Retransition

Day 30: Port Pirie to Adelaide; 220 km (car); Adelaide to Strathalbyn; 61 km; 17 kph (bike)


Time to turn in my trusty, if somewhat decrepid Hyundai Getz. It got me about 8,000 km around the "big loop" of Australia despite having two bald front tires, a slow leak in a rear tire, two "star" cracks in windshield, and a dented rear bumper (all done BEFORE I got car). It served me well, but I am glad to back on my bicycle.


Speaking of which, what a surprise, back on the bike and riding into a headwind. That's actually ok as I didn't have too far to go today and the forecast is for better wind conditions in days to come. I'll take a headwind on a 60 km day and a tailwind on a 140 km day anytime!

The ride out of Adelaide was actually quite stunning; to exit town to the south as I did, one must immediately climb into the Adelaide Hills and they are pretty high, more than 1,000' vertically! What went up (me) on a great bike path alongside a very busy freeway eventually got to come back down on quieter country roads, eventually into the eclectic little town of Strathalbyn. This town has a pretty podunk caravan park where they have on-site vans and campers parked on beautiful bent grass lawns and they send tent campers to the worst grass in the place along the back fence. Granted it was fairly quiet once the ever-present birds went to sleep and overall worked out fine.

Town itself is truly lovely with a great lake/stream park right "downtown". I ate my picnic dinner at table shown below amongst about 300 screaming cockatoos (not shown). Also not shown is the historic restored Victoria Hotel/Motel and--get this--a 50-meter public swimming pool. It was too late for me to try to swim when I saw it, but 50-meter pools are quite rare even in good-sized cities and I always try to use them when I can. This was one place it's too bad the Timberline trip didn't get to ride through. It was slated to be the last stop on the second tour and would have been perfect, a real treat to close out the trip.

Wow, as I type this I realize I am all caught up on blog posts. Thank goodness for the library in Menengie, South Australia where I've been sitting at a free terminal for more than two hours. Couple of other things on my Internet "to check" list so I'll close. Although I am not answering everyone individually, thanks for the comments and emails. I'll do better catching up when I get back to the states. I'll be doing some pretty high mileage rides in the upcoming days so will probably fall behind on posts, etc. again.