This ride will cross two large, distinctive geographic regions of S.E. Australia known as The Snowy-Monaro and Gippsland. There are several roads from the Snowy-Monaro to Gippsland. The Barry Way is probably the least travelled route by anything with wheels, and it is the Barry Way which this cycle tour will follow from the Snowy-Monaro to Gippsland.

The ride crosses the three major Australian jurisdictions called the Australian Capital Territory (A.C.T.), New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria (Vic). The A.C.T. has similarities to D.C. in the USA as it is an administered area around the national capital city of Canberra. Melbourne, the tour destination, is the state capital city for Victoria.

For comparison, the total area of the Snowy-Monaro and Gippsland regions combined is 2.5 times that of Wales or twice the area of Vermont or 1.5 times the area of Belgium and about the same area as Denmark or Slovakia....but only has a small fraction of the population of any of these places.

As previously mentioned, if this ride goes to plan, it will be a similar length as tours from London to Zurich, Portland to Sacramento, Bangkok to Saigon, Manhattan to Quebec City, or Edinburgh to Plymouth.

I have no idea how it compares for total climbing. There will be some climbing of course but there won't be any show-stoppingly high passes or mountain ranges. Road closures due to snow and ice on the Barry Way are a possibility. The ride starts at about 640 metres above sea-level and finishes at sea-level.

A piece of trivia for those interested in such things is that this ride will cross two state borders. The ACT-NSW border and the NSW-Vic border. A little known fact is that the straight line section of the NSW-Vic border is the line of bearing between the start of the River Murray and Cape Howe. It was explored and marked between 1870 and 1872 by Surveyors Alexander Black and Alexander Allan. In 1984 this line was resurveyed by the Department of Surveying, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and the section of the border was renamed The Black-Allan line in honour of those first surveyors.

The following information is gleaned from various sources including Wikipedia and official tourism sites.

Snowy-Monaro
The Snowy Monaro region is the south east area of New South Wales between Canberra in the north to the Victoria border in the south, bounded in the east by the Kybean range and escarpment and in the west by the Snowy Mountains. The Monaro region covers 16,000 km², includes the headwaters of the Snowy and Murrumbidgee rivers. The Snowy Monaro has an elevation of 800-1000 metres above sea level and is in the lee of the Snowy Mountains. The topography ranges from large river valleys to alpine and sub-alpine regions of the Snowy Mountains. This includes parts of tablelands and upper slopes that run along the spine of the Great Dividing Range. Also in the area is the Monaro plains, which is an elevated plateau. In the western parts, the landscape is mostly flat to undulating terrain it is often referred to the 'treeless plain'.

The climate is sub-alpine. Winters are long and cold, with temperatures regularly falling below freezing and periodic snowfalls occurring throughout the region. A rain shadow effect is experienced throughout the region, creating low and irregular annual rainfall.

Aboriginal people had been living on Monaro longer than 20,000 years before Europeans arrived. Although it was originally thought, by Europeans, that the Monaro Aboriginal people only resided in the high country during the warmer months (heading to the south coast district during winter), it is now understood that some groups lived on Monaro year-round. Other groups, such as the Brinja, Wallendgar and Walbunja, from the far south coast, travelled through this region to the high country for Bogong moth season. The groups from the south coast, travelling to feast on Bogongs, journeyed back to the coast (for prawn season) via area now called Wadbilliga National Park (east of Cooma). Just above the Tuross Falls, on the Tuross River, the swimming holes were healing pools. The region is the traditional home of various groups including the Ngarigo, Gundawahl, Djillamtong, Berrengobugge, Yaimatong, Croatingalong and Yuin. The two main groups on Monaro are the Ngarigo people of the tablelands and the Wogul or Wolgalu group in the high country.

White explorers Major Ovens and Captain Currie wrote that they had been assisted by some Aboriginal people to find their way south. Currie kept detailed notes: "...passed through a chain of clear downs to some very extensive ones, where we met a tribe of natives. From these natives we learned that the country before us was called Monaroo which they described as very extensive".

The Aboriginal people of the Monaro did not 'die out', as was oft stated by in references, but many did die from diseases introduced by white people. European occupation meant that Aboriginal people were forced away from their traditional lands. Many descendants of the traditional owners still live in the Snowy-Monaro.

Gippsland
Gippsland encompasses snow fields, wilderness, rainforests, beaches, industrialised areas and farm land. The area was originally inhabited by Aboriginal Australians of the Gunai nation and parts of the Bunurong nation.

Gippsland is now a large rural region in the state of Victoria. With an area of 33,300 sq km Gippsland begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border between the Great Dividing Range watershed to the north and Bass Strait to the south.

The region is best known for its primary industries such as mining, power generation and farming as well as its tourist destinations such as Phillip Island, Wilsons Promontory, the Gippsland Lakes, Walhalla, the Baw Baw Plateau, and the Strzelecki Ranges.

The climate of Gippsland is temperate and generally humid, except in the central region around Sale, where annual rainfall can be less than 600 millimetres (24 in). In the Strzelecki Ranges annual rainfall can be as high as 1500 millimetres (60 in), whilst on the high mountains of East Gippsland it probably reaches similar levels - much of it falling as snow. In lower levels east of the Snowy River , mean annual rainfall is typically about 900-950 millimetres (35-37 in) and less variable than in the coastal districts of New South Wales. Mean maximum temperatures in lower areas range from 24 °C (75 °F) in January to a pleasant 15 °C (59 °F) in July. In the highlands of the Baw Baw Plateau and the remote Errinundra Plateau, temperatures are very pleasant in summer, ranging from a maximum of 18 °C (64 °F) to a minimum of 8 °C (46 °F). However, in winter, mean minima in these areas can be as low as -4 °C (25 °F), leading to heavy snowfalls that often isolate the Errinundra Plateau between June and October.

Floods large enough to affect all of Gippsland have occurred but are more common in East Gippsland. The soils in Gippsland are generally very infertile, being deficient in nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium. Heavy fertilisation is required for agriculture or pastoral development, but with this parts of Gippsland have become highly productive dairying and vegetable-growing regions: the region supplies Melbourne with most of its needs in these commodities. A few alluvial soils (chiefly near the Snowy) have much better natural fertility, and these have always been intensively cultivated. In the extreme northeast is a small section of the Monaro Tableland used for grazing beef cattle.

Gippsland has very few deposits of metallic minerals. Gold rushes in the nineteenth century around Foster and Buchan ended quickly. However, deep underground gold mines operated at Walhalla for a fifty year period between 1863-1913. Gippsland has no deposits of major non-metallic minerals, but it does feature the world's largest brown coal deposits and, around Sale and offshore in the Bass Strait, some of the largest deposits of oil and natural gas in Australia.

Like many areas of Australia, the seas around Gippsland are of relatively low productivity as there is no upwelling due to the warm currents in the Tasman Sea. Nonetheless, towns such as Marlo and Mallacoota depended for a long time on the fishing of abalone, whose shells could fetch very high prices.