The title of this blog strikes us as entirely appropriate - an almost blank page begs the
question "where the bloody hell are we?" As time goes by, this will hopefully become less
appropriate.
Oh yeah, what's this blog about? we hear you ask. Simple, really. We're going to cycle
from Ontario to California. And this blog is where we will keep track of how our
preparations prep, and our progress proceeds. Aren't you glad you asked?
This is a reformatted version of the blog that Yana Lehey and Sundance Bilson-Thompson are keeping of their bicycle journey from Waterloo, Ontario to Adelaide, South Australia. The last entry is here.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Good question!
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Bike love
Yesterday, we did something quite relevant to our upcoming trip: we popped into
Recycled Cycles, a not-for-profit bike shop type place, where you can also learn stuff
as they fix your bike for you. We learned a lot, and it was generally
nifty. The folks there are most definitely made of awesome. Here are some
photos:
As it turned out, the axle in the rear wheel was actually broken! Much taking
apart and digging through boxes to find replacement parts ensued. Fun times!
Some jobs are just easier when there's two sets of hands.
Cleaning the replacement gear cluster of choice. You've got to do these things
right, after all.
"Oh, you're taking a photo? Alright then!" *pose*
Cleaning out the crud. Turns out the chain needs to be changed, too. Ah,
TLC before the big trip!
And that's it for now. Stay tuned for more insanity as we get ready to actually -
*gasp!* - leave!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Now bring me that horizon!
By Sundance:
The day has arrived at last.
Late. But it has arrived, none the less. Packing up and leaving the place you've lived in for three years is a time-consuming, frustrating process, which has left me with a whole new level of empathy for the launch crews who manage space missions. Another launch delay! Grrr! Frustrating and moderately embarassing, but you do eventually get through them all.
We had intended to set out two days ago, but arranging shipping for our belongings back to Australia and the removal of furniture has pushed that date back to last night. To say that we left our apartment at the crack of dusk would be generous, and it was tempting to stay for another day, but the landlords are moving new people in today and so we had to get out. And so we loaded up our bikes, like snails climbing into our shells, in the wee small hours, left behind our keys and made ourselves homeless for the next few months.
The first question was how well we'd manage to ride with the paniers and our backpacks, and fortunately neither of us had any trouble or toppled over or anything like that. We then rode out to our friends Rianne and Julian who generously let us couch-surf at their place This was a very useful practice ride, as it gave us a good idea of how well our gear would fit on the bikes. I'm glad to say it all seemed pretty good, although we're going to try to rebalance the weight and reduce a bit of bulk here and there. It also meant we got extra pre-travel hugs this morning, warm showers, and a nice spacious kitchen in which to prepare breakfast today.
And now the air is cool, as winter moves its way in from the Arctic, but the sun is out and we're ready to put some kilometres beneath our wheels. And the knowledge that we're on our way back to Australia and will be seeing a whole slew of new stuff en route is slowly seeping in. That's a good feeling.
The day has arrived at last.
Late. But it has arrived, none the less. Packing up and leaving the place you've lived in for three years is a time-consuming, frustrating process, which has left me with a whole new level of empathy for the launch crews who manage space missions. Another launch delay! Grrr! Frustrating and moderately embarassing, but you do eventually get through them all.
We had intended to set out two days ago, but arranging shipping for our belongings back to Australia and the removal of furniture has pushed that date back to last night. To say that we left our apartment at the crack of dusk would be generous, and it was tempting to stay for another day, but the landlords are moving new people in today and so we had to get out. And so we loaded up our bikes, like snails climbing into our shells, in the wee small hours, left behind our keys and made ourselves homeless for the next few months.
The first question was how well we'd manage to ride with the paniers and our backpacks, and fortunately neither of us had any trouble or toppled over or anything like that. We then rode out to our friends Rianne and Julian who generously let us couch-surf at their place This was a very useful practice ride, as it gave us a good idea of how well our gear would fit on the bikes. I'm glad to say it all seemed pretty good, although we're going to try to rebalance the weight and reduce a bit of bulk here and there. It also meant we got extra pre-travel hugs this morning, warm showers, and a nice spacious kitchen in which to prepare breakfast today.
