We did this tour in March.  We travelled through the southern highlands to the south coast, and then back to the highlands.  We mainly camped, with one night in pub accommodation.  There were two days of travel over a good gravel road which had recently been maintained and is now mostly bitumen.  I have done a number of sections of this ride several times, and I would recommend it as being quite scenic.

Climate

The following climate statistics are for the weather station at Nerriga.  For more information on this location, including wind roses, go to "Climate Statistics for Australian Locations" on the Links page.  You can also obtain similar details from other locations enroute from that site.

Itinerary
Towns listed below that have distances marked ( ) are those where food/drink is expected/known and those marked [ ] are points of interest

Day 1 of the ride was purely a positioning day for us.  We caught trains from Newcastle to Campbelltown, which turned into a bit more of an adventure than we had expected, as there was track work between Liverpool and Campbelltown.  This meant that we had to get three loaded bikes onto a bus, which was not a problem for the driver, but the rail staff did not know their own rules regarding ticketing of bikes on weekends, so we had to put them straight too!  Visit CityRail website at Links for timetables and track work.

It was mid afternoon by the time that we arrived at Campbelltown, so the short ride to the Poplar Caravan Park - corner Camden Valley Way and Macarthur Rd - 800m E of PO at Camden was just enough to get us out of the busy city traffic.  Camden has all types of accommodation and food supplies.

I have always enjoyed this ride from Camden to Mittagong.  It is a long winch up the Razorback, but the view at the top makes it worthwhile.  The road is busy, but I have never had any problems along it.  Picton is an historic town with some great coffee shops and bakery.  The railway museum at Thirlmere is a "must see", and it is easily possible to spend several hours looking at the rolling stock, some of which goes back before 1900.  The road crosses a deep railway cutting at Hilltop, which is reported to be the deepest in NSW.

Mittagong is another historic town with all services.  We camped at Mittagong Caravan Park - 1 Old Hume Hwy - 1km N of PO.  It has a kitchen with tables and chairs under cover.

This is a day of ups and downs, with a great downhill a few kilometres past Fitzroy Falls.  The road to Berrima passes through farmlands, and Berrima is a popular tourist town, with its historic gaol and shops selling memorabilia.  Moss Vale is a large town with a bike shop.  Fitzroy Falls has a kiosk near the falls.  If you are interested in bush walking, there are a number of opportunities to walk around the escarpment of the falls.  The view down to the valley floor is interesting.

From Fitzroy Falls there is a hoot and holler descent down to the village of Kangaroo Valley and over the beautiful sandstone Hampden Bridge across the Kangaroo River.  The bridge is single lane, and I seem to recall that it was a pick-a-plank bridge.  The small town has a number of supermarkets and a variety of accommodation.  This is also a tourist area with a couple of caravan parks.  We camped at Kangaroo Valley Glenmack Caravan Park - Main Rd - 750m E of PO.  It had a kitchen with bbq, open fireplace and tables and chairs under cover.

The valley was shrouded in fog on the day that we walked the up the 9% gradient for more than 4kms to the top of the mountain on the way to Nowra.  The road was narrow, and there was a lot of traffic using it.  Some caution was needed when semi-trailers were passing.  The view from the top of the climb was magnificent as we looked back over where we had come from.  On the descent, I had semi's waving me past as they were using engine braking to slow them down to a safe speed for their loads.

Nowra is a large town, and if time permits, it is worthwhile visiting the Navy airbase museum, a few kilometres off track on the south western side of town.

The Princes Highway through Nowra, and south to the Huskisson turnoff is not at all bike friendly.  Expect lots of fast moving traffic that will travel close to you.  Having taken the turn towards Huskisson/Jervis Bay, take the left turn after 32kms towards Woollamia.  The locals claim that this is the best way to cycle to Huskisson.  We found the road to be good.  Huskisson is a popular seaside holiday town on Jervis Bay.  It has all types of accommodation with plenty of restaurants and takeaways, as well as a supermarket.  While there are a few caravan parks, we camped at Huskisson White Sands Tourist Park - corner of Nowra & Beach St - an easy walk to the shops.  There are a number of cycleways that travel south towards the Navy base if you need to extend your ride for the day.  It is necessary to purchase supplies here to enable you to get to Braidwood.  While there is a store and pub at Nerriga, they are limited, and the pub was for sale when we went there.

This day's ride was through some beautiful country of Morton National Park.  In order to avoid some unnecessary back-tracking at Tomerong, we travelled straight ahead across the old Princes Highway.  This took us down a dead end road to where a bridge had once crossed the creek.  It seemed to be well used by the locals.  We were able to negotiate the creek banks and cross to the other side without any problems and then rejoin the road to get to the Princes Highway, where we turned left, and after a short distance, we turned right onto the road to Nerriga.  At the time that we did the trip, it was gravel from about 10kms through to Nerriga, however, it is now bitumen through to Nerriga.  We stopped for lunch at the scenic Tianjara Falls after 38kms.  There is a rough camp site on the banks of the Endrick River at 61kms, after a steep descent.

Nerriga is a small community with a number of homes, church, community hall and a pub.  Unfortunately, both the caravan park and general store there is now closed, but we were lucky enough to have been allowed to camp there after asking the owners in the former store.  There are other possibilities for camping should that not be available.  The hamburgers from the store had a well earned reputation as being the biggest!  They were also good to eat, but the store's closure put an end to that.

The road to Braidwood passes through gently undulating farmlands.  There was gravel through to around 39kms.

Braidwood is an historical prospecting town with all facilities.  We stayed in a pub, but it is possible to camp at the showground on the way into the town.  It is necessary to come into the Council Offices to obtain keys to the showground amenities.  It is worthwhile having a look through the museum and a walk around the backstreets of the town.

The road to Tarago was open farmland.  This posed a problem for us, because we had strong crosswinds at the time that we travelled this route.  We eventually stayed the night at the Loaded Dog Hotel at Tarago as we considered it too risky to travel any further that day.  There is also a store/takeaway/fuel stop at Tarago.

The rest of the road to Goulburn is relatively flat.  Goulburn is a large rural city with all facilities and a few good bike shops.  We camped at Governors Hill Carapark - 77 Sydney Rd - 3.7k N of PO.  It has a kitchen with stove, microwave, communal fridge, tables and chairs under cover.  There were a few store/takeaway/fuel stops nearby, but it is best to shop in the city before making for the campsite.

The ride to Bundanoon is punctuated by small villages along the way.  After a long stint on the Hume Highway to Marulan, it was a welcome respite to be able to turn onto the scenic route to Bundanoon.  Tallong and Penrose, both have general stores/takeaways.

Bundanoon is a reasonable sized town with a variety of accommodation, general store and a great bakery.  We stayed at Bundanoon YHA - Railway Ave - 1k NE of railway station.  This is a very popular YHA, and it does accept campers, so book beforehand.  Bundanoon is a popular tourist destination.

CityRail and CountryLink trains stop at Bundanoon.  Check their websites for times at Links.