Bike Touring Guide: Sydney to Melbourne Australia
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- čas přidán 16. 03. 2024
- A video to help you understand how to bike tour from Sydney to Melbourne explained through my experience in December 2023.
I interlaced my 2-week bike journey with my tips on following topics:
- Gear and Preparation (00:40)
- Warmshowers (03:02)
- Art of Route Planning (09:33)
- Camp site locator (13:12)
- Food while touring (14:20)
- Nutrition (18:00)
- Road Conditions (20:43)
- Fitness level (22:00)
- Safety with Solo (31:29)
- Fundraising Challenge (37:00)
My Strava route/activity:
- Day 1 Sydney to Woonona / strava
- Day 2 to Vincentia / strava
- Day 3 to Bateman’s Bay / strava
- Day 4 to Bodella / strava
- Day 5 to Bermagui / strava
- Day 6 to Tathra / strava
- Day 7 to Eden / strava
- Day 8 to Orbust / strava
- Day 9 to Xmas dinner / strava
- Day 10 to Bairnsdale / strava
- Day 12 to Stratford / strava
- Day 13 to Tralagon / strava
- Day 14 to Melbourne / strava
Useful links:
www.warmshowers.org/
Www.railtrails.org.au
my.righttoplayusa.org/1000For...
Note, the video quality unfortunately got compressed via my iPad upload.
Thanks for watching my first movie and being part of my first big adventure! - Zábava
Great vid! I lived in Sydney and the south coast, just moved to Melbourne this year. I've ridden a lot of bike paths and gravel roads in your route, and never thought anyone be riding the whole way. Can totally imagine the scarcity of those highways with basically no shoulders. well done and glad you received heaps help!
Great video, thank you for sharing your experience. I’m here in Australia and you definitely made the right choice to bus the highway, highway sucks here.
especially up here int he banana republic of Queensland, not highways goat tracks really.
Thank you! Wish Australia would install more bike lanes between cities!
Thank you for sharing all the little/big problems you had . Really gives some idea of what to except on a long bike trip
Glad it was helpful!
Very good first video, well done.
Great video. Really loved the journey and would love to do something like this one day. Appreciate you showing the lows as well as the highs.
Inspirational video! What an amazing effort Valina. I’m an Aussie and learnt heaps too.
Awesome! Thank you!
Awesome! Yeah, biking between cities often has the worst bike shoulder, so double point for you going along so much of it!
Great vid, well enjoyed. And you're right, the "riding away" shots are way more trouble than they're worth 🤣🤣
Keen to see the next one!
Haha yeah, i needed every bit of energy to move forward!
Really good video! I spent 9 months riding around most of europe and wild canping as much as i could. What i found was never rush a cycle tour. Always stop for rest days and your tour will be so much more enjoyable.
Spot on. Except most people are broke and can’t take more than two weeks off and still feed themselves
@superwag634 i found it even cheaper to live like that cycling around wild camping and only eating food I cooked myself on my camp stove. The occasional magnum of vino for 4 euro too. Crazy the cost of living when you rent, utility bills etc. But ofcourse cycling around wild camping is something I couldn't do forever lol!
Well done! Enjoyed your story.
Well done! We liked your video. You could contact local bike clubs and Audax and some their members can help you if you need it 👍 keep you company or give you tips or a lift if needed.
When it comes to food in Australia and for a touring cyclist a pub meal can fill you up with Carbs and Proteins. Steak with salad and chips or Parmigiana with salad and chips will fill you and help relieve that fatigue, till the next meal. I started touring cycling in Japan in 2010 at 60 years old and made seven cycling trips to Japan. I'd had days where I stopped cycling , ate and slept for two nights. Have to get back on the bicycle as I enjoyed it so much.
Wow nice, I’d love to cycle tour Japan! I went there in April but just by foot. Such a cool country! Hope you get back out there!
Great video! Found you via a CZcams recommendation. I had thought of once cycling the Princes Highway from Sydney to Melbourne. In the end, I decided against it. Looking forward to more of your adventures!
