Katoomba to Sydney: Monday 14 May 2012

Dave and I packed up our tent on a clear sunny but chilly morning. Time to leave the beautiful Blue Mountains with its rainforests, waterfalls, and stunning mountain scenery, along with every nationality of tourists. Just as we left the Katoomba Caravan Park to ride up and away through the town, Dave's speaker crackled into my helmet "Watch this next corner, it's a tricky one!" Well…..I dropped my bike….

If that printing was too small, then too bad, you don't want to know anyway! Actually, I tried to stop my motorcycle behind Dave's bike and trailer at a tricky hilly give way sign, put my foot down to find no ground and then Dave's helmet heard "Davey! I'm falling!" Kerplunk!

Embarrassment as a line of cars stopped behind, a nice older lady pedestrian came rushing over to help me and told me she was also a motorcyclist who had "done that", and then Dave was also there to help lift my Guzzi bike up. Lucky not much damage…I broke the end bit off the clutch lever, and the cover off an indicator, which was taped back on. Mario of Thunderbikes in Perth is now sending over a new Moto Guzzi clutch lever, even though it's still ok to ride with the broken one, but not legal to leave like it is. Lucky I didn't break a mirror, and the only dent on me is my pride….duh! There…if I didn't fess up, Dave would've tattled on me to make up for his tumble off at Mt Difficult in the Grampians. We're equal now….and both of us were almost stationary when we did our droppsies.

The rest of our ride to Sydney was uneventful, and only 103km. Traffic got busier as we got closer to Sydney but it was flowing easily. The GPS Genie found the Lane Cove Caravan Park which is only 10km out of Sydney centre, and what a lovely place this is! You can't believe you are so close to a big city and once again, as in Adelaide and Melbourne, our tent site is overlooking green bushland/creek scenery. Once again we Intrepids have our tent all alone in the park, a long way away from heaps of grey nomads in their huge caravans. Peace and quiet! We have possums trying to sneak into our tent to pinch our food and you have to watch them in the campers kitchen. The only blob is that the National Park where the caravan park is sited is underneath the airport flight path, so mornings and evenings get a tad noisy overhead! But on one side of the caravan park it is deadly quiet, as the Macquarie Park Cemetery is there.

We went for a walk to check out the train station, and found to our delight that we can each travel anywhere around Sydney and surrounds, including all public ferries, for a mere $2.50 a day, no time restrictions either, because we both have Seniors cards. We're going to have a lot of fun exploring Sydney….and we have booked in for at least a week, at only $30 a night for a powered site.