“Someone stole my water bottle!”…

Day 6 & 7: Wollongong, NSW

…said Lukas, when his water bottle was not in his bag where he said he had it. A common phrase heard from Lukas when his forgetfulness prevails. Oh well! Sue breaks stuff and Lukas loses stuff. Makes us a great couple, eh? Luckily that ‘someone’ didn’t take any of our more valuable possessions. ; )

As we were mostly working away at the university’s library during the day, followed by the council library in town, there is not much to report, except that progress is great. Here are some more pictures as a glimpse of our current ‘home’.

This off-road path for pedestrian and bikes stretches from Thirroul (about 15km north) and takes us all the way to town, and we’re lovin’ it!

There weren’t a clear view of the mountain ranges when we arrived. Now there is!

We only returned to the resort after 9pm. The next thing we know, a fortress of tents, armed by excited kids and teachers trying to take charge, was set up across from us. We had a better glance in the morning.

Today (Thursday) we are highly motivated! We arrived before 8am at the university and had breakfast while awaiting the library to open at 8:30am. Lukas could not wait to start working on his manuscript.

***News flash!! Water bottle found and retrieved! It was sitting at the countertop of the café where we bought our afternoon snacks. So that ‘someone’ was the countertop that took his bottle hostage!***

Locations: [NSW] North Sydney - Heathcote - Coledale - Wollongong

What a beautiful day!

Day 5: Wollongong, NSW

For the first time since our departure, we see sun! Except for a brief downpour last night that woke us up when we left our tent ‘window’ open, it has been fairly dry. After brekkie, we hand-washed our laundry and hung them up on the clothes line at our ‘resort’ (and hopefully our tent smells better tonight… if not, we know who’s the one to blame for his unusually shorter showers).

It is mostly work today with the day spent at the University of Wollongong’s library.

Here’s some pictures of the university grounds. (Keyword: ALL hand-planted)

Thank you all for reading our blog and the supportive comments!

Locations: [NSW] North Sydney - Heathcote - Coledale - Wollongong

Day 4… of rain

Day 3 & 4: Wollongong, NSW
Distance cycled: 25km

We have been on the road for 4 days and it has been showering for 4 days. It didn’t stop us, and sure not the Aussies! As we rode past town after town, we witnessed one crowd after another braving the waves surfing or rowing, walking their dogs and going for a run. It was an easy and fantastic ride literally along the coast, especially thanks to the bike path shortly after we left Coledale, starting from Thirroul.

When we first arrived in Wollongong yesterday, taking shelter by the promenade and contemplating whether to cycle further south to the Windang Beach Tourist Park or backtrack towards Towradgi, a friendly stranger came up to us and said “We couldn’t have picked a better time for our ride, could we?” Charlie, on his bike with 2 dogs on tow, chatted with us and shared his cycling trip around Europe, down Mount Kosciuszko and the surroundings of Wollongong. We have spoken to at least 5 people who cycle frequently for leisure. We decided to go back north again as it is the closest place to camp near Wollongong and the university, where Charlie said only 3 trees used to stand on the university’s ground. All 3 were knocked down by wind. The trees on campus now are all hand-planted and it is a forest!

So we took the rest of the day off, cleaning ourselves and our bikes (Sue made a promise to her bike she named Reed that she would clean her!). After another go at Scrabbles with Lukas getting better and coming up with ingenious words like “brr”, “moo”, “op”, “pic” etc (that are words according to the official Scrabbles dictionary), we hit the hay early and got almost 12 hours of good rest.


It still drizzles but it could have been worse. Having found our way to the University of Wollongong’s library, we will base ourselves here for the next 2 days for Lukas to work on his manuscript and for Sue to start learning R (if she doesn’t stop procrastinating) ;p
Ciao!

Locations: [NSW] North Sydney - Heathcote - Coledale - Wollongong