Thanks for watching my video! Ah yes Princes Hwy is not pleasant to bike on in some sections but I found most of the route to be good and rideable. The highway was more busy during the summer/Christmas holiday season too!
I enjoyed watching the journey the highs and the lows I think especially on day 7 or 8 where you put on really brave face because how tough and draining it was getting.
Thank God for the generosity friendly face of some of the locals that really got you there at the end of the road.
I live in Sydney and have fantasised about riding to Melbourne the road is full of compromises and adversities, I'll give it a miss.
Aww thank you! Yeah I want to be authentic with my story, not everything is glamorous! But that makes the adventure more memorable and yes super lucky with you I met! Haha sorry to dissuade you from the ride! From Sydney to Eden is gorgeous and bus back. Afterwards, the route isn’t as pretty
Hats off to you, I live in Sydney but do all my bike touring in Europe where things are much more cyclist-friendly 😅
What a cool adventure. Thanks for posting that. You must've been already in good shape because that is really hard to do.
Great vlog, well done.
Looked like the absolute right call to jump on that bus for that section.
Just leaves the rest of Aus, clockwise, back round to Sydney ! :) ☀️
🦘
I've bikepacked that section and it was not fun.
We did this a few years ago on our tandem and had a great time apart from the traffic. We had really hot weather and I remember the Narooma to Merimbula leg as being really tough with a really hot day and way to much traffic. We were given a lift from Genoa to Mallacoota by my brother in law and then a lift a couple of days later back to Genoa. We then rode to Cann River and then to Orbost via the rail trail. The highway was fine. Not much traffic and good roads but there's no where to stop along the way for food. The rail trail to Orbost was lovely and we saw emu's and lyrebirds along the way. We caught the train from Bairnsdale to Melbourne as we didn't think it looked interesting to ride through. Congratulations on your first big tour. It looks like you packed really well as most people seem to carry way too much. Hopefully you'll do many more tours as it's a fantastic way to see a country and meet the locals. The interactions you have as a cyclist is completely different to being a tourist.
What a great watch this was. Must've been hard going in the heat. Chapeau!
That was an awesome video, you are very inspiring cycling from Syd. to Melb. I only came across your site by accident, but now will follow and see what comes next ...... my wife and I are in our early 70's and both cycle ( e-bikes now ) & also on our motor bikes ..... we have rented bikers in many counties in Europe & we did the Five Borough Bike Ride in New York a few years ago, it was a great day .... anyway hope to see more of your adventures ..... cheers from Ozzzz .....
So awesome to capture and share your adventure Valina!! Well done!!
Thank you so much for watching it!
What an awesome ride. Thanks for sharing it with us (the next best thing to riding with a friend).
Sometimes I just wanted to reach into the screen and give you a hug.
Glad you could find some cycling hosts. You're one intrepid dame.
Humility, determination, athleticism. A beautiful soul and gorgeous to boot. Ride On!
Aww thank you so much 😊 it was an adventure of a lifetime!
The tarp was a good idea. Really nice jacket.
Great journey, great documentation!
Wonderful adventure and lots of information!! Inspirational!
Thank you very much! Glad it was informative!
Nice one. Good to see you enjoyed riding in my home state of Victoria. Hope to see some more videos from you someday.
Thank you! 🙏 more to come! I’ll get better at video editing lol
Very well documented journey! Well done on completing it!
Thanks for this video and tips! Great stuff!
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!
What a journey! Thanks for sharing.
Awesome 👍
Cool video, great that you took the time to film it all too. Lot of work!
Thank you so much! Yeah making a video took way longer than the actual bike trip!
great trip, and great video, with great editing
Great video, proud of my fellow Australians helping along the way
Well done!
Thanks for sharing your adventure, well done.
I enjoyed your video. I like how real and unpretentious you are. Well done!
thank you for sharing 😮🚴🚴🚴🚀
Incredible effort ! Very inspirational !
Thanks for sharing your ride lots of great info, Cheers 👍
so good congrats...