And now the air is cool, as winter moves its way in from the Arctic, but the sun is out and we're ready to put some kilometres beneath our wheels. And the knowledge that we're on our way back to Australia and will be seeing a whole slew of new stuff en route is slowly seeping in. That's a good feeling.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Riding in the Rain
Hamilton, Ontario 67.73km
Yana: Well, our first day of travelling turned out to be surprisingly easy and pleasant, considering that we did literally set off at the "crack of dusk". I can see this becoming a bit of a thing for us. It was basically sunset at the start of our journey, and pretty much dark by the time we actually exited Kitchener Waterloo. It's funny how you expect these things to be utterly gruelling, but you kind of forget that to a certain extent, you can make your bike do the work for you. It was a bit of a blessing that for the most part, the terrain was flat. Yes, we did labour up a few hills, but it was certainly not beyond our level of ability, even with our heavily laden panniers. And boy, do those things give you momentum when you're coasting downhill! Apparently, Sundance was doing 44.6km per hour at one point - at least, that's what our speedometor-odometer gizmo says. Not too shabby! Our cruising pace seems to be at about 20km per hour, which is nothing to be sneezed at, either.
The original plan last night was to just get to Cambridge, as we had started out so ridiculously late, but when we got there, we decided that we were still fresh, so we pushed on. So far, the strategy of popping seven jelly beans every hour or so is working out surprisingly well - take that, energy gels! Who needs you when we can get our sustained sugar high off good old-fashioned jelly bellies! In any case, we made it to Dundas somewhere between 10 and 11pm, and stopped to ask where we would be able to get some sleep. The camping thought had kind of gone out of the window, as campsites can be an absolute pain to locate in the dark. The locals at the Winchester Pub were very helpful, and after we had ourselves a late night high-protein feed, we went in search of accommodation. We ended up at the Hamilton Inn, which was a little more pricey than we would have liked, but turned out to be totally worth it.
We have also established upon waking up this morning that we aren't even sore! Amazing! Looks like we had actually underestimated ourselves, which is a relatively unusual thing to do on a trip like this. Unfortunately, we also discovered that it is raining. We've checked out of the motel now, but it looks like we'll just have to suck it up and put on our wet weather gear - it doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon. Curses! Oh well, at least we're getting our adversity reasonably early on in the trip - we spent most of yesterday's trip riding at night, after all, so what's a little rain? Okay, it makes for balance issues and slipperiness, but I guess we'll just have to wear our skid lids, and hope we don't smoosh our brains out on the tarmac.
Wonder how far we'll get today.
Yana: Well, our first day of travelling turned out to be surprisingly easy and pleasant, considering that we did literally set off at the "crack of dusk". I can see this becoming a bit of a thing for us. It was basically sunset at the start of our journey, and pretty much dark by the time we actually exited Kitchener Waterloo. It's funny how you expect these things to be utterly gruelling, but you kind of forget that to a certain extent, you can make your bike do the work for you. It was a bit of a blessing that for the most part, the terrain was flat. Yes, we did labour up a few hills, but it was certainly not beyond our level of ability, even with our heavily laden panniers. And boy, do those things give you momentum when you're coasting downhill! Apparently, Sundance was doing 44.6km per hour at one point - at least, that's what our speedometor-odometer gizmo says. Not too shabby! Our cruising pace seems to be at about 20km per hour, which is nothing to be sneezed at, either.
The original plan last night was to just get to Cambridge, as we had started out so ridiculously late, but when we got there, we decided that we were still fresh, so we pushed on. So far, the strategy of popping seven jelly beans every hour or so is working out surprisingly well - take that, energy gels! Who needs you when we can get our sustained sugar high off good old-fashioned jelly bellies! In any case, we made it to Dundas somewhere between 10 and 11pm, and stopped to ask where we would be able to get some sleep. The camping thought had kind of gone out of the window, as campsites can be an absolute pain to locate in the dark. The locals at the Winchester Pub were very helpful, and after we had ourselves a late night high-protein feed, we went in search of accommodation. We ended up at the Hamilton Inn, which was a little more pricey than we would have liked, but turned out to be totally worth it.
