It's different in Sydney unfortunately. Sydney is not a cycle friendly city. It's fine for people (mostly men in the thirties and forties) who don't mind hills and don't care to be run over by non-bike-friendly car owners. But the average child (and parent!) does mind. As a result, a large number of SUV's block the streets around the school every morning and afternoon and our children get more and more lazy.
To promote a healthy lifestyle and to get kids out of the car, the Pedestrian Council of Australia has introduced a special 'walk safely to school day'. According to the website:
"Around a third of the car trips made in Sydney are less than 3 km and more than half are less than 5 km. Some of these can easily be done on foot given walking one kilometre at a comfortable pace takes 15 minutes!"We fall in the less than 3km category with two steep hills. We live quite near to the school and with the kids it takes me about 20 minutes to get there. Without the kids who stop every two seconds to look at something, it takes me about 10 minutes. No more excuses to use the car in the morning. Let's keep those feet moving!
