Getting to Sydney from the west

While on our recent trip West I became interested in where the land started to rise from the Western Plains up to the Monaro Tablelands (or, more generically, the Southern Tablelands).  The answer turned out to be Gundagai.

I then started to think about where the road dropped down again as one heads along the Hume Highway to Sydney.   The answer to that seemed to be about Berrima.

Of course this is very much a simplification: I merely took distances and elevations for a few towns/villages along the way and there are some nasty ups and downs within the overall trends.  I have in mind (in particular) a drop down to the Nattai River (or one of its tributaries) out the back of Mittagong!

All of this doesn't matter too much rolling along a major highway in a fairly powerful modern car with cruise control.  However it did make me think a little about a friend who is participating in a charity bicycle ride from Perth to Sydney.  That stretch from Gundagai to Yass would be most unpleasant.  Although from Berrima onwards would be on average OK!

I am unsure of the exact route they are following.  There seem to be 3 options (subject to where bikes are allowed) ...

.. and the Hay stretch is the end of the middle, shortest, one.   I have since checked and the progress tracker shows they have chosen the Hay Plains route.

I did wonder if the Northern route via Broken Hill might be preferred.  So I compiled another profile for that option.  I was somewhat surprised at the drop from Broken Hill to Wilcannia (but then thought about the meaning of the words "Barrier Range").  Willcannia is on the Darling, whereas Hay is on the Murrumbidgee, but basically they are at the same altitude.  I have commented in the past about the flatness of the area around those towns!

I'm sorry I don't have a name for the high point, but it seemed to be somewhere un-named 19km east of Bathurst!

Again the stretch from that high point to Penrith is on average pretty good for cycling.

I wondered how the two routes would look if plotted together.  That turned out to be a bit tricky to work out because they were different distances.  However, extending the Hume Highway route back to Renmark got both to be about 1200km and by a bit of estimation I was able to work out (OK, guess)  the elevation at each 100km point.  Here is the result.

Clearly the Hume route is not as evil as the one through Broken Hill.  I did wonder if the stretch through the Mount Lofty Range to the Goyder Highway might be unpleasant but the highest point is only just over 200m so a good bit lower than Broken Hill.