Over dinner, Pete's nose began to bleed again. Its bled a few times now but
this one was rather more profuse. However, Shirley was a nurse so she tended to him, and she has said that if it happens again, he must stop and lie down till it finishes. John and I hope it is nothing more sinister.
This morning was twice as warm as yesterday - 2 'C! - so another cold start. We left Narrandera at 7.15 on a cloudy morning and the road turned SE toward Wagga Wagga. The road continued to cross ever-more attractively fertile, rolling hills and woods with sheep and cattle pastures, masses of wildlife and hardly any road traffic. We tried to enjoy that aspect as the road from now on will be a huge highway or motorway. The winds were light but adverse so Pete and I trundled along, chatting away and keeping going at a steady pace. I had a second puncture which we repaired on the road with the van in attendance, as John had caught us up. Because of this delay, we only had one stop before reaching Wagga Wagga.
We then had the luxury of a proper coffee house which John found for us, with Italian coffee and cakes - just what we'd been missing and dreaming about!
Afterwards, Pete and I simply biked as far as we could. The road started to rise and fall rather seriously and made us work hard. Our target was to reach the Hume Highway junction and we managed to do this just before it got dark.
Pete was again mobbed by a magpie! We are convinced it is because of his black and white helmet, as they don't bother with me. No blood drawn this time though! We also saw an aircraft spraying a field. I'd never seen this and was impressed with the pilot's flying skills as he came over very low and turned on a sixpence to make his return run. The downside was that the insecticide he was spraying was caught by the wind and covered our road. We had a couple of unpleasant moments trying to get away from it. John collected us near the Hume junction and drove us down to Elaine's house. It was a surprising pleasure, being driven.
My rear end has recovered really well now. The saddle discomfort now is nothing more than you'd expect after several hours in the saddle each day. However, Pete has seemed a little below par over the last couple of days. I'm not sure whether this is general fatigue, his nose-bleeding or something else. We'll have to see if this amounts to anything in the next couple of days. After all, we each have felt strong on different occasions and I know Pete's made plenty of allowances for me in the past.
Day 30 (4 Sept)
Hume Highway junction - Bookham.
66 miles at 11.7 mph
2,262 accumulated miles.
Today was hard work!
Both Pete and I gave up short of our target. We've biked over 100 kms/66miles over the Great Dividing Range of hills, along the Hume Highway. The highway is essentially a motorway with a wide hard shoulder which can be used for cycling. It is actually highly practical and the surface and space generally good. However the road noise is incessant and very loud especially as most of the road surface is concrete. It becomes very invasive after only a short time.
The road is built for cars and speed, of course, so the route is straight up and down hills with little regard for the contours of the landscape. I hate the idea of our biking all the way to Sydney along this road.
We had a super breakfast of "home" eggs and salmon coupled to the marvellous coffee made from Elaine's Saeco coffee machine. We also had a look around the farm and Elaine is tagging her lambs this morning. We had a photo shoot and left the farm at 8.00 and were returned to the Hume Highway junction by 9.00. The day was cool and cloudy and the wind was mostly kindly.
The road started upwards straightaway. Pete and I seemed pretty strong and we attacked the hills well enough, stopping at "The Dog on the Tucker Box" service station and off the Highway in Jugiong. However, we ran out of puff as we reached Bookham and called John up to collect us and run us into our night stop at Yass.
This evening we met John's sister Marg and her husband Max for supper. They were good fun and John was clearly pleased to meet up with his elder sister again. The meal was dire though with enormous helpings covered with thick sauces. We were back and in bed by 10, all us three boys in the same room for the first time. Whoever gets to sleep first will undoubtedly have the advantage, as we all snore!!
Day 31 (5 Sept)
Bookham - Goulbarn.
74 miles at 11 mph average in 6:50
2,336 accumulated miles.
And so we're right back on schedule. Who'd have thought we'd do that?! I for one did not believe we would regain our lost ground. In fact, I've always thought the schedule tough and a tall order, and have expected us to arrive in Sydney 3-4 days later than planned, especially as we've had various diversions along the way, like Eudunda and Kapunda. Yet here we are, preparing to be there in 3 days - a marvellous feeling.
