Day 3 - Day 7: Beautiful Country, Harsh Reality

Day 3 (11/6): Adelaide to Balaklava; 97 km; avg spd 18 kph; caravan park

Day 4 (11/7): Balaklava to Clare; 53 km; 16 kph; Western Motel

Day 5 (11/8): Clare to Wirrabarra; 110 km; 20 kph; The Chester's Guest Cottage

Day 6 (11/9): Wirrabarra to Port Augusta; 90 km; 19 kph; Poinsetta Motel

Day 7 (11/10): Port Augusta Layover Day; Pointsetta Motel

Ok, I promise this is the last photo of me, my bike, and all my ..... Immediately after having a passerby take this photo I hit the road for good from Adelaide Central YHA only to find out that all the weight on my bike made my front wheel unstable (VERY wobbly). Went straight to a bike shop and with help of mechanic dicovered that handlebar bag was culprit (weight on bike stem caused instability). It reduced my carrying capacity to remove that bag and put it in a pannier but after doing so I was back on road within an hour.

First four days riding have been tough. Between my bike being very heavy, duhh!, and having generally strong cross or head winds every day, the riding has been physically exhausting. Realizing that my ambition to ride 150 km/day in order to complete my hoped for route was/is impractical (crazy!) has been psychologically (sp?) difficult. Being alone and missing Nola pretty badly has been emotionally draining. Boy, this post is shaping up to be downright cheerfull, eh?

Ok, all that said, as I told folks before I left, I'm not here to torture myself or take undue risks so adjustments definately seem in order. The idea is to enjoy myself as I am supposed to be on holiday! So, I'm holed up for an extra day or two here in Port Augusta figuring out how to adjust my plans and expectations. And since I'll likely be back here tomorrow to post again (at the library which has free Internet), Ill hold off on any details--good thing cause I don't know them myself yet. Anyway, here's some more traditional blog content (and some photos) on the ride so far.

As I remembered from 1992, this is beautiful countryside. It is pretty much a mix of mostly flat golden wheatfields and rolling hills filled with vineyards and gum tree forests. Spotted along every 20-30 km are towns of anywhere from 200 to 2000 population. They all have a pub (called hotels here), general store/milk bar (take-out food counter), and caravan park (camp ground). Bigger towns have progressively more stores and services (e.g., libraries, public pools, bowling greens, motels, etc.). All have phone booths (yay!) and lots of trash cans (there is essentially no litter here). Roads generally have very good pavement but are not overly wide. And though traffic is mostly light and courteous, they do drive fast! People are exceptionally friendly.

Two more things worth mentioning. First, the birds. Sometimes I feel like I am here just to scare the birds, which are exceedingly noisy and virtually everywhere. As I ride down the road, they flee the trees and bushes screaming, squawking, howling, etc. There are crows, magpie-like birds, gallahs (parrot like), lorikeets, mackaws, cookaburrahs, and lots of LBBs (little brown birds). If it were not hillarious it would be irritating.

Second great occurrence. Saturday night I stopped in store in Wirrabbara to book camp site at caravan park. Weather was fien but I had riden 110 km and was pretty tired (probably showed). Upon hearing I was alone on a push bike (as they say), gentleman there (Paul of Paul and Mary Chesters) basically insisted I come to their home instead and stay in their guest cottage (see photo below). They fed and housed me and we talked for hours that evening. Slept for 10 hours that night. What a wonderful experience!