Well, I guess that's it... Melbourne... Back to the real world...
-o- Melbourne from the south side of the Yarra River
I arrived into Melbourne on Saturday 30th August, and home to the eastern suburbs on the Sunday 31st, after delaying my arrival with a few days in numerous places along the south coast of mainland Aus. (I needed to delay my arrival until the tenant would be out of my house. I gave notice when I got to Darwin, but I guess I should have done it from East Timor or Indonesia.)
It's quite a long time since I've had cold & wet every day, but SA & Vic in winter reminded me what it was like. (Of course my arrival into winter happens to coincide with the best snowfalls for many years. Great for the ski resorts and skiers - not quite so ideal for cyclists.)
What lies ahead now is painting the house (before I empty all the furniture out of the self storage unit into it), job hunting, moving in, organising the house the framing of many paintings and other artworks/craftworks I purchased along the route and mailed home. I shudder to think of how long it'll take to finish organising the thousands of photos I've taken - and wonder if I ever will?
Yesterday I spent much of the day on the phone at my parents house arranging power, gas, phone and other services for the house, and such mundane but real life things like as Ambulance membership, Curriculum Vitae, and beginning to get together the items I need to fix up the house. My heart sank when I saw that several water leaks in the roof would mean that I couldn't paint as I'd planned. I've decided though that I'll paint anyway and the water affected places will get patched up after the leaks are fixed and the weather has warmed enough to dry out the plaster sufficiently.
After only one day of no riding. This morning it hit me & I felt I needed to get up early for a ride. I've delayed it now to write this, as the water once again falls from the sky outside.
The trip from Adelaide to Melbourne:
When I left Adelaide, I knew I had to take my time or I'd be home too early to get into the house so I decided to head to Kangaroo Island and fill in a week travelling to and sightseeing around the Island. I headed out to the Adelaide beach side suburb of Glenelg then followed the coast toward Kangaroo Island (K.I.) and home. The weather - as I eluded to above - has not been ideal cycling weather and as I got closer to Cape Jervis and the K.I. ferry I learnt more about what it was going to cost me to go to K.I. From what I'd read "free camping" on K.I. would not be so easy so combined with the expensive ferry, I decided to forgo K.I. and go there some other time when the money wouldn't be wasted on a trip in such lousy weather. It meant that I'd need to fill in time elsewhere but my plans of a grand entrance to Melbourne had slowly been fading anyway. With a tenant still in the house, a weekend arrival with an open house / welcome home / house warming wasn't going to be possible unless I delayed even longer. For extending the trip Mum came to the rescue with contacts and accommodation available in both Warrnambool and Apollo Bay, I also arranged some warm & dry accommodation in other places through the touring cyclist hosting website warmshowers.org
-o- Strathalbyn A very pretty little town centre.
-o- Bike chasing cows, they followed me, running as a bunch the entire length of their paddock.
After passing by Cape Jervis I endured more horrid South Australian wind as I crossed from the Fleurieu Peninsula around Lake Alexandrina and down the coast toward Mount Gambier. One morning in Kingston S.E. (after riding from 1:00AM to 3:00PM the previous day in order to avoid the wind) I awoke to a tent shaking violently, and giving the impression that a cyclone was in full swing outside. I lay there in bed and conceded that I wouldn't be going anywhere today. Robe was only 40km down the road but with a head wind this strong 40km was probably all I'd be able to ride in a full day. After taking some photos & a video clip inside the tent with it violently reacting to the wind I decided to get up and just have a look outside (after which I would crawl back into bed). When I stuck my head outside, I was shocked to find that the wind had swung right around and was blowing with this incredible intensity from the North West. With Robe 40km down a bendy road to the SouSouWest and Mt Gambier 160 km down a straight Princes Hwy due South East, the temptation to leave the coast to get a gale force tail wind for a day was just too great. With the wind immediately behind me as I sailed down the Princes Highway, I made the 108km to Millicent in record time. Millicent to Mt Gambier wasn't quite so good as the road was well protected by Pine plantations and the rain really set-in for the first time.
