Keep Cycling! Perth to Gold Coast - 2022

Today we woke at 6.00am and, after a quick breakfast, set off at 8.00am. We knew that it would be hilly as we would be crossing the Darling Scarp. There would be a fair amount of walking, so we kept the day's mileage low. The first few days would be regarded as fitness building and bikes/trailers testing. We took a route eastwards, out of Perth that bypassed the main highway, utilising country roads and taking us through woodland bursting with birdsong. What a great find!  But elation turned to realization when, at around 7 kms, we discovered the hills anyway and spent hours walking every one! Walking? Well not exactly! If heaving our bikes and even heavier trailers up every steep slope can be called "walking", we did it! The route finished on the busy Great Eastern Highway - and PANIC. There was not a cycleway or road shoulder in sight! Del to the rescue!  He discovered a mountain bike trail running through the woods, parallel to the road. He got

Perth is experiencing some unseasonably, cold, showery and windy weather! Just our luck! Expected to last for a week! We've bought all our supplies, reassembled the bikes and trailers and taken the bikes out to test that everything was running smoothly. All good there. Tomorrow, 31 July, we're off to Mundaring - a short, hilly ride crossing the Darling Scarp. We've worked out a route that (hopefully) bypasses the worst of it, but we still anticipate lots of walking!  With luck, we won't get too wet - and be wind assisted!  What are our chances? We won't hold our breath!!

July 28th The trip from Auckland to Perth went so smoothly. The shuttle picked us up at Perth Airport and arrived at the motel in Midland, around 7.15pm, in the dark! We collected the room key from a lock box and located our room. A quick unpack of the basics, then we were in bed. This morning we explored our "budget motel".  It's old and neglected (seen a few break-ins from the look of it) and mainly used by trades people. BUT - otherwise it couldn't be more convenient! Our unit is spacious with room to store the bikes, trailers and all our gear AND - a few minutes walk away is a big mall that has all the supplies we need. Best of all, the motel is on our exit route! Tomorrow we'll get the lie of the land, buy our stores and start reassembling the bikes and trailers.  So far, so good, folks!

July 24.  The weather has been pretty awful for the last few weeks - not good cycling conditions. We've only had a couple of runs with the trailers so will treat the first couple of days of the ride out of Perth as training/fitness  runs. It's July 24th. Del's broken down the bikes and trailers and prepared them for travel. I've diligently packed the trailers with our "essentials". These include clothing for extreme weather conditions, first aid kit, spare parts, cooking gear, toiletries etc. We've carefully weighed our 4 oversize  packages (on the bathroom scales!) and have JUST made the maximum 23kg quota for each one. Whew! It's a bit of a juggling act every time! Tomorrow we'll give our apartment a good clean, ring the family and have an early night ready for an early morning shuttle pick up on  Tuesday 26th. Can't believe this is actually happening! It's been a long time coming!!! 

It's July 9 and, after 10 days recovering from COVID, we both realise that it's time to 'get physical' and make a few runs towing the trailers. Feeling a little energyless as yet, but will make each run a little longer and the trailers a little heavier each time. At least, that's the intention! We'll see how we go!!

In June we took a break in Broad Beach, on the Gold Coast, Australia.  We'd originally planned to finish our ride there.  By June COVID requirements and overseas travel restrictions had eased so we decided that a a good holiday would do us the world of good. We cycled and walked every day, opened an account with the Commonwealth Bank and bought SIM cards and phone packages for our phones in preparation for our big cycle. We would take off in July. But on arriving back in NZ in late June, both of us tested positive for COVID.  DARN IT!  We're fully vaccinated and boosted yet we were still hit with headaches, sore throats, muscle aches, a deep chesty cough and heavy cold symptoms.                       One week's isolation at home seriously reduced the 3 week window for our most URGENT need - getting used to towing the weighty trailers with our bikes - and MUSCLE POWER!  The heavier the trailer, the 'heavier' the handlebars and the firmer the control neede

Del is pretty skilled at repairing punctures. He's had to be.  With over 16,000 kms of cycling in Australia, he's had more than his fair share of punctures! Most have been caused by sharp thorns picked up in waysides and in the bush. Thorn proof inner tubes can be bought to protect bike tyres, but are quite expensive. On our last trip, Del was given a handy tip by an experienced Australian cyclist. Instead of getting a thorn proofed inner tube, he used an ordinary tube and simply lined the inside of the running surface of the tyre with a rubber strip from a spare, trimmed down tyre of the same size, giving the original tyre a double thickness of rubber along the running surface. Worth a try? We had spare tyres for the bikes and trailers so Del set to work. He has thorn proofed 4 bike tyres and 2 trailer tyres. Hopefully this tip works! Does this mean a punctureless 4,400 kms?!! I have my doubts, but we'll find out soon enough!!

It's May 8 - Mothers' Day. All the family have been in touch and now it's time to get on our bikes and attack the local hills - without the assistance of a motor! Bike rides are definitely a different animal when they're human powered! We miss the ease of the electric bikes but still managed to conquer all the hills to and from Patumahoe today, without getting off and walking! It might be a different story when we're ready to attach the trailers!  Del's spent the afternoon checking over the hybrid bikes and transferring the ergonomic handlebar grips from the electric bikes to them. Our handlebars have right and left gear levers (27 gears in all), brake levers (for disc brakes), removable bike bag and computer. Del's added a mobile phone holder for when GPS is needed to find our way through towns and the occasional city. His hand held, rear view mirror is tucked into the right side pocket and an essential mask sits in the top of his bag. The "

  For 3 years we've been dreaming of making a return visit to Outback Australia by bike. Each time the itinerary was carefully plotted and we booked the flights - and each time either New Zealand or Australia went in to lockdown.  Thinking that another cycle in Australia was never going to happen, I impulsively sold one of the cargo trailers on Trade Me.  I immediately regretted it.                                                                                                              Were our cycling adventures really over? Heck, NO!  I w as soon investing in a new trailer!    On 4 major cycles before COVID, we'd virtually circumnavigated Australia and cycled up the middle, from Adelaide to Darwin through the Red Centre. On our next trip, we would cycle, towing our trailers, West to East across the continent from Perth to the Nullarbor Plain, then on to Port Augusta, Broken Hill, through the Great Dividing Range to Coffs Harbour and up the coast to Coolang