Cooma to Home

Monday 6th April
Cooma to Canberra
Leave: 7:50am
Arrive: 3:15pm
Ride time: 6hr 10min
Total so far: 473.76km
Total today: 119.29km
Maximum speed: 54.2km/h
Average speed: 19.3km/h

Continental breakfast was good at the Sovereign Motel and it set us up for the day. We wore our raincoats to keep the cold at bay as we left Cooma in 7 degrees and overcast but with a good tailwind. The road to Canberra has a very good verge all of the way - a bit rough in parts and lots of broken glass but it at least allowed us to get off the road a bit out of the, at times, heavy truck traffic.
We made good time to Bredbo (34km in under 2 hours) and the "Gourmet Food Store" had some beautiful coffee - lots of good food here too. The road to here was fairly flat. On to Micalago (27km by 11:45am) for an early lunch, but we should have kept going. The only shop around was the petrol station and pies were the only food.
We crossed the border into the ACT and saw Tuggeranong in the distance at the 96km mark. Traffic got heavier as we followed the "City" signs and stopped at Kingston shops soon after 3:00pm for very nice coffee.
We followed Wentworth Ave, then Bowen Drive and then followed a bike path over Kings Ave bridge along the north side of Lake Burley Griffin and then over a footbridge into the back of Rydges Hotel Lakeside - $150 per night in room 411 with a city view. Bikes got stored for free in the luggage room on the ground floor.
Had a drink in the bar (they had Asahi beer on tap) and wandered up toward Civic and found the Jolimont Centre on Northbourne Avenue where we will catch the bus on Wednesday. Had dinner at a Singapore Restaurant ($50 inc. a "Shanghai" beer - roast duck, sweet and sour pork) and back to the hotel. Great day and fairly easy riding overall.

Tuesday 7th April
Around Canberra
We did about 20km around Civic, Parliament House and the Embassies at Yarralumla - BTW there is a bike rack at the new Parliament House in the underground carpark right next to the stairs up to the front door. Went to the Portrait Gallery on the the lake - brand new building and makes for an easy couple of hours of wandering around.



In Civic, "Dobson's Bakery" on Bunda Street was great for almond croissants and the "SupaBarn" supermarket inside the Canberra Centre on Bunda St is great. Called into the Greyhound desk at the Jolimont Centre and got a printout of our tickets for tomorrow - this is important as we couldn't print them out seeing as we were on the road and you need a printed ticket to show the busdriver! The desk is only open 9-5 and we are leaving at 7:15am in the morning. Also bought 5 metres of bubble wrap to help pack the bikes up tomorrow.

Wednesday 8th April
Canberra to Home

Down to the luggage room to pick up bikes at 6:00am - lucky we were early as I had a flat front tyre! So we walked the bikes up to the Jolimont (took about 20 minutes) and packed the bikes ready to put onto the bus (flat tyre and all!) - take front wheel and handlebars off, wrap the handlebars in the bubble wrap and cabletie them to the front fork. Use the climbing tapes I kept from the Albury boxes to tie the front wheel to the frame triangle. This way the bikes fit upright into the luggage bin of the bus balanced on fork ends and back wheel.
Bus to Central station in Sydney took nearly 4 hours - I put the bikes back together again here and fixed the puncture, then caught the Mountains train for Springwood and rode home. Great trip!