Wednesday 16th February 2011 – I left Sydney today. The thought of riding through the biggest city in Australia on a fully laden motorbike wasn’t one that I’d been particularly looking forward to, but I noticed that Route No 3 from Mona Vale Road would take me all the way through Sydney and out the other side at Woolongong where I could pick up the Pacific Highway to Bateman’s Bay. A girl in my room tried to convince me it would be shorter to take the road outside the hostel all the way into central Sydney where I could pick up a “distributor” road which would then take me over the Harbour Bridge then I’d be able to pick up “some other road” that would take me south, but upon looking at my map this seemed like a very complicated route and as Route No 3 didn’t involve a single turn I decided to take it instead even though it probably was a little bit longer.

So I set off into the vast metropolis of Australia’s premier city. I put myself in the middle lane on Mona Vale Road and pretty much stayed there all the way to the Pacific Highway. This route bypassed the centre of Sydney and took me through suburbs called Pymble, Ryde and Huntsville as well as passing the Olympic Stadium. It was very built up so it took me 2 hours to travel the 100km to Woolongong, but I made it without incident and didn’t have to stop once to consult the map so I was happy with that. I then phoned Rod to advise him of my progress only to be advised “well, its still another 3 hours from there”. God, I should be used to the distances in Australia by now, but they still always surprise me!

Anyway, I made it to Bateman’s Bay just before the rain came in so all in all, it was a pretty good trip.