June 4: Resistance

I had a relatively brutal day today with the weather conditions. I woke up from a fantastic night's sleep to a hearty breakfast. I was tested and tempted again with another offer for a night's stay in the lovely home but somehow got myself to turn it down even in spite of the weather reports - gotta keep going, I guess! From there, I was dry for only a little while this morning as I rode through the hills into the storms ahead, headwinds full-on (does this sound really dramatic? It was pretty dramatic, I promise). I noticed around 5 miles out that I had a flat... Hmmm. It's very possible that I'd been riding that way since I woke up; I'd stopped to fix something else and it's harder to tell when something goes flat when the whole bike is already so heavy. I refilled the tube with my little hand pump and hoped it'd hold out. It did for the day so we'll see what happens overnight - I do have a spare tube and patch kit but time is of the essence!

The rain started to pick up around noon. Needing some energy, I sought out a bench under a tree that looked dry enough for me to scarf a quick bag of cold pasta. It was at the end of someone's property and they saw me a couple minutes later when I heard someone yell from a porch 150m away, "would you like a cup of coffee?" They turned out to be a couple of really nice sisters, Kaye and Tania, with a bunch of dogs. I had a cup of tea and they even brought me some toast with peanut butter, an apple, and a pear! I explained myself and my adventure, they explained their current situation (sounded like a rough couple of months for the family - I hope conversation with an outsider helped somehow). It was a nice, dry 45 minutes spent conversing on their porch. They even sent me with some food on the way out! Many thanks to more nice locals!

From there, now around 2 pm, the rain had picked up even more but I figured I had to keep going anyway as it's all part of the journey. My hopeful destination was a town called Eden, but there were a few options before then. As I'd been warned, the distance between towns was/is definitely increasing. So, with freezing rain blowing into my face, I kept my head down and pressed on with the promise (from myself to myself) that I'd find a warm bed in a hostel somewhere tonight. Downhills really sting in this weather, by the way! It's really sucking a lot of the fun out of it.

At 2:30 I rolled into Merimbula, maybe 12 miles short of Eden. I was completely drenched, so, like a good American, I found a McDonalds in which to dry off after walking around town a bit. In my defense, McD's seems to be just about the only place here with free wifi. I checked my maps, hostels, and shivered for awhile. Now 3:30, I had to make the call quickly as to whether I'd press on in the cold rain for the extra mileage or stay put for the night. I decided to do the latter in favor of my health. Other points were: I didn't feel too safe with the other cars on the road considering the conditions, it certainly wasn't going to stop raining or get any brighter out, and Eden doesn't appear to have a decent youth hostel.

So I'm in Merimbula for the night with high hopes that a Woolworth's is close (it's becoming a ritual - I definitely should've gotten a rewards card). Not a lot of mileage today, but at least I got a really long hot shower and spent minimal time in the rain. Stay back, pneumonia! I can almost see Victoria from here and I think I might actually be at the halfway point! Gotta keep rolling on... Here's to hoping my clothes dry tonight and the weather is more kind tomorrow.

Mike

Today's stats:
Total dist: 26.60 mi
Total time: 2 hours 38 mins
Avg speed: 10.08 mph
Max speed: 41.26 mph

Hospitality

I think I actually stayed in a resort last night...

I got up at 7 overlooking the sun rising on the property's hills and mountains. Kangaroos were grazing in the distance and a couple of parrots flew over my head. The family here offered me breakfast and I'm finishing up doing laundry as I prepare to head out. It was easily the best meal and best night's sleep I've had in Australia, perhaps the best I will have as well. Another GIANT thank you to my impromptu host family for taking in a stranger and treating me like part of the family. I wish you would've let me do more dishes! I've been totally spoiled and might have a difficult time sleeping in my tent and hostels for the next couple days as I readjust to "roughing it."

It's clear here but it looks like there's rain coming in from the coast about 60km South around Eden. I'll try to make it there by early afternoon for a break and we'll see what the rest of the day holds.

Mike

PS I tried Vegemite with breakfast... Very salty, very... uh... different. They say unless you've been eating it since birth, you probably won't like it.

June 3

Feeling like I was completely subject to the weather this morning, I took my time to see what it was doing. My oddball roommate managed to pull himself together and catch his bus at quarter to 8, miraculously, all the while swearing and muttering to himself. I think the last thing he said to me was "Vodka cruisers... never again." The hostel staff felt so bad about the whole thing and were thankful enough that I'd tried to hold him back a bit that they offered for me to stay another night for free. It would've been great - there was a ton of free food, a TV with a whopping 3 channels, and I probably would've had the entire bunk room to myself. I decided, however, that the weather was beginning to look manageable, so I turned them down and took off on a late start at about 10:30, packs full of leftover sandwiches and stir fry.

