79. Cycle – Mona Vale to Palm Beach

Myself, Matt and Marcus met at the Mona Vale Hospital car park at 11am. The view from where we left the cars was amazing and I had a real pang of jealousy for all the doctors that worked in Mona Vale and were 50m from the beach. It really did look fantastic despite the overcast weather and had we brought the budgie smugglers, we may have dispensed with the cycle and gone for a dip instead. Even though it was a Friday, there were already plenty of surfers in the water trying to catch a tube – or whatever the lingo is!

After some minor mechanical issues with Matt’s tyres we were soon on our way. The road started off quite cruisy but shortly into the ride the highway went down to 1 lane of winding, snaking up hill horror. The terrain wasn’t all that bad but the proximity of the traffic made for a few narrow misses. Matt sucked in so much car exhaust that he had a brief wave or two of nausea but thankfully that passed once we were a bit further north and the traffic volume decreased.

Apart from a comedy crash into the road side gravel (ouch) we made it unscathed all the way to Palm Beach. As a person from the UK who was brought up watching Neighbours and Home and Away, it was somewhat of a pilgrimage to make it to the set of Summer Bay. The beach there is awesome and totally pristine. You could definitely understand why the researchers for Home and Away chose the spot.

We then climbed out of the Bay – there is no easy way out on the bikes – and stopped at a road side café that sold the best fish and chips ever. It was Barramundi all round washed down with powerade of course. 15km later we were back at the car park. It was a much better ride back to Mona Vale as we had the wind behind us and also the traffic seemed to have lessened. All in all a good ride even if it was a bit hairy in places. If we do this one again then I think it’ll need to be a weekend one.

Distance – 32.7km
Time – 1:34
Average Speed – 20.7km/h
Max Speed – 67.3km/h