This campsite is more attractive than usual as the owner has provided us with free accommodation for Good Beginnings (A$120-worth). It also has an enormous, outdoor model railway that is working all the time. Pete's grand-children would love it. Speaking of Pete, he's just had magpie attack no. 5! This time we were able to watch the bird's manoeuvre as it came at Pete out of the sun and so caste a shadow on the road. The bird had 3 goes at Pete even though he speeded up! He's now suggested we exchange helmets!
John dropped us back at Bookham this morning, which was bright and sunny but there had been a frost overnight. So we started very steadily, remembering how we ran out of steam yesterday and we had several passes to cross. The first few hours went by very slowly as we crossed Conway Pass (650 metres/ 1,950 feet) and another nearly as high.
Hume Highway is the most trying aspect of it all. It does have a good hard shoulder which we use all the time, but this is often cut up, full of broken glass or other rubbish from the traffic, and then there's the noise! So when we met John, who now has a head cold, the second time, he'd found us a super little cafe off the highway and on the old road. It was quiet, had good food and coffee, a nice garden and good service and was a great relief!
Pete and I decided to use the old road and are we glad we did. It was so much more interesting, practically without traffic, and it seemed like we'd stepped back into the '60's. The old road was well constructed, with a good surface and camber. It wound round the hills, following the railway line, up to our highest point on the road - 734 metres/ 2,202 feet). We passed glorious countryside of hills, farmlands of lush green, and frogs croaking in every patch of water.
We rejoined the Hume Highway for the last 25 kms and were immediately reminded why we'd avoided it! Still we made Goulbarn on schedule. We've had it confirmed that John's lap top has a virus, so it's not only John with a head cold! Still we supper'ed at one his old haunts, called the Parrogon Restaurant. It was very nice and easy.
Day 32 (6 Sept)
Goulbarn - Picton.
80miles at 12.3 mph in 6.30
2,416 accumulated miles.
It's 8.30 pm and dark and Pete's just rushed into the ladies by mistake! Fortunately no one else was about to see him. We're just back from an Italian restaurant where the Sardinian owner was talking about the Italian legends of cycling Fausto Coppi and Eugene Bartali, so we were well looked after. We actually had the whole restaurant to ourselves and are feeling good on the penultimate day. We are feeling a little smug with our day's cycling, and the fact that tomorrow will be our last, and we'll be finishing our journey. It's still hard to grasp though.
Pete and I have certainly changed our approach to our cycling over the last few days, really since our target, Sydney, has come within our grasp. We are both certain we can and will make it, and that we can make it without having to expend our last drop of energy, so we are enjoying our biking that much more and actually taking a little longer than we would have done earlier. We are starting to contemplate finishing now and are savouring our cycling more at the time.
Whereas Sydney was too far away to contemplate beforehand, now it's right in front of us. Previously, we wanted to prove we could rise to the physical challenge of completing our journey. Now we are pretty confident of doing so, and so are taking longer routes and enjoying the here and now under less pressure than before.
We left Goulbarn at 7.30 in heavy mist and pedalled 24 kms along the dreaded Hume Highway to the first service station where we met John for a breakfast stop. The traffic was much slower because of the mist and this made it easier. Nevertheless we were delighted to leave the highway and swing south along the old main road, now a tourist route. The change was awesome and re-kindled my admiration for the Australian countryside. The roadways were like it must have been 30 years ago, next to no traffic, heavily treed and shaded, farmland, trees, raucous birds and frogs and pleasantly warm sunshine. Pete and I trundled along at a very relaxed pace, as the road twisted and turned and followed the railway line.
Hills, that would have been fairly tough 2-3 weeks ago, Pete and I rolled over without fuss, enjoying the different vistas and our own feel-good factor.
To add to this we found at Burradoon, after 30 kms., a fabulous bikers' cafe that served excellent coffee and cakes, as well as displaying their cycle-racing heritage. We rang John who turned around in the van and quickly joined us, seated on the pavement in the sun, watching the world go around. Life could scarcely have been better!
