Since I didn’t have enough leave accrued to take off up north again this Christmas, I’d gradually been planning to take a week off to do some longer rides around Sydney and hopefully get up to the Blue Mountains to see the new home for some friends who moved out of Sydney a few months ago.

Everything coalesced into next week being the time: I’m cycling around Sydney for a couple of days before heading up to Katoomba on Wednesday, spending a rest day there and then coming back on Friday.

I’ve even managed to convince Danya to come along on Monday as I go up to Church Point on a course I haven’t ridden since about 2006, when I was so much more gung-ho for riding longer distances more regularly (that being in the midst of my Big Ride years).

On Tuesday, I’ll do the old ‘Gong course they used when the coast road was being rebuilt, where they looped us at Stanwell Tops to come back to Waratah Park at Sutherland. All in all that’ll be about a 110km ride, if I recall correctly.

It looks to be high 30s in the west of Sydney by Wednesday, so I’ll need to scoot through there early on my way up to the mountains, and I’m not sure how good the route will be in terms of traffic as I head from Parramatta to the M7, and out through Tregear to Penrith and onto the Great Western Highway. I guess it’s an adventure 🙂

At least I don’t have to spend hundreds on train tickets and motel accommodation.