-o- It felt like a cyclone was in full swing
-o- "The Old Jail" (H.M. Backpackers prison Mt Gambier )
As always seems to happen when you are on a bike, the day I stayed in Mt Gambier the wind would have been behind me if I had continued on toward Victoria instead of taking the day to look around town. I left the following day into not only a strong head wind, but also head on rain and hail as I headed to the Victorian Border and toward Portland.
As I mentioned above I filled in a bit of time staying in Warrnambool for two nights then after one more camp near Princetown had four more comfy nights in Apollo Bay. The trip from Princetown to Apollo Bay was a bit more hilly than I'd expected. I haven't been there for a long time and I was expecting hills near Cape Otway, but didn't expect to start climbing real hills so many km's before Lavers Hill (I guess that's why they called it Lavers Hill ) I ran into more touring cyclists on this leg, one from Austria who said he was a bit surprised that Australia actually had hills and wasn't all flat. The other cyclist a Kiwi from Nelson approached as I was watching a koala moving between trees. Good timing meant that the Koala was on the ground changing trees as I rode past - you never tend to see them if they are just sitting up in the canopy eating. Apollo Bay was a good introduction to normal life again. Cooking with more than just one billy, cooking a more varied diet, listening to radio, watching some TV, even mowing lawns - then of course cleaning before I left. The only cleaning my tent would get was the daily sweep out with the bare hand each morning as I prepared to roll it up.
Once I got a little north of Lorne I was in familiar territory, riding roads that I've seen many times in my life. Now it just seemed like I was riding, Lorne to Torquay, Geelong and up the Geelong Rd to Melbourne. It certainly didn't feel like the same trip as Paris, Brussels & Prague, or riding through Eastern Turkey to cross the border into Iran or Trekking in Nepal all those months ago. The highlight of the day was on the Geelong Road when the Cycle computer clicked over to 30,000km.
-o- The Great Ocean Road view
-o- The 12 Apostles the bike & I
-o- 30,000km and smiling (The Geelong Rd)
-o- Cute but the toy shop ones are cuddlier (Koala near Apollo Bay)
Once in Melbourne I made my way to Burnley where I camped beside the river. It somehow seemed fitting that the last night before I got home should be a bush camp somewhere in the middle of an inner suburban area of my home town. For all the Melbournians reading this, the camp was in Loy's paddock. That's the bit of bush between the inbound Burnley on-ramp (tunnel approach) and the river. It's not quite as deserted as it once was, with the cycle path going through at a high level above the river, but there's a lovely bushy bit down the hill to the river flats. And that bushy bit has some ideal small tent sites in it. Next time you are on the cycle track check it out.
-o- Melbourne
I wanted early morning shots of the bike and the city but I didn't get the lovely Blue Sky morning that I wanted. I headed back along the river for the photos anyway before passing through the city and heading east on the Yarra main trail, Koonung Creek & Mullum Mullum Creek bike paths. I remember a time not too long ago when I thought riding from Ringwood to central Melbourne was a long way, but today it felt like nothing. I had so much time to do it that I used the time to drop in on various friends that lived close to the bike path. With the opening of a new section of bike path alongside the new Eastlink Tollway it's now possible to ride from the city to within about 1km of my home (about 40km - via the path) without needing to ride on or even cross a road. (actually there is one - but only one - crossing, Bulleen Rd). With all the stops along the way I used the whole day to do that short distance and didn't actually get to the house until it was dark. I couldn't stay in the house that night as although the tenant drove the truck out of the driveway while I was there looking at it, the tenancy wasn't going to be officially over until the next day.
Now the house is empty, I've fixed one leak in the roof, I still have a couple to go before I start slapping on the paint that I bought today. I passed by the self storage unit today and confirmed to myself that there is no way I'll be getting things out of boxes until the house is ready for all the furniture. My best friend David and I packed the self storage in the same way that we used to pack audio gear into the back of our "JDE Audio" truck. There is very little "air" in my storage space. We were always good at high density packing and that's just what we did in the self store.
I'm now back in the real world, house repairs, gardening, bills, job hunting and eventually I'm hoping to get around to sorting out souvenirs and photos from the trip.
Jeff
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