Riding was alright; cold again, misting, and wind in my face for the first few miles. The hills have been rough, as always, and in all of my rain gear trying to stay warm and dry in 45-degree weather, I'm like a sail on the bike. That being said, staying warm and dry was definitely a close second on difficulty of challenges today (next to biking, of course). There was constant zipping and unzipping and airing things out trying to stay warm but not sweat. It's a tougher science than it sounds, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

After 15 miles or so, I had this weird feeling like my setup was somehow unbalanced or that one of my legs was longer than the other. I stopped and readjusted the cleats in my shoes, which were not perfectly lined up, but I'm not sure that it did the trick. Maybe I just didn't stretch out enough in the morning?

I stopped outside of Barragga Bay at 2:30 for a late lunch and to watch the surf and its surfers. Although a bit cold, it was really great being on the beach. It made me want to camp on one and I'm sure it's something I'll try to pull off in the coming week or so.

The people I'd met in my hostel suggested that since people were mostly really friendly in the area, I could just knock on someone's door in hopes of putting up my sleeping bag in their garage before the rain hit. I decided to give it a try and found a nice looking house at 5PM. I knocked and was instantly let in by a woman named Penny. I am convinced that I've met the nicest and tallest family in Australia (all well over 6', I actually feel tiny here. Their cabinets are really high up). Penny and her husband Andrew lived in DC for a little while and are familiar with how strange Americans can be, I suppose. They were nothing but extremely welcoming, allowing me in on their steak dinner, providing me with a hot shower, mattress, laundry, and the use of the computer I'm typing this from right now! The dinner was probably the best I've had and will have while I'm in this country. I can't emphasize how much of a help this is/was to me, so Penny, Andrew, and Christian, if you're reading this, you've got my eternal gratitude! They're also really into the Transit of Venus, which is when, this Wednesday, Venus passes in front of the Sun for a few hours. It won't happen for another hundred-some years so you better check it out.

Oh, I saw my first kangaroos today! Well, live ones, at least... Two of 'em within about a half hour coming down these roads next to a national park. The first I just glimpsed hopping away from the highway up on a ridge while the other ran across the road a couple hundred meters ahead. Sounds like they'll probably be out grazing here in the hills.

I'm about to sleep very hard; this weather is really taking it outta me. I have no way of getting pictures up here right now (no cell phone signal), so I'll try to add them later. Notable things I took pictures of, though, are:
-A sign for the turnoff to "Mystery Bay"
-A sign signifying my parting from the Princes Highway (feels great)
-What I believe to be a yak
-Surfers/beach
-General natural beauty

Let's hope the rain holds another day, but I'm not exactly going to count on it. Tomorrow night's supposed to be a big storm, so I'll be aiming for shelter.

Mike

Stats:
Total dist: 40.63 mi
Total time: 3 hours 37 mins
Avg speed: 11.21 mph
Max speed: 46.73 mph (!)

June 2: Rained In, Rained On, Rained Out

I woke up to grey skies on my riverbank. City market vendors were setting up their stands and tents as I was about to take down my own. While I was packing up and eating breakfast inside my tent, it started raining. I waited it out and internetted, mindlessly blowing through some of my cell phone's little data allotment. I packed up my wet tent about 9 in a drizzle and made my way out right as it started pouring. Damn! I had wanted to buy a hat, a book, and maybe some vegetables at the market. Instead, I returned to my bbq site from the night before in full rain gear (my bike and I look like a canary). I charged my phone in their weird ceiling outlets and decided I'd walk through town a bit. I stopped at a book store and read some TS Eliot (a favorite), and, deciding Moruya had little else to offer, finally set out at about 10:30.

I rode along trying to keep a balance between warm and not sweating through all of my layers. The rain and cold caught up with me pretty quickly, though. It was around 45 degrees and raining all day with the wind in my face. I stopped in a church outside of Bodalla to warm up and I changed all of my upper layers, socks, and put on another pair of shorts. I stayed there for about an hour and a half feeling like I was on the brink of pneumonia. At some point, I moved around enough and figured I best try to make it somewhere warm for the night, so I took off towards a youth hostel in Narooma, a mere 12 miles away.

Riding on double butt pads (from the two pairs of pants) I went slowly down the princes highway. Oh yeah, and THE HILLS. THE HILLS ARE BACK. They were the worst I'd seen since coming out of Sydney the first couple days.

Around 3 pm I had an uplifting moment - I ran into the first other bike tourist I've seen! Grant (aroundthepaddock-grant.Blogspot.com) is 52, has done several tours in Australia, and was on his 49th day of making it all the way around the continent. We exchanged blog links and info on the terrain, weather, and accommodations ahead, took a couple pictures, and parted ways. Aside from how much we both complained to each other about the hills, it was very inspiring and makes my journey seem easy, hah!

