Our Cycling Route Through Australia

Our cycling route through Australia

The map above shows the route we cycled through Australia. We flew into Perth from Singapore and flew our from Sydney to New Zealand.

Cycling in Australia turned out to be much tougher than we were expecting. There is a lot to say about this massive country so I’ll break it down into states, but before I do I’ll mention the weather and time of year.

Before cycling across Australia you really need to consider the time of year you’ll be visiting and where you’re going. The north coast of Australia is hot all year round and the south coast is cold in winter. You should try and avoid cycling here during the Australian summer as temperatures frequently hit 50 Celsius and bush fires are common. In winter some areas become flooded too.

We arrived in Australia in June just before the winter Equinox. It was much colder than we were expecting and the day light hours were very short too. The first couple of weeks brought with them quite a lot of rain which made that adjustment to colder temperatures even more difficult. The weather conditions changed several times throughout our crossing but overall it was quite cold and quite wet.

If we had the luxury of picking the exact time we would arrive in Australia we would probably have come in spring as that temperatures would have been more pleasant, days longer and less rain.

Along with the cold weather is the cost of Australia, it’s very expensive here and the luxury of hotels and meals out in Asia was quickly replaced with campsites and BBQ dinners.

Below I’ll share our experience of riding in Australia by each state.

Western Australia (WA)

Initially riding in WA was very pleasant, Perth had some excellent cycle paths and overall the roads were very quiet. There is a huge and uninterrupted cycle path running the city centre in Perth all the way down to Mandurah, the path is more than 50 miles long and in excellent condition. It passes under, over or around all roads and obstructions so you never need to stop or give way.

After Mandurah the quality of cycle paths does decline significantly but the infrastructure does continue. We followed several smaller routes before eventually ending up on highway 1. To my surprise the hard shoulder of this major road is a designated cycle path which helped to make it feel a little bit safer.

The road remained good all the way down to Manjimup with a good sized hard shoulder and frequent enough small towns for supplies and campsites. After Manjimup the road got much smaller and the shoulder disappeared for approximately 100 miles. Thankfully the traffic volume dropped too and at points we would only see 5 to 10 vehicles per hour.

The roads remained very quiet until Albany and amenities were minimal too. It was quite a relief to reach Albany and have access to bigger and cheaper shops like Aldi again as the small town’s stores were very expensive.

Despite Albany being a good sized town the road from Albany to Esperance was also very quiet and again had very few amenities along the way. This was perhaps the least populated section of the route we had tackled so far and we had to carry a couple days’ worth of food with us at all times.

While making our way to Esperance we experienced the true power of an Australia tail wind for the first time as we completed one of our biggest days of the entire trip with a 120 miles (193 km) stint.

Esperance was a decent sized town, smaller than Albany but big enough to have everything we needed (bike shop, food shop, etc)

After Esperance we made our way up to Norseman where we’d begin what I had always expected to be “The hardest section” of the whole trip, The nullabor crossing.

Before leaving Norseman it was important to stock up on plenty of food and plenty of water as the next 750 miles would be the most barren and remote stretch we’d ever done.

The 750 mile crossing from Norseman to Ceduna had no towns. There are maybe 7 or 8 road houses along the way where you can get a meal, fuel or a bed for the night but they are very expensive and the distance between them is huge, with some road houses being well over 100 miles apart.

We initially set out with the intention of crossing this in 5 days but it ended up taking us 8 despite putting in the biggest days we’d even ridden. Our biggest day was just over 130 miles. We had 2 days of strong headwinds and 2 days of light tail winds.
Just over halfway across the Nullabor section we left WA and entered SA.

One final note for WA is the road surface, while the road surface is in very good conditions (very few cracks, potholes etc) the surface itself is appalling for cycling. The road surface is made up of stone chippings and is very difficult and slow to ride on. It’s even worse along the hard shoulder and it never gets driven on.

The main roadway is a little better as the heavy vehicles and discarded tire rubber has helped to smooth it out a little. We often found ourselves favouring the main roadway instead of the shoulder as we were able to ride 2 to 3 miles per hour faster on it. It probably annoyed some drivers seeing us on the road and not the shoulder but when you’re putting in big days in the saddle you need to take and help you can get.

South Australia (SA)

The roads in SA were much like WA, the road surface continued to be in good condition traffic remained reasonably light all the way up to Augusta. Unfortunately the road builders in SA do not share the same enthusiasm for hard shoulders as they do in WA. We encounters quite a lot of stretches of road that had us riding in the main carriage way with the vehicles as there was either no shoulder or a just tiny slither.

When you first enter SA on the Nullarbor you’re still very much in “no man’s land”, you still have 100+ miles between road houses until you reach the town of Ceduna. Ceduna is a bit of an oasis after crossing the Nullabor, you suddenly have access to everything you need again. Shops, restaurants and campsites are plentiful and life starts to feels much easier again.

From Ceduna to Augusta there are towns and facilities at regular intervals, making camping, shopping and eating much easier. The only exception is the town on Iron knob which was limited facilities and the campsites does not have drinkable water. We decided to bypass this town and put in a big day to reach Augusta instead. Augusta is a big town and like Ceduna has everything you could need.

After Augusta the roads get much busier all the way down to Albany. We made the mistake of taking the main road all the way to Albany which was very busy in places and again had an intermittent hard shoulder for us to ride in. We later learnt there that there is an alternative route with a cycle path although I never looked into it to see where it was.

Albany was the first place in Australia that we didn’t enjoy riding. We decided to stay in the city for a few days which meant we had to cross through the middle of it. We did our best to navigate using cycle paths and back roads but even on smaller roads the traffic was very aggressive here. It was the first time we’d felt unsafe in Australia and we encountered far too many closes passes from drivers. Albany is quite a compact city compares to Perth so I guess this just causing the roads to be much busier.