We have also established upon waking up this morning that we aren't even sore! Amazing! Looks like we had actually underestimated ourselves, which is a relatively unusual thing to do on a trip like this. Unfortunately, we also discovered that it is raining. We've checked out of the motel now, but it looks like we'll just have to suck it up and put on our wet weather gear - it doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon. Curses! Oh well, at least we're getting our adversity reasonably early on in the trip - we spent most of yesterday's trip riding at night, after all, so what's a little rain? Okay, it makes for balance issues and slipperiness, but I guess we'll just have to wear our skid lids, and hope we don't smoosh our brains out on the tarmac.
Wonder how far we'll get today.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Breakfast in America
part 1 – Dissing you already!
We're no longer in Canada! Yeah! Last night just about sunset we crossed over the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls from Canada to the USA. Despite all our concerns that the immigration guys might turn us back because cycling across a continent sounds insane, and we don't have onward
tickets to Australia they were actually pretty enthusiastic about our trip and wished us luck along the way. So we've now crossed an international border by bicycle. That's a new experience for me. And we did get some funny looks from people in their cars as we were waiting in line on the bridge amidst the traffic.
Anyway, since yesterday was my last day in Canada, I feel like unloading a bit. The three years I lived in Canuckistan were rather lonely and unhappy for me (for reasons I won't be so
self-indulgent as to go into here), and I want to take this moment to make a few observations about the frozen white northern land, and its people.
Canadians are nice. They're friendly. They're helpful. But they can often be closed-minded and unimaginative. To illustrate the point, on our way out of Hamilton two days ago we stopped to buy travel insurance. You know, we're gonna be cycling about 7000km across a country with exorbitant medical fees. If one of us has an accident and needs to go to the hospital, medical insurance could be handy. So I ducked into a travel agent to get a quote. After figuring out how many days cover we'd need, and how our respective ages affected the cost, I was all ready to do the paperwork, when the travel agent asked me for my Canadian passport. Hilarity ensued. Not.
It turned out she'd assumed I was a Canadian citizen. Get a f***ing clue, Canada! Not everyone who lives in Canada is a Canadian citizen! And the insurance we could buy only covers Canadians, or foreigners travelling within Canada. I'm sorry to say I've run up against this sort of parochialism time and time again when living in Canada, trying to deal with phone companies, government services, and the like. For a country that prides itself on its openness to migrants and foreign workers this kind of insular failure to recognise that some people who reside in Canada were not born in Canada, are not Canadian citizens, and do not intend to live in Canada forever is just staggering. It may not sound like much, but that's three years of irritation encapsulated in a single incident.
I've made another interesting observation. When telling people about our bike bike trip, Canadians universally wish us well by telling us to “stay safe!”, where as Aussies, Irish and Americans tends to say something like “have fun” or “good luck”. So Steve F, if you're reading this, I'm sure you'll agree that they all just want everyone to have a good safe time, eh? ;-)
So over the last three years living in Canada I've come to think of it as ... somewhere I was. British Columbia should secede, because it's awesome, and I'd happily go back and stay there for a while. And while I've made some great friends in Canada whom I'll miss, Canada in general and especially Ontario (Yours To Disparage), just doesn't do it for me. I'll stop complaining now, because that's in the past. But I needed a little catharsis. Now the road beckons, and every kilometer we chew up gets us closer to California, Maui, and Australia.
I realised something else since setting out on this trip. For the first time in years, I keep catching myself with a huge smile on my face.
part 2 - America, F**k Yeah!
