First few days out! Pretty fun, pretty stressful, amazing places and difficult cycle.

We said goodbye to Sam on our second day when he had headed back to Sydney from Morriset. We had spent the night before at Budgewoi beach sleeping between the dunes, I was pretty tenuous at first about our first free camp but happily settle in for some dinner. I think its going to take some getting used to the sounds of nature at night, its quite loud!

We rode a very relazing first 2 days on a nice flat bicycle path that we joined at Tuggerah only a few sections on the road which i didnt enjoy but can see myself getting more confident towards. Although it has made me think of some new rules I think should be implemented throughout Australian roads.

1. ALWAYS have a shoulder. Also if there is a shoulder dont suddenly erase it from the landscape and someone may have been using it and planning on continuing to use it.

2. Placing a sign that has a picture of a bicycle does not mean that it is a bicycle friendly road. Both Jacob and I have decided that at one point in time some politician said 'I will give NSW another 1000km of bicycle safe road or lane in the next 3 years'. This politician then bought 200 signs with a picture of a bicycle on it and a bicycle stencil and proceeded to place these signs in places where people would hardly ever ride and place spray paint bicycle stencil on parts of roads that have wide shoulders (even if in 5 km the shoulder ends with no option but to cycle your way up the side of the lane). We have gotten used to ignoring these signs and paths as they usually do not lead anywhere safe!

The second night we stayed at a lovely national park camp ground in the Watagan National Park named Gap Creek. I would suggest this camp ground to anyone who is keen to get out of Sydney and go camping for a night or two as it has beautiful walks, working bbqs and toilets (its also 100% free) but I do not suggest it for someone on a bike who does not like hills or unpaved road. We were carefreely cycling through beautiful landscape on what we thought would be about 15km of easy riding until suddenly the tar disappears and the road turns up. I make it about 300m before I jump off and start the old push, Jacob doesnt make it much further. It ended up being about a 3km climb then another 5 km down along a pretty shocking road to Gap Creek. Difficult but definitely worth it!

Starting to fall in love with our Trangia stove and can cook a million different dishes on it (although mostly stick to tomato and onion stew). We are eating like horses and enjoying ever bite!