - what a well timed escape! After getting over the jetlag, I spent yesterday sourcing a suitable mode of transport to get me to my destination, and after parting with $483, the good people at Cranks cycles in North Sydney supplied me with a Giant Elwood hybrid bike - here it is...

A pretty basic machine, not as fancy as the recumbent i'm used to riding back home in the UK, but it should get me to Brisbane.

I'm staying with friends in Longueville, which is a northern suburb of Sydney, and to get to the start of the ride I had to cycle down to Circular Quay on the south side of the harbour. The bike path across the harbour bridge is always a spectacular ride, certainly it's a lot more pleasant than cycling across any of the bridges in London:

The westernmost lane of the bridge is entirely dedicated to bicycles, pedestrians have to use the walkway on the eastern side. It's a pity that the access to the cycleway is very poorly signed from the northern side, and getting onto it involves heaving your bike up a long flight of stairs.

At Circular Quay, I caught the ferry over to Manly, enjoying terrific views of the harbour and opera house on the way:

The Manly ferry carries bikes free outside peak hours. The boats even have bike racks on board:

Manly is famous for its 2 beaches, one on the harbour and one on the ocean. Here's a view of the ocean beach, the first of many fine beaches that I expect to see on the trip north:

A few miles north of Manly this statue of Duke Kakanamohu, a famous surfer, caught my attention:

Further on, the road widened to include this bike path which had 2 bike lanes, both sides of the main carriageway. Unorthodox, but perfectly effective.

By now it was almost midday and getting very hot, and the going was tough, over very hilly terrain. I made it to Palm Beach (30km from Manly) by about 1230pm. Enjoyed a delicious steak sandwich and excellent ice cream at the Barrenjoey Hotel while waiting for the 2pm ferry to Ettalong. Palm Beach certainly is a beautiful, unspoilt spot:

The ferry takes about 30 minutes to reach Ettalong:

From Ettalong the route followed mainly minor roads and did require a bit of navigation. I'm following the route in the Lonely Planet Cycling Australia guide, which sets it out pretty well though since the book was published in 2001 there have been a few minor changes to road layout and naming. The hills continued all the way to The Entrance, my planned end to the first day's cycling, so I was pretty exhausted by the time I arrived, at 5pm. Total distance for the day : 80km.

The Entrance is so called because it's the entrance to Tuggerah Lake. Needless to say it has a fine beach and the surroundings are scenic enough, but frankly it doesn't have a lot else going for it, nothing in the way of decent architecture , no decent restaurants that I could find, and all the bars were shut by 10pm. Still I didn't mind getting an early night as I'd resolved to make an early start the next day.

The Entrance, from the bridge over Tuggerah Entrance.