I Thought Australia Was Flat!?

The east coast of Aus had our legs in absolute bits!

I thought Australia was flat!?

I had a lot of misconceptions about Aus. I thought it was all sunshine, beaches, deserts and flat lands.

Well, it isn’t 😂 I’ve shared this with many Aussies on route and they always get a laugh out of it.

New South Wales is hills on hills on hills, not like big mountains hills, but SHARP, SAVAGE inclines ⛰

We were really struggling to be honest.

Consider that we’d barely since a hill since we left England, our route through Asia was flat and we just weren’t conditioned for riding hills. By the time we got to the East of Aus, sure we could ride the bike any length of time, just not up hill. It’s crazy how 131 mile days/training do not transfer to 60 mile days with sharp hills.

We had 9 days to spare on our visa and a flight already booked so WE HAD TO CYCLE OUR PLANNED ROUTE. We had planned to have more free days but we made an admin error and robbed ourselves of 4 days relaxing time. We just had to keep going on very tired legs.

We were absolutely exhausted.

I think I was more tired here than I as across Nullarbor and we were doing 100+ miles most days across there. I think it was a lot to do with the pressure of HAVING to ride.

I felt unwell a couple times, felt a cold coming on, but it disappeared quickly. My brain knew that it couldn’t be ill so the colds never came to anything. I really think that’s what was happening there. It would be an actual crime to overstay and an expensive mistake to miss a flight.

We just kept going.

The compounding fatigue was getting to us and we even had tears at one point – mine – after I pushed my bike up yet another hill. Later that day, a man saw me struggling with my bike (Stew was ahead and comes down to get me once he completes the hill), but this stranger, an older man aswell, helped me push my bike up an entire hill and it was a steep and long one! 😭 What an absolute gent.

After some challenging days, we did make it to Sydney. And after all that, I couldn’t wait to leave Aus 😁😂