By Yana:
Well, the last two days have been vaguely productive. We haven't been covering as much distance as we would have liked to, Leaving Hamilton on Friday turned out to be a lot more convoluted than we had expected! You know how going through a city in a car slows you down? Yeah, turns out it slows you down on a bike, too. Didn't help that we were going through the rain... we did sort of just hang around in front of the motel we'd stayed in the previous night, hoping that it'd let up, but by 2pm, we had to accept that it was just not going to happen. So with resignation in our hearts and gumption in our minds, we donned our wet weather gear, and braved the elements. Night riding the first day, rain the second, we may as well get used to all our adversity right from the start, right?
Luckily, my fears that we were going to stack it in the rain turned out to be somewhat unfounded. Yes, the panniers do make the whole experience a little trickier, but it was still quite manageable, and we both stayed in high spirits. As previously mentioned, it took us bloody ages to get out of Hamilton, and by the time we arrived in Grimsby, it was dark, and about 9pm. Yeah. Oh well. We stopped at yet another English pub for a feed, which turned out to be pretty tasty, after much discussion about where to leave our numerous packs and paniers. While waiting for our food, we asked around about finding any campsites nearby, and the consensus seemed to be that the best option was in the next town, Jordan, which was another 16km or so onwards. One fellow, who looked and moved uncannily like my friend Bren back in Adelaide, gave us some directions that led to the service road that went along the freeway. It turned out to be a little bit of a kerfuffle to find, but find it we did, eventually, though it was 11pm by then. I was still going strong, as I had actually succumbed to the siren call of caffeine, and was therefore high as a kite. Slightly different story for Sundance, who was in somewhat lower spirits, though we managed.
Going along the service road turned out to be smooth sailing, which was nice, and we more or less kept track of where we were. At about 12:30, we arrived at a hotel where I asked directions across the freeway and into Jordan while Sundance took a ten-minute catnap. We then pushed on for the last supposedly 6.8km, which took us into the Jordan Valley campground. By the time we had set up our tents and were ready to go to sleep, it was 3am. Holy moly. It's amazing how easily time gets chewed up.
Still, we woke up at 9am, which was semi-reasonable. Mind you, again, by the time we had packed up and showered, it was midday. Turned out that our campground was a very cute and charming little place. The same also applied to the town of Jordan itself, as we saw once we had slogged our bikes up out of the valley. We stopped for a late breakfast at the Zooma Zooma Cafe (chicken paninis with wasabi mayo), and then made tracks. The first stretch of road was hellish, as we immediately got smacked in the face by a strong headwind, which was of course catching our panniers and slowing us down even more. Not to mention that the areas was a little bit hillier than what we had been used to. Still, once that was done, we were pretty well off, and going at a semi-decent pace. We decided to circumnavigate the city of St Catherine's, in the name of not getting bogged down there, and headed pretty much straight for Niagara. On the way, we stopped for a cheap-arse high-protein lunch at a place called Blazing Saddles, which just tickled us. Then we powered into Niagara itself, and upon briefly pausing to check our map, we found ourselves trapped by a decent-sized thunderstorm. Still, the sun came out quickly enough, and we got a few moments of sparkling rain before the weather more or less reverted to what it had been for most of the day, which was quite pleasant.
After a bit of debate, we decided to cross the border via the Rainbow Bridge, which, as Sundance already mentioned, turned out to be surprisingly painless. It was already dark, but luckily our hostel of choice wasn't too far to go by then. We also ran into a gaggle of helpful locals who pointed us down the right way, and we were received by a very lovely owner. We also discovered that the place had a kitchen with a gas stove! In the light of this, after chatting to two Aussie girls who happened to be staying in the hostel that night too, we headed to the nearest supermarket and got some groceries. We cooked dinner quite late at night, though it was a joy to cook with gas again after all this time! This morning, we made use of the gas again for some fried eggs and baked tomatoes. Heaven! And now we must really make tracks, as I suspect we have outstayed our welcome, considering we only paid for one night. There are better things to do than to still be hanging out in the dining room! Our destination for the next couple of days: Cleveland, Ohio.
part 3 - Oy oy oy. Oy oy-oy oy!
