Day 4 – A proper day’s cycling

How 09:30 should always look

Long distance cycling is a weird beast. One minute it can make you feel better than almost anything, then an hour later you are swearing you arse off in a sweaty mess. Almost never are you just in the middle. And while all this is going on, people are whizzing by getting on with their airconed life, no idea or interest which end of the scale you’re at. At lunch, in towns, in service stations you realise how normal everything is around you, while you're mood wildly fluctuates in the open. Today was a proper day’s cycling.

If you want to boost tourist numbers build a 25ft

concrete sheep on a roundabout. Solid work Goulburn

Up at 05:15 for some odd reason didn’t get on the road till 06:45, but it was straight into a great morning’s cycling. Cool and overcast, I was rapidly out into real big country. The horizons are wider and the sky has opened right up above. Whilst still stuck on the Hume Highway shuffling up the hard shoulder, it was a great few hours riding. Long constant climbs you can truck up, to be rewarded with lengthy free wheels the other side. Bar the lorries and the curbside debris this is my ideal cycling. I even got to see my first live Kangaroo (as opposed to decomposed road kill) right up by the roadside, which was cool.

Balls (1)

Just as I started to feel smug that I had made up time on my late morning start, my bubble was promptly burst. On the left is the picture of my first open air mechanic session. Compliments of tiny strip of truck tyre my back wheel collapse and it was a tedious, hot 15 mins before I was back on the road.

After a quick lunch in the thriving small town of Yass I pushed on with my original plan to make up another 10 miles odd to a village called Bowning and relax there for the heat of the day, even though it was already 12:45, and roasting hot. As it turns out, very glad I did.

Draino's Kingdom

The charmingly named Rollonin café in Bowning turned out to be closed Monday to Wednesday (which seems a rather strange business model for a road side café, but there we go). Instead I had to make do with an underused bus shelter for 2 hours of reading out of the midday sun. Underused for it’s primary function to be clear. The rather unfortunately nicknamed Draino had declared he “ruled” the shelter, which seemed a rather modest kingdom. He had however also proudly and graphicly summarised his efforts to repopulate the village with various partners in this very same location. Can only assume the one house that looks straight into the bus shelter is Chez Draino.

Stud

If you are not down here, can’t emphasise how key these hours out the midday sun are. From about 12:30 to 15:30 it is brutal, and the only solution seems to be start early break the day up for a snooze in the shade and crack on later. The Spanish have got this kind of thing nailed. Only way I crudely can highlight how hot it is I calculate I drank roughly 5 litres of water, a big coke and a some vile cherry energy drink bottle, while riding today, and only needed to pee once from 06:00 to 19:30.

The open sign was a decoy

Having woken up to my alarm at 15:20 I was back on the road taking it easy up the final Hume Highway hills. For some reason I’d got it into my head that the ride from the Hume to Harden where I’m stopped for the night would be slightly dull flat plain riding. I was wrong.

The countryside round here is easily the most beautiful to date. Big rolling sheep and cattle grazing farms with their tin rooves and verandas glimpsed through the Eucalyptus trees and wheat fields. It’s really quite special. Classic Australia. Unfortunately there are no photos, the big rolling hills meant constant ups and downs, and a rapidly darkening mood from me. With my first 95 mile cycle in years sapping energy from my legs, I was forced to walk up sharp hill after sharp hill, in the heavily fly laden late afternoon. It was gritty stuff, and all the more so because the surroundings were so beautiful.

Balls (2)

Then it got worse. Again feeling home free 6 odd miles from the motel, I promptly got an identical puncture to the morning. A kind bloke pulled over to check I was alright, and promptly pointed out there may be tiger snakes in the grass and spiders crawling into my bags, as I changed the tyre. He was a good lad, and initially I assumed a local with good know how, till we got talking properly. He let on he was from Sydney. Not being glib but fairly sure some of his chat was pure suburban fantasy.

But here’s the thing. At that point I was pretty close to calling it all off, then you get over the brow of the hill on your new wheel and you free wheel 5 miles down into the town for the night, with the sun setting over the wheat fields, train line tracking the road, which is mostly tree lined avenues laid out by some long dead city father. There it is, back in love with long distance cycling. The highs and lows, and basically just buggering on are what makes it all. Hindsight is very deceptive.

Miles: 96 – Goulburn, Yass, Bowning, Harden

A great mirror view (+ hand)

Breakfast – Hotel, shop bought - A slightly surreal mix of pasta salad, chicken and bananas, washed down with energy drink. Was grim, and not sure what pocessed me in Coles yesterday.

Lunch – Subway Yass – Teryaki chicken sandwich and coke – The other options in Yass looked greasy as arse, and I just wanted something that I understood. I like the American way, sue me.

Good way to end the day

Snack – Cliff bar – Oh so yuppy

Dinner – T-bone with chips and steamed veg – Easiest thing for the motel owner to knock up. It was overdone but good quality meat. I was hungry.