Arrived Adelaide 8^th Jan 10, a couple of days ahead of schedule.

Two weeks of watching the dawn, two breakfasts, two lunches, reading the papers completely, endless strong coffee, morning excercise, afternoon nap, the empty sleep of the physically weary. Beauty and meditation. Growing stronger every day. What sort of life is that?

For those that made it possible:

A Very Very Big Thankyou!

Cycle touring tips:

8^th Jan 10; 6:10am(start)/9:55am(finish)
12:30pm(start)/2:30pm(finish)
108.2 km (dist); 5h 3m (saddle);
21.4 kph (av); 56.3 kph (max);
998 m (climb); 940 m (descent);
1071.3 km (tot)

“The sky was big and empty
My chest filled to explode
I yelled my insides out at the sun
At the wide open road
it’s a wide open road, it’s a wide open road….” -triffids

No getting round that this was going to be a hot day. We powered along early making good progress. We are in part of the Fleurieu region now, lots of vineyards. Here the Big Sky and a vineyard are seen to sucked the life out of a tree:

Arrive at Langhorne Creek (2nd Breakfast) where our luck at finding good coffee runs out.

Further on we pass an almond farm. Very sophisticated anti-bird defences. Set off electronic sensors as we passed. Three different tones/noises (no AC/DC). It stopped us dead in our tracks as we search for whose mobile phone is ringing. Then loud bangs started going off and we quickly move on. James (who has local knowledge) says the farmers employ 12 year olds with shot guns.

Then more Big Sky:

And we are going up; a slow, gradual, continous, long, unrelenting up. Hammerring for an hour we are suddenly at Mt Barker, where we have booked part of the local oval as the caravan park overflow (I guess from TDU).

Its hard to finish the day before 10am when Adelaide is only 40 km away. So after (1st) lunch, James,Wendy & I press on to Adelaide, Scott/Dianne continue tomorrow.

At first all is good following the Mt Barker road, until at Stirling the road dumps you in a (bike forbidden) expressway. Luckily at that very point there is a newsagent where, if you ask, a man will provide you with a detailed hand-drawn map of the complicated directions to connect with the Crafers bikeway.

Briefly, at the roundabout just before the freeway entrance, take the small dirt track which goes beside the church, up a steep hill for a kilometer parallel to the freeway:

This end in road, continue for a short distance, then turn right again on a steep dirt walking track of another 1km, continue on road after this, at top of hill take pedestrian bridge over freeway.

Turn right, go through Crafers, into the park & ride, onto the right-hand-side pedestrian path, which then becomes the Crafers bikeway:

Or do like us, go into the newagents at Stirling and ask for the map guy. Heres a Bikely map of the Stirling-Crafers bike connection:

Once you’re on this, the bikeway is a wonder to behold. High speed for long times is fun. Only hand cramp can stop us now!

Good to end with solid ride, with a epic 1 km total climb for the day. We make a beeline to the city, where we immediately go to sign up for the Tour. Alas the tent is closed:

Todays sign: If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow don’t be alarmed now

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day 12 | aftermath

7^th Jan 10; 6:10am(start)/11:40am(finish)
97.5 km (dist); 3h 56m (saddle);
24.8 kph (av); 46.5 kph (max);
963.3 km (tot)

After watching the hot days approach, the forecasts change from a pair of 39° days to a pair of 41° days and finally a 41°, 43°, 43°. However now they are coming a day later and we have our chance. Instead of a short rest day we do the next two planned days in one.

Lots more Coorong, but its all flat:

“Sorry. No fish today”

Orange Flowering gums at Meningie:

Water receeding from Lake Albert jettys:

Roadside Melons:

Caught the (free!) ferry across the mighty Murray River at Wellington:

Went for a swim. Water tastes pretty good to me, don’t know what Adelaide complains about.

todays sign: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, baby

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day 11 | day 13

5^th Jan 10; 6:15am(start)/12:45pm(finish)
95.7 km (dist); 3h 40m (saddle);
26.1 kph (av); 42.4 kph (max);
865.8 km (tot)

The day started with heavy mist, which precuded us from getting too involved with “the sundial of human involvement“. However, the Big Lobster on the way out of Kingston was worth a glance:

And then we saw something very interesting, a white rainbow:

In real life it looked much better. I think this is a “Glory”, a ring centred around your shadow, sun directly behind. The rising sun was very low in the sky perpendicular to the road to our right. The Glory took up a lot of the sky in the fog/mist to our left. I’ve seen this in planes around the plane shadow on the clouds, but I don’t think its so common to see it on the ground.

Playing a bit with the contrast you can just make out an inner darker ring (and cows in the back ground):

Next we come to:

And on cue the birds from Russia arrive:

At first the lagoon is a series of dry lakes (note James in distance):

The darker cracked “plates” at the edge look fiberous. Later we realized its a mat of compressed feathers. There must be times when there are a LOT of birds….

Lunch at Salt Creek:

Behind are packets of “Road Kill”, the Champange of Beef Jerky.

Picture wall of fishermens catches (well worth double clicking on this one):

And a few trophys on the outside wall:

Frank runs the Policeman Point Hotel as a one man show. Complains continuously and bitterly, but cooks a mean Coorong Mullet.

I could close with some Flann O’Brien / Third Policeman / Bicycle reference but leave you to contemplate (as I did) the wallpaper above the urinal.

Todays sign: Life’s good

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day 10 | day 12