Day 1 - Moss Vale to Bungonia through the Southern Highlands

It's long weekend and I'm in between jobs so I figured I'd take this opportunity to do a cycle tour down through NSW. What started off as an idea for an overnighter turned into a week adventure through the Australia's highest mountain ranges in Kosciuszko National park. 

I managed to convince 5 others to come along on the first part to Canberra, a mini adventure with the SNR crew. After much planning between myself and a friend, lots of consultations of train times, locations, camping grounds. We finalised a route from Moss Vale to Canberra via Bungonia. 
The adventure began at 7:24am from Central station, trying to find the elevator up to the platform is a nightmare (go to the Eddy Ave side first). We caught a "normal" 8 carriage train out to Campbelltown then changed over to the train for Moss Vale. Although the train ride was completely covered by the opal card, we didn't realise the train to Moss Vale was very different to the Sydney trains. It was 2 carriages, had space for 2 bikes to hang off a hook and no in between spaces. Somehow we managed to squeeze bikes into the passenger part and lie them ontop of each other.

Train ride duration: 2h 30 mins
Start: Central Station
End: Moss Vale Station

Ride Start: Moss Vale Station
Ride End: Bungonia State Forest Camping grounds
Distance: 79 kms 
Elevation: 730 m
Difficulty: Easy, Medium
Road Conditions: On Road (bituman) in back countries, 10 kms on highway with wide shoulder
Route Map: link
Strava: link
Moving Time: 4h 30min
Total journey time: 6h 20mins

Pitt Stops:

• Bundanoon - Ye Olde Bike Shoppe cafe, multiple cafes, free water stations
• Wingello - General Store which has a cafe, bread and canned foods

Camping site:
Bungonia Campgrounds, booking required and has charges. Facilities are out of this word. Filtered water, hot showers, gas bbq outside, gas stoves in an common room

Highlights:

• Autumn leaves of the Southern Highlands
• Entrance into the Bungonia camp site, farms with horses and cows and loads of Kangaroos
• Buying veggies on the side of the road for dinner
• Cook up feast over the gas bbq
• Bumping into friend who were also camping at the site

Some photos courtesy of this beautiful rider @alikjones