Austrian (not Australian) Cycling Perth to Sydney Advice please.

[Simon-Vienna]

Dear fellow cyclists,

I'll be over in May, arriving in Perth and hoping to catch Westerly winds that will take me to Sydney.( sounds easy right )
Currently I'm tending to take the shortest route i.e Perth (94) to Coolgardie, then South to Norseman, then East across (A1) Port Augusta, then down South to Adelaide, then across East along the (A20) passing Mildura, Bathurst and into Sydney.

Reading a few journals, it seems the majority of cyclists take a more Southern Route along the coast line from Perth then cycle North from Esperance then East from Norseman and a Southern Route along the Coast through Adelaide, Melbourne, then up through Canberra and onto Sydney. All in all that is around 1500km longer.

I would very much appreciate your feedback on the best route to take considering i.e conveniences, scenic, safety, speed, tenting, hotels etc.

Any other tips would be highly appreciated.

Keep on Cycling
Simon

[baabaa]

Reading a few journals, it seems the majority of cyclists take a more Southern Route along the coast line from Perth then cycle North from Esperance then East from Norseman and a Southern Route along the Coast through Adelaide, Melbourne, then up through Canberra and onto Sydney. All in all that is around 1500km longer.

Looks like quiet a ride you have plotted out!!
Few quick thoughts - Unless you are really keen to just tick off the ride as just a long distance ride done and have strong urge to mix it with fast loud and very blowy/ buffereing long distance Australian trucks suggest you do the southern route - this (southern route) rough route is far more scenic and would put Esperance down as is well worth a look ( best not think about the Esperance to the Balladonia roadhouse road unless you really understand being alone in the Aust "bush" (I found it a very difficult ride) If you can plan to get Albany in more or less following the Albany Highway even better!
Also consider coming up from Adelaide to Canberra and then up to Sydney vs coming in from the far and central west of NSW as the shoulders of many of roads from Mildura to Bathurst are a bit of a mess at the moment due to being cut up from trucks after the floods. This may change in May but at the moment the roads west of the Hume highway are being repaired at a much slower rate than those east of the Hume. The pot holes on many of the roads are really something and the shoulder which normally meets the tar to dirt edge and shoulder can be quite a drop off and is scary on a bike.
Re camping plenty of open space to find spots to overnight in WA SA and NSW but it gets harder the closer you get to Sydney if you come in from Bathurst or even Canberra so think around hotels or motels become a better option.
So what sort of bike at kit are you thinking - fully touring bike with front and rear panniers or a lighter load with bike packing bags - both set ups will work but both mean very different volumes of food and water that you can lug - once you get to Ceduna the need to carry lot of food and water decreases as the distance between towns decreases as you get further east....

[onrbikes]

The shortest route would be via Hyden straight through to Norseman.
The main highway to Coolgardie is too busy. Lots of big trucks.
There are plenty of options getting to Hyden via numerous small towns.

East of Hyden is an excellent dirt road, but no services till Norseman. Beautiful bush though.

We live near Mt Barker and have had many cyclist stay with us.

Most go via the south as its much more scenic.
The better route if you go via Albany is north to Amelup, Borden to Jerramungup.
Not via Wellstead. Both are the same distance but going north is much more scenic as it goes through the Stirling ranges

Camping out in Australia is easy. Very easy. Public toilets are available in every town and some cold showers at odd places.
Get the Wikicamps app. $7aud for life. A good offline guide of facilities

There is also plenty information on crazyguyonabike

[Simon-Vienna]

Hi Baabaa, hi onrbikes,

Honestly, I really appreciate the good advice and tips coming from you guys. I might just take the Southern routes you are both proposing, I'm not really in a hurry although I want to cycle around 140km/day plus rest stops of course.

To answer some of your questions, I am cycling on a Thorn EXP Randonnuer, with 4 Ortlieb bags weighing around 18kg. I have a tent of course and I'll also take a MSR spider petrol cooker, although I've heard you are not allowed to bring in the 1L canisters ( even if they are empty). So I'll buy one in Perth. I presume I'll have to cook along the way, especially the Nullarbor stretch ?.

I don't really want to cycle dirt roads, but I will certainly buy that wiki app.

Baabaa, appreciate the info regarding the floods near Mildura and the roads being in a mess.

I use Crazyguyonabike forum a lot, you can usually find good snippets of advice.

Could I ask one of you, what is the best telecom sim set up to purchase and would that cover most of the stretch I would be cycling ?

I'll work on my new route over the next few days and post it later in the week.

Keep On Cycling
Simon

[baabaa]

I use Crazyguyonabike forum a lot, you can usually find good snippets of advice.

Suggest have a look at this site for a good rundown on what biking in Aust is about with a euro visitor point of view.
https://bike-a-way.com/tag/australia/
Your set up sounds ideal for that sort of trip - suggest Telstra for the most complete mobile coverage but it can still be patching away from the main highways and towns. Bit of a warning, the cost (and speed) of Aust mobile and data is nasty when compare to nearby countries such as Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam or Malaysia

[Simon-Vienna]

Hi Guys,

I've pretty well decided (thanks to your feedback) to take the more Southern route out of Perth. There are a few options to get to Albany, the Albany highway it seems is pretty busy and dangerous ( info from this forum, dated though 2013).

I wanted to paste an image into my reply, but no idea how that works.

So anyway,
option 1. take the No 30 down to Albany
option2. Bunbury then the No1
option3 Run along the coast pretty well No 10

What do you guys think ?

Keep on Cycling
Simon

[onrbikes]

No 3.

Albany highway is busy and nothing on the way.

Shame about you not taking dirt roads. Even though you'll be following the south coast you won't see any water. Some beautiful beaches that need a ride in the dirt

Will have to disagree about expensive SIM cards.
Boost is good. It uses the Telstra network and is good value.
The card itself is only $2 and they have various prepaid options. We use the 12 month. They all have unlimited txt and calls.

We're going to Korea and Japan this year and their SIM card alone is $15 and their prepaid plans much more expensive. They mostly have data only as well.

[baabaa]

Agree with 3 but then again how much time do you have in Aust- you could spend a month just doing down the WA coast and then head back to Perth but you would then miss out on huge amounts of seeing the eastern parts of Aust.... Eastern Aust is vastly different in sights sounds and smells - and the distances between these three is much shorter in Eastern than Western Aust.

re

They mostly have data only as well.

True - other cheaper providers use the Telstra network but not sure why anyone would even need to have a sim for making calls and txt when overseas ( or when visiting Aust) as with a data sim you can just use things like facetime voice or video to chat to anywhere when you have a mobile signal or in Asia -use apps like Grab) via the data?

Has Japans phone and mobile number restrictions changed this year? - even up to last year it was near impossible to get a prepaid voice SIM if you are a tourist or are on a business visa as sims are just data sims or for use in pocket wifi / toggles with a data sim - suggest you check this before you go

[GermanPushbiker]

I wanted to paste an image into my reply, but no idea how that works.

Hi Simon,

try this link https://de.share-your-photo.com/

Bernd

[find_bruce]

I wanted to paste an image into my reply, but no idea how that works.

Try reading How to post images on the Australian Cycling Forums

To do so you need to use a photo sharing site, such as the one Bernd linked to.

[BrisbaneGent]

Österreicher in Brisbane

If your. Owing to Brisbane at all visit me

Martin