Loved the video - lots of nostalgia as you made your way down the NSW coast. Good call to catch the bus: that section of the Princes Highway is not meant for bicycles. Thanks also for the info on Warmshowers and Right to Play
Good stuff. Keep going 👍🏻🏆
Great job!!!! With only one flat the entire trip!
❤ love thanks for sharing with tips and Strava route! We are also planning for the same trip and maybe copy your route!
Wonderful video, that looks like a lot of hard work.
Thank you for sharing your adventure. I very much enjoyed it, and found it to be inspiring, allowing me to dream of a similar bike adventure in the near future. 🙏🏻🚲❤️
Fantastic - you are a STAR**
Thank you so much 😀
Just watched Francis Cade's bikepacking trip across Aus from Perth to Melb and I think you chose a much better route. Really enjoyable and relaxing thanks
Thank you! I saw some of the video, agreed the coastal scenery is way nicer!
What a great trip. I am more inspired to tour Gippsland. There was a great subplot about how Christmas was looking a bit grim but then you got an invite to lunch! Then it rained! The caravan parks are a bit pricey for solo bikes.
Great video by awesome girl! Thanks for sharing! :)
Thanks for watching my journey!
awesome job
Thank you!!😁
nice content
I did sydney to Melbourne in 2012, really nice that Ur video popped up on my feed, a nice trip down memory lane!! All the best for future travels!!
Aww glad I brought back good memories! Surprised it came popped up in the feed! 😅how does CZcams know?!
Great afford Australia has crazy weather right there even summer Christmas that heavy rain explains a lot 😳😭 loved the video 👍🏻
Yeah i was expecting only hot and dry weather! Thank you!
Great video. Very informative and a good watch. I live in Melbourne and have done Melbourne to Adelaide, but I would never do Sydney because of the traffic. I like your idea of doing it on a cheap bike. I have a very expensive bike and have to continually keep an eye on it. I might go over to USA one day and do the same. Buy a cheap bike and ride across the USA. By the way, I am a computing teacher and I could never produce something as good as your little production. Well done!
Aww thanks so much! The US would be a mighty adventure! Yeah best not to worry about a fancy bike getting stolen (especially in the US, which is very common in cities)
Kudos to you for a great ride and vid, you picked one of the hottest summers on record to attempt your journey, brutal stuff
Haha yeah hot and then cold and wet! Thanks for watching!
Awesome video! Around the same time I was doing Melbourne to Sydney via a very similar route. Still working on my videos though, taking way longer than planned.
Nice video. It was a fun for me to see some places, I`ve been before. I did the trip from Mel to Syd (after a loop around Tasmania).
Nice, hope it brought back good memories!
Great video! I rode from Bangkok to Phuket back in 2019, but it was an organised tour, which is much easier than touring solo: support vehicle with water/snacks/repair, hotels every night, most meals covered. Congrats on completing the challenge! Next time factor in rest days for sure.
Sounds great. Do you mind me asking which company you used for this tour?
Crazy change of weather
Indeed, not what I was expecting at all!
Well done on the video and the couple of web links, super helpful. I’m hoping to do Bondi to Bells beach in November some really hang web links. Can I ask why you did the coast and not the snowy mountains?
好棒呀
With the campsite prices - you were travelling in the peak season - they are much cheaper outside school holidays….
Well done! I live in Dalmeny and agree that it is a very special place with great cycling paths into Narooma. Great video to start your bicycle touring journey. I cycled around Scotland, Ireland and France a few years ago on my first long trip and went through the same ups and downs that you had on your trip. Very challenging ride for your first challenge. Cheers Gary
Thank you very much! Sounds fun, I want to go bike touring in all those places too!
Ha yeah, next time I’ll be more prepared!
Wow Great!
We did the same Tour by train.....
It takes 11 hours by train.....no wifi on board..... no Highspeed train.
But the food in the train was good!