We were relived to leave Albany’s traffic behind and were able to exit the city and get straight onto some smaller back roads were thankfully the traffic was very light. However, we started to encounter real hills for the first time in Australia. The hills leading out the southern end of Albany were tough to say the least. I made the mistake of following Google Maps route recommendation which led us to a couple of 25% grade hills. I barely managed to ride my bike up them and had to come back and help Zoe push a couple of times.

After passing through the hills you once again return to the flat lands. We followed the coast for a couple of days before turning in land slightly to Mount Gambier. The roads were still good along the coast but the weather/climate took a very noticeable turn after leaving Albany. The temperature dropped significantly and rain became much more frequent. From this point onwards I don’t think we camped again but it was simply too cold at night.

Victoria

Victoria has the worth roads in Australia. I’m not sure if this is because they have more traffic or because they don’t invest enough into road repairs and maintenance. For the first time in Australia pot holes and cracked road surfaces were a common sight.

The commitment to building hard shoulders had also reduced again, while SA probably had about 70% roads with a hard shoulder, Victoria had reduced that down to about 50%.

The route from Mount Gambier to Melbourne is very well serviced with plenty of small towns, campsites, motels, shops and restaurants. This is a very popular tourist trail so you won’t have any problems finding the facilities you need.

This section also includes the Great Ocean Road, there are some spectacular scenic spots along this section and it’s defiantly worth a visit. There is an enormous hill between Princetown and Apollo bay which was much harder than we expected. The hill climbed for 10 to 15 at a very unpleasant gradient. I can usually climb hills at a decent pace (considering my bike weight) but this hill was an absolute slog. I could barely manage 3 mile per hour on the climb and Zoe had to push for a lot of it. It took us several hours to reach the top and the decent was by no means easy. The decent would often drop a few hundred feet and then climb again, often at a very steep gradient. It was extremely cold on this day and we both for quite sick. We had to take 3 or 4 days off in Apollo bay to recover which left us quite short on time and meant we didn’t have much time to enjoy the remaining stretch of the Great Ocean Road.

Getting into Melbourne was not a very pleasant experience. Getting from Geelong to the inner city was a bit of a nightmare, the main route in and out is the M1 motorway which we couldn’t ride on and the coastal route is unpaved in places, which was not suitable for our bikes.

We ended up weaving our way through the outer suburbs and eventually ended up on a bike path (by luck more than anything) which took us close to the city centre. We’ve never enjoyed cycling in and out of cities and this was no exception. The weather was horrendous too on the day and at once point we ended up a road passing a building site and the bikes got absolutely filthy. Fortunately the cycle paths in the inner city were much better and getting around was much easier and safer.

Leaving Melbourne was much easier, there a really nice cycle path that follows the coast for 20 miles or so and you have right of way most of the time so it’s very time efficient too.

After leaving the city we were able to start using back roads and side roads more. In the previous states there was often only 1 road you could take, however in this part of Victoria you had a few choices and we were able to enjoy riding a bit more on the quiet roads.

New South Wales

New South Wales was very similar Victoria, however it hard far more hills. The hills on our route were infuriating; they are so steep and so frequent that making progress here was incredibly slow and draining. We had several days where we’d been on the bikes for 7+ hours and only managed to cover 45 miles or so.

The closer we got to Sydney the more the traffic increased too, it started to feel more and more like Albany as the driving become more aggressive and far too many people were passing too close again. As with Victoria the hard shoulder was infrequent and intermittent which did not pair well with the steep and frequent hills. A lot of drivers got frustrated with us as we slowly crawled up these big hills with no hard shoulder for us to get out of the way.

From Nowra to Bulli there are cycle paths which is a welcome relief from the increasingly busy roads. You have a couple of road options to get from Bulli to Sydney but none of them look favourable. Bulli lies at the bottom of a very large hill and Sydney is on the other side. We decided to tackle the hill in one go and took on the Bulli Pass.

The Bulli Pass is by far the more difficult hill I’ve ever tackled on a loaded touring bike. It climbed 1000ft (300m) in 2 miles (3.2km) at an absolutely disgusting gradient. I managed to ride 95% of it, and when I say ride what I actually mean is crawl. I could barely keep the crank turning for nearly all of it and on one inside corner I had to get off and push because I wasn’t sure if the chain could withstand the force I was pushing through it. Despite being only 2 miles long it took us just shy of 2 hours to reach the top. As tough as it was for me to ride, Zoe had to push her 40+ kg bike the entire way. I was able to go back and help her twice but finding anywhere flat enough to leave by bike was almost impossible. The second half of the climb is also very narrow which meant I couldn’t go back and help and she was on her own.

Getting into Sydney was much easier than Melbourne; there are good cycle paths from 15 – 20 miles outside of the city centre so you can move fairly quickly and safely.

Final Thoughts

During our time in Australia I often questioned whether or not I was being fair about the road surface here. I sometimes wondered if I was blaming the rough road surface for my own lack of fitness. I felt somewhat redeemed when I started packing up the bikes in Sydney when I removed the back wheel from both the bikes to find the tire almost completely bald. The roads had really taken their toll on the back wheels because they were in pristine condition when we first landed in Perth.

If you'd like to take a closer look at our route or use it for your plans you can download the .kml file using the button below. For PC users you can view this file type in "Google Earth Pro", available here: google.com/earth/versions/, for Android users we recommend maps.me and for iPhone users we also recommend maps.me.

Daily Cycling Activity

Below is a breakdown of our daily cycling activity, you can see our exact route and final destination each day using the map at the top of the page.