Sydney, Royal National Park, Friday 25 February.

















1) "Have Bike will travel" a "must take" view of Sidney Harbour.

2) "Martins Place" CityRail underground station

3) Royal National Park

4) Cronulla Beach


Over the previous 2 days my bike had been locked up under the outside rear stairs of the B&B looking rather neglected. Today I decided to give it a ride taking it to the Royal National Park just to the south of Sydney.

I rode the few hundred yards to the ferry wharf and caught the ferry to Circular Quay. I then planned to take it by train to get through the urban area. To avoid a change of trains rather than going from Circular Quay Station I cycled about a mile to a Station called Martin's Place. I am not sure what Martin did to have a Train Station named after him but anyway I took a picture of it for him to add to Martins Beach in Greece and Martins Bay in New Zealand.

The trains are very bike friendly and bikes can be taken at any time although there is a charge during peak periods. Bikes can be put in any carriage entrance but I found it was more out of the way in the front or the rear of the train.

I took a train to Cronulla a Southeast suburb and a 40 minute train ride. Then a foot passenger ferry from a wharf just below the station across the estuary of the Hacking River to Bundeena, a small town surrounded by the National Park. This avoids the usual entrance which is via a busy metro route.The National Park is a huge nature reserve which continues south for 20 miles. I did an out and back ride to return via the ferry.

Apart from the different types of vegetation there are many similarities to the New Forest with a ferry crossing of an estuary from a big city. The landscape is fairly flat with low rolling hills. On the route I took there was a gradual climb over 5 miles to 500ft. There are no ponies but I did see a sign warning of "wildlife crossing next 3 Kilometres" This set me to wondering as to what sort of wildlife - poisonous snakes?

After returning on the ferry I took a look at Cronulla Beach the longest in Sydney and another good surfing beach and stopped there for some sunbathing. After returning to the City I did some cycling around the City Streets until I found an Internet Cafe and sorted out the Blog website. The text and pictures are sent up using my mobile device but due to a fault which developed in the code of the website some weeks ago I have to send the text and pictures separately and combine using the editing facility available which is much quicker and easier to do using a full sized computer.