Well done on your trip, mad respect.. I ride the gravel trails a lot around Narooma and avoid Princes hwy all together, great you caught the bus to Orbost. So proud of my fellow Aussies who helped you along the way. Another great journey would be the Tasmanian trail, it’s well established but I would suggest a bike with better off-road specs for that one.
Thank you, I heard a lot about Tasmania! Tempting for sure! Aussies are so nice 😁
Great trip and great video. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for watching and your comment!
Great video and what an effort to cycle from Sydney to Melbourne! Your camera work was good and would have been a task to keep the camera going during your trip. Thanks for your tips for bicycle touring. Your experience with windy conditions is unfortunate but that’s Melbourne/Victoria.
Thank you! The GoPro did the job! Next time I’ll get a better microphone
Onya champion beers ups
Think you deserve more than 85 subscribers, 86 now
Maybe a touring chainset plus some larger sprockets at the back could have given you some quite smaller ratios for the hills. Hybrid bikes, I have one, tend to be more highly geared and its lower gears you need for load carrying. I use a Surly LHT for touring and I often use my smallest gears on the climbs. I usually always use a two man tent as it provides much more space, usefull in bad weather although I do occassionaly use a one man affair. I liked youre vid, keep pedaling.
Wow , big effort and well done !
About ten years ago I had a spurt of health kick for about a year and a half😊, I was riding 15 k’s every day in Melbourne outer burbs without fail, on occasion 20 k’s if I felt up to it.
I was always riding with a bit of pain in the joints due to a life of hard yakka and being mid 50’s , one of the things I did was mount a Bluetooth speaker to the bike to play my favourite music from my phone , it really helped to focus on the music and not the pain .
The other plus was if you were on a bicycle path , other people would hear you coming and be aware of something coming.
All the best with your travels and stay safe.
Oh, so your the rude so-and-so who thinks their tinny music is what I want to hear when I go to the park? Please use headphones and be like the civilised people 👍
Yes. We found when doing 4WD trips, that if you played your favorite music for half the day you could drive longer hours per day and still complete the day much less tired. The music helps you relax. It may be a little different though with all that exercise involved :). Also yes the noise is a big safety issue. When I owned and rode only a motor bike for over 5 years, I learned that the city traffic WAS seriously trying to kill me. You learn with experience that the traffic is really bad at seeing you. They will just randomly cut you off or drive into you. It's the reason that many motor bike riders prefer the louder bikes - the traffic can HEAR you coming, so it's much safer. And safer riding is not rude, it's sensible and responsible.
p.s. the joint pain is diet related. You'll be needing higher nutrient food. Ease off all the carbs. They DO feed bulk grains (carbs) to cattle, to fatten them up for market. Think about that and the obesity epidemic. All the packet processed food products are of low nutrient by design and via the mass production, AND are carb based - for higher shelf life and higher profit. Not for your health. DON'T listen to people who are trying to sell you food products, for nutritional advise :). Cheers and thanks for the comment.
@@SoulpowerMSRSIt is nothing to do with being civilised darling , firstly it’s a common courtesy to let a pedestrian on a path know you are coming up behind them , secondly , it’s a small speaker that can probably only be heard for about 20 or 30 feet or about 15 seconds in time.
Most good courteous cyclists , give a few dings on a bike bell to give a warning .
Is not like a ghetto blaster .
If you really think that is wrong thing to do or is offensive, well I feel sorry for you.
@@amisoftau2659Thanks for the reply , yes the road and even bike paths can be somewhat dangerous at times , I used to drive trucks for a living , you definitely have to not only drive ( or ride) for yourself , you have to keep an eye out for every one else too, you can be as predictable as you can possibly be , and not deviate in your lane , and someone will try to drive under your wheels😊.
I’m retired now, so I’m pretty happy about that .
All the best to you.
I did it again by that same route last year and can imagine you enjoyed the hill climbs and the less than safe highways for cyclists.