I could have dawdled there all day but we had to press on again, this time along similar roads but getting more and more suburbanised. We met John at Moss Vale for lunch at the local Eco Cafe and there agreed to bike on to Picton where John had booked us into the George 4th. hotel. We had a pretty unpleasantly busy climb out of the town onto the Hume Highway, but only for a kilometre before we turned off again to follow the old main road. This followed the railway track as it dropped steadily off the Dividing Range and allowed us to swing along at a very pleasant rate to Picton.
The hotel was probably pretty classy in its day. Now it's a bit of a dive and used especially by motor-cyclists and back packers. So it is basic but we are all past caring as Sydney beckons!
Day 32 (6 Sept)
Goulbarn - Sydney.
57 miles in 5:31 at 10.8mph.
2,473 accumulated miles.
We're here. We've made it! Unbelievable!
Pete and I rolled down the hill onto Bondi Beach at 3:15. Bondi was busy with young and active bodies, running, surfing, swimming and just strolling. The sun was out and the sand was white - a real jewel amongst all the real estate around and about.
We celebrated with a couple of decent latte coffees till John collected us.
I'm glad this was the last day's cycling. Had it been earlier, or more continuous, it would have been frightful. As it was it varied from just awful to downright horrendous. We knew that the run into and through Sydney would be dfficult, and it certainly was!
Biking out of Picton at 7.30, after a quick and unpleasant breakfast bite in a Subway cafe, we immediately were faced with the 6 km climb up the Razorback hill and it lived up to its name. The climb was an interesting challenge and we made it in pretty fair condition. The unpleasant part of it was the traffic, and this only got worse during the day. We hadn't realised how lucky we'd been yesterday.
We dropped down the other side of the Razorback Hill, enjoying the swoop down into Camden where we met John for a decent cup of coffee and banana pancakes. Suddenly, we are among the designer-conscious and status-aware in clothes, cars and coffees! Our intention had been to take the Hume Highway as far as we could through the suburbs, and so avoid the inevitable traffic lights, junctions and delays of towns. Unfortunately, John found out we could not join the Highway where we wanted to, because of road works. Instead we had to continue further through the suburbs. This was where the traffic horrors really began.
We were biking at peak traffic time, the road was narrow and poorly maintained, with serious road works in many places along with increasingly short-tempered drivers. By way a little diversion, Pete was AGAIN attacked by magpies! No harm was done but it was a little disconcerting for Pete!
The irony was that now we were positively looking forward to rejoining the Hume Highway. It couln't come soon enough for us! Finally we made it back and were whisked along merrily by the speed and density of traffic at 17-18 mph without fuss or bother and we left it with some disappointment, when it disappeared down a tunnel barred to cyclists.
So we found ourselves back on little suburban roads where we met with John in the van for the last stop, though we didn't know it at the time. There John showed us the route he'd planned out, including a stop in the van, about an hour on. The route was complicated, along bike paths, river and parkways, backroads as well as main streets, around parks and university campus's and so on. We managed most of it, though cut out the bit at which John was parkedwaiting for us!
Pete was extraordinary as team mate and friend. We had to manoeuvre dozens of traffic lights, and at each one he had to position himself just right, so I could lean on him and not have to take my feet out of my pedals. This meant that when the lights were green, he could launch me onwards and then have re-start from zero himself, each time. And he never missed a beat and never complained once! Sydney was even busier than I'd imagined it would be. It's a "low density, more spread" city than most so we had 12 miles of this stop-start cycling to do.
We finished our bike ride by swooping down to Bondi Beach, stopping and shaking hands. We had talked about this point many times and largely come to terms with it well before it actually happening. It was more a conclusion of job well done, and a release of pressure and concern so our families no longer need to worry about us! No doubt the real pleasure and realisation of all we've done will sink in gradually over time. It'll take a little time to digest!
I rang John and Sue to tell them we'd finished and to share the joy.
This was compounded by meeting Barbara again at her home, 78 Cavendish Street, and all of us going out to celebrate at a nearby Italian restaurant.
Now to enjoy a lazy time unwinding - another novelty! |