I got to my hostel about 4:30 and had a really, REALLY interesting night. I was put in a 6-bed bunk room with one other guy, Brendan, a drunk "revolutionary" probably in his late 20s. He began by trying to get me into some sort of pseudo-deep political/conspiratorial/existential debate with him, which ultimately disappointed him greatly because he wasn't getting the answers he wanted out of me and I was being a smart ass for a lot of the time just to try to deal with it on my end. After about an hour, he gave up, we dropped it and went to the grocery store. He felt bad about it all, so he offered that we cook the rest of his food together (he was set to leave in the morning) and he bought us a bunch of crappy drinks (Australian equivalents of flavored Smirnoff ice, ish). I cooked our dinner - beef stir fry over spaghetti. Right as we started eating, he found some people in the common room who'd been at some conference and had a ton of leftover food, so he suggested that I bag mine up for my pack and check it out. We did and they turned out to be somewhat nice 30-somethings, two girls and a guy from Sydney. We ate and drank together, I did my best to hold conversation while they mostly played with their iPhones (why do people do that?). The guy warned me that there's a storm front coming through and I won't be riding for the next 3 days... We'll see. Maybe he was just a pessimist and I can at least get a few miles in each day. I finished drinking their beer when I had to stop my roommate from declaring war on every other room in the hostel/motel. He was getting into trouble so I put him to bed. We were supposed to watch a movie, which I was looking forward to, but it was definitely best that he had passed out by the time I got out of the shower. If nothing else, I got a pretty entertaining night, some free drinks and food, and good stories out of meeting him.

I'm a little disappointed in the distance but I guess I'm adjusting to the weather. It looks like it won't get any better until Tuesday. I'm just going to layer up and try to stay warm and dry. It's getting cooler as I go further South - probably won't get back to 60 degrees for at least a few days when this storm front moves through. From Grant's assessment, it sounds like it won't flatten out much from here either (he'd said this stretch was his hardest yet for multiple reasons). I think I've got a rough few days ahead of me. Wish me luck in the cold, headwinds, rain, and hills!

Mike

Today's stats:
Total dist: 27.59 mi
Total time: 2 hours 30 mins
Avg speed: 11.05 mph
Max speed: 34.02 mph

Mornin'

This morning, there's a pelican across from my tent door and people are setting up for a market down the road. Cool stuff. Time to ditch town.

More Moruya Weirdness

-Their swimming pool is a war memorial... Or their war memorial is a swimming pool?

-There's a gaggle of drunk dudes fishing off of the highway bridge and I think they actually just caught something.

-Something is flopping around incessantly in the water next to where I'm about to put up my tent. In a perfect world (and appropriately weird) it's a platypus, but I'll settle for anything that isn't a venomous snake.

June 1: Heavy Machinery

I spent a little too much time on the princes highway today. Morning was good - I left at 9:45 and had put in 33 miles from ulladulla to Bateman's bay by lunchtime. I had my headphones in, was in the zone keeping pace very well despite hilly scenery. Blended in fine with the princes and their highway. It was a lot like yesterday's ride - not much to see, moderate hills, etc.

I got to Skype my parents on my lunch break courtesy of a local motel's unsecured wireless network - great to hear familiar voices! I had a sausage sandwich and hit the road again about 2-2:30, legs a little stiff from the extended break. Coming out of the bay was not nearly as productive or enjoyable as going in. Instead of music (to conserve phone battery), I listened to the roars of cars and trucks whipping past my right elbow. It seemed to be mostly uphill and the construction zones were more frequent. After two consecutive days of riding highways exclusively, I really began to notice the difference in air quality. The fumes from exhaust and construction were getting to me. I pulled off for a break and talked to a woman who'd also stopped; she recommended an alternate route into the next two towns, which I took to Moruya. Great timing! The ride in was pleasant coming along a river through farmland.

Moruya itself is nothing special - a couple of bars, motels, and a Woolworth's (my favorite grocery store). I spent some time getting groceries and scoping out a place to camp. With two sides of the whole river, no camp grounds are necessary. I verified this with the police station, who said I wouldn't be messed with and pointed me to a good spot. So... Free camping! Tonight is easily my most hobo-esque night so far - I cooked some beef and peppers on one of the public bbqs, for which all Australians seem to have some sort of fetish (seriously, I passed at least 4 bbq sites in the 3 miles coming in). Cooked and ate the whole dinner with just my buck knife and I'm about to treat myself to a large brown-bagged beer in my tent as soon as I pick my spot and get set up. It's like I'm LIVING... in a VAN... down by the RIVER!

(but without the van)

Mike

Today's stats:
Total dist: 54.90 mi
Total time: 4 hours 33 mins
Avg speed: 12.06 mph