A good trip and nice edit of your journey. A tip for all cyclists coming to Australia, avoid summer, it really is too hot unless summer in death valley is your thing. Some of those highway sections Eden to Omeo, very tight fast and windy with no space for a cyclist, good move getting the bus. From Bairnsdale to Melbourne, good move, the highway is straight, crowded and into the wind. Australian drivers often have a deathwish for cyclists and will deliberately put you into the gutter or just terrify you for no reason, there are laws about 1.5m passing clearance but most ignore it. The cycleways and railtrails are brilliant.
Echidna is one of only 2 mamals which lay eggs and give milk to their young, No pouch they dig a burrow, the other is the Platypus.
Thanks for your detailed response! So true about Australian drivers not being so bike friendly, wish that would chang, especially since the weather and nature is so good there to explore by bike.
@@sintalovva Ulladulla is my Grandmother's country and I know it well. I toured in a small way in the 70's through 90's and enjoyed everything but the saddlesores and lonleyness of it, though some experiences are only gotten by those efforts. Cycleways and railtrails are now a great thing for the touring cyclist and didn't exist until my last big ride into Queensland in 96, it was so good to ride along the beaches on a dedicated cycleway. Getting out of Sydney there is a cycleway network that you could have used around Botany Bay and right to the ferry wharf at Cronulla, and isn't the National Park nice.
I am surprised you did not come across any snakes on the roads/trails
I was afraid of crossing paths with snakes and spiders but didn’t see a single one!
Still wearing your mirror!!
Yay! 😁
Well done! Why did you choose Australia?
I chose Australia because I’ve always been curious about the country after meeting lots of nice Australians in Canada and the US. Also I wanted to meet my good friend and avoid North American winter in December. The country has so much natural beauty too!
Great effort, but personally I wouldn't even attempt due to Australian sun being so harsh. The amount of sun exposure during one ride would increase the chance of skin cancer.
True, lots of SPF 50 is needed! Originally I thought I would only ride in non-peak UV hours but I needed all the daylight I could get
Why did you choose summer?? Autumn/ spring would have been better?
Can you tell us which camera You use and programme for you tube,I m ınterested ın video technic part...
I used GoPro Hero 9 and IPad with IMovie to edit, pretty basic 😅
@@sintalovva how you send video to İ- pad??
New Zealand south island next time?
I’d love to go NZ, it’s on my wishlist! I haven’t looked into routes yet, any suggestions?
@sintalovva google: sound to sound bike packing. Popular route from Marlborough sounds to Milford sound. Or Tour Te Araroa. Or just cycle the entire south island top to bottom
$80 bucks! Sorry, that's way too expensive
Haha yeah I know, the campsites in Australia were surcharging during the holiday seasons. They should really have different prices for cyclists who only need a little patch of grass
Look on wiki camps for lower priced options and which of the bigger parks have unpowered campsites which are usually $10 or more cheaper.
Omg you’re cute ⚓️
What’s her (slight) accent?
lol Canadian?!
Useful tips about Wikicamps and Warmshowers. I had not heard about Warmshowers before.
I'm not sure what I am meant to use your Strava map for. Is it a guide to show what roads to avoid? I'm also confused about your fundraiser. Didn't your trip cost way more than that? You could have just donated the money to the charity. Would have saved you the angst about having to meet your 'goal' which no one asked you to do anyway.
Thanks for the feedback! The Strava route is for anyone who wants to do the same route, I wouldn’t change anything about it as I think I found the best routes and most bike paths as possible. For the fundraiser, many people do all sorts of challenges to fundraiser money (like a charity bike rides and runs). I had a small budget to do my trip and self-funded and also donated to the charity. Sure I could have stayed at home and ask for donations, but that wouldn’t be as effort driver. Also I leverage social media to advertise for this charity so it helps spread the word of their good work. Lastly, this trip was a dream trip and part of a multi-destination journey that I am on to see the world. If you’re interested, you can read about it in my blog www.sintalova.com
Happy to answer any more questions!
How can you admire the animals so much and eat them at the same time? Why not spare their lives and eat whole food plant based? 🌱💪🏽
Nobody cares ! You do you .