I stood on the high line here salivating. Sydney, here is a mega city and even they have managed to go on a road diet. A road diet in NYC looks like a lane for shared bikes, a bicycle lane, pedestrian crossings at each and every leg of the intersection. And signal phases that don't force you to sprint across as soon as the pedestrian light goes green just in case you get stuck a quarter way across and people try to run you over.

I was on my way to meet my friend in Brooklyn and what do I see when I walk out of the subway station, walking along the pedestrian overpass, over 8 lanes of traffic? A beautiful separated bi directional cycleway and footpath running down the middle of the chaos buffered nicely by trees and parked cars. 

​That's actually not Penn Station. The station is behind me in the photo and unfortunately the original station was knocked down to make way for Madison Square. This building is actually the post office and was built to complement the station. 

Just blown away by the Bicycle network in this crazy city. 
​The signal times are long and frequent for pedestrians. 
The one way streets arranged in a grid pattern with minimal driveways make for an easy bicycle network. 

Distance: 29 kms
Elevation: negative. downhill to Nowra
Strava link.

Highlights:
- Downhill
​- The biggest epic vegan breakfast at Nowra (The deli on Kinghorne)

Day 2 - Kangaroo River to Kangaroo Valley
Distance: 17.22 km (one way)
Strava link.

Today was supposed to be the "rest day". Little did I realise the climb out of the camp site was a killer. Especially on a scorching hot Australian summer's day. In hindsight maybe we should have packed up and moved closer to the valley that night. Whatever. Still managed to laze about by the river and go for a few dips. 
Back at camp the boganville left but left behind all their trash. If you just ignore all the bottles and plastic and rubbish, the camp site was pretty nice and peaceful with perfect sunset viewing position.

Day 1 - Moss Vale to Kangaroo River via Fitzroy Falls
Distance: 58 kms (36 miles)
Actual moving time: 6 hours 47 mins
Start Time: (After lunch at Moss Vale) 12:30pm
Finish Time: 9:00pm
Strava link.

How could I have forgotten so quickly how hard fire trails are. The Jagungal trip was only 6 months ago. Had the traumas of riding the fire trails in the Jagungal Wilderness have faded so quickly.
When I initially mapped out this day out I added the Fitzroy Falls detour to add more kilometres for fear of rolling into camp super early and not having anything to do. That's because I was expecting to be riding 20 kms an hour. The reality is I'm not a fast rider. I'm not confident going down those fire trails and I'll take my sweet time getting down. Also my bike set up was super inappropriately front heavy. All these factors combined resulted in an average speed of about 8.7 kms/h.
On top of being slow to make sure we really rolled into camp late I somehow used a fire trail that becomes a hikers only tail.

Highlights:
- The smells of the forest. 
- The post rain mist in the forest. 
- The forest.

And for the epics failures, which in hindsight I will call pro tips:
Tip #1: Make sure the fire trail is for bikes and hikers. Just in case that fire trail becomes a hikers only trail and it gets dark and there's only one way to the camp spot. 
Tip #2: Secure your load - on your bags. Or you may end up losing your favourite rain jacket on the ride (lucky we had to back track along the trail and found it. 
Tip #3:  Secure your load - in you bags. Or you may end up with clothes that smell like soy sauce.
Tip #4:  Have a bike with the right weight distribution. Definitely don't ride a bike with all the weight on the front and for the rest of your trip spend most of your energy controlling the handlebar and shitting bricks thinking you're going to face plant down that gravel trail.

Adapted from Adam's Attack of the Buns riding along fire trails 
Day 1 - Moss Vale to Kangaroo River - map link
Day 2 - Rest Day - Kangaroo River
Day 3 - Kangaroo River to Yalwal via Nowra - map link
Day 4 - Yalway to Nowra via Tianjara Falls - map link