the Botany Bay cycleway

     Sydney would have to be one of the most bicycle-unfriendly cities in the world - hostile, aggressive drivers; too many mothers in cumbersome four-wheel-drives doing the school run; and an infrastructure designed for the car not the bicycle.

    The Lord Mayor, Clover Moore is valiantly trying to build a bike network, but is meeting huge resistance from the State Government and the bully-boy Murdoch Press-owned Daily Telegraph, appropriately dubbed the Daily Terror.

    So, it appears almost inconceivable that I can cycle forty-five kilometres from the geographic heart of Sydney on the Parramatta River, all the way to Cronulla Beach, the southern-most surf in the city, and for the majority of this ride do it on bike paths. Ill-designed, rough and poorly sign-posted bike paths... but anything is better than the killer roads.

    The first ten kilometres is a joy, cycling along the Parramatta River and through the Olympic Park prescient of wetlands and native bush, where the only danger is dodging walkers and fellow cyclists. It's a worthy legacy remaining from the froth and bubble of Olympics 2000. A gold medal to the designers.

    I brave the back streets of Homebush Bay for a kilometre before crossing the bike bridge over the M4 Motorway. 'Oh, look, a three-kilometre traffic jam... how very Sydney...'

    Another two kilometres of Strathfield suburban streets are navigated before I meet the Cooks River. Which at this point, should really be dubbed the Cooks Drain. A trickle, to be sure, but it allows a bike path along its length for twenty kilometres, winding through parklands, sporting fields, a mini-forest of swamp gums and the back-end of a thousand suburban houses. Today, everyone has washing on the line, drying in the autumn sunshine. Importantly, it's also a valuable corridor for birdlife and native animals. Whenever it meets a major road, a tunnel is provided. All are unlit, bumpy and grimy.

    At Hurlstone Park, the Cooks River finally lives up to its name and widens considerably. There's a curious wooden-beamed boat harbour here which was built in the 1960's for the Sea Scouts. At high tide, it's a pleasant picnic spot of egrets and the occasional pelican. Low-tide, it's a smelly rubbish-stewn mudflat.

    At the exact half-way point is Adore - a chocolate shop and cafe, with outdoor tables in the sunshine. After a ginger chocolate truffle and coffee, me and the Cooks River cycleway now head due east and cross under a few major roads before coming out opposite the International Airport and the mouth of the river at Botany Bay. Which means increased pedestrian traffic as the cycleway here is really a glorified footpath of strolling couples eating gelato and wheeling prams. There is an alternative route through the backstreets, but on a day of warm sunshine, I'm in a sunny mood and don't mind limiting my speed.

    At Sans Souci, I cross the steep Captain Cook Bridge and enter the misunderstood Shire. They're not all bogan racists down here... only the ones who appear on television holding aloft Australian flags and shouting abuse at westies arriving at the beach by train. But, the bike path improves dramatically and it's a gentle trundle all the way to the turn-off to Kurnell. 

   Turn left and I can cycle eight kilometres, in a bike lane, to the landing site of Captain Cook in 1770, and to Point Solander where, for a few months of the year, whales can still be spotted from the lookout. But the sunny lure of the beach is too strong and I turn right instead, cycling along the beach road to Cronulla, past the tradies having an extended lunchbreak of surfing, watched by knots of Japanese tourists seeking the best camera angle.

    After forty-five kilometres, and of course still another forty-five to return, I deserve fish and chips.