Buffalo cyclist... in the heart of America... Okay, we had a very short riding day today. A bit of sight-seeing from the US side of Niagara Falls (which, unlike the casino-infested Canadian side, is actually taken up largely by a state park, and is extremely pleasant ), some rain and headwinds, and a flat tyre all slowed us down. So we only made it to Buffalo, but never mind. Tomorrow we have a full day ahead of us, and a readily-accessible bike path along the shore of Lake Erie.
By Sundance:
Total distance: 169.9 km
We're no longer in Canada! Yeah! Last night just about sunset we crossed over the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls from Canada to the USA. Despite all our concerns that the immigration guys might turn us back because cycling across a continent sounds insane, and we don't have onward
tickets to Australia they were actually pretty enthusiastic about our trip and wished us luck along the way. So we've now crossed an international border by bicycle. That's a new experience for me. And we did get some funny looks from people in their cars as we were waiting in line on the bridge amidst the traffic.
Anyway, since yesterday was my last day in Canada, I feel like unloading a bit. The three years I lived in Canuckistan were rather lonely and unhappy for me (for reasons I won't be so
self-indulgent as to go into here), and I want to take this moment to make a few observations about the frozen white northern land, and its people.
Canadians are nice. They're friendly. They're helpful. But they can often be closed-minded and unimaginative. To illustrate the point, on our way out of Hamilton two days ago we stopped to buy travel insurance. You know, we're gonna be cycling about 7000km across a country with exorbitant medical fees. If one of us has an accident and needs to go to the hospital, medical insurance could be handy. So I ducked into a travel agent to get a quote. After figuring out how many days cover we'd need, and how our respective ages affected the cost, I was all ready to do the paperwork, when the travel agent asked me for my Canadian passport. Hilarity ensued. Not.
It turned out she'd assumed I was a Canadian citizen. Get a f***ing clue, Canada! Not everyone who lives in Canada is a Canadian citizen! And the insurance we could buy only covers Canadians, or foreigners travelling within Canada. I'm sorry to say I've run up against this sort of parochialism time and time again when living in Canada, trying to deal with phone companies, government services, and the like. For a country that prides itself on its openness to migrants and foreign workers this kind of insular failure to recognise that some people who reside in Canada were not born in Canada, are not Canadian citizens, and do not intend to live in Canada forever is just staggering. It may not sound like much, but that's three years of irritation encapsulated in a single incident.
I've made another interesting observation. When telling people about our bike bike trip, Canadians universally wish us well by telling us to “stay safe!”, where as Aussies, Irish and Americans tends to say something like “have fun” or “good luck”. So Steve F, if you're reading this, I'm sure you'll agree that they all just want everyone to have a good safe time, eh? ;-)
So over the last three years living in Canada I've come to think of it as ... somewhere I was. British Columbia should secede, because it's awesome, and I'd happily go back and stay there for a while. And while I've made some great friends in Canada whom I'll miss, Canada in general and especially Ontario (Yours To Disparage), just doesn't do it for me. I'll stop complaining now, because that's in the past. But I needed a little catharsis. Now the road beckons, and every kilometer we chew up gets us closer to California, Maui, and Australia.
I realised something else since setting out on this trip. For the first time in years, I keep catching myself with a huge smile on my face.
part 2 - America, F**k Yeah!
By Yana:
Well, the last two days have been vaguely productive. We haven't been covering as much distance as we would have liked to, Leaving Hamilton on Friday turned out to be a lot more convoluted than we had expected! You know how going through a city in a car slows you down? Yeah, turns out it slows you down on a bike, too. Didn't help that we were going through the rain... we did sort of just hang around in front of the motel we'd stayed in the previous night, hoping that it'd let up, but by 2pm, we had to accept that it was just not going to happen. So with resignation in our hearts and gumption in our minds, we donned our wet weather gear, and braved the elements. Night riding the first day, rain the second, we may as well get used to all our adversity right from the start, right?
Luckily, my fears that we were going to stack it in the rain turned out to be somewhat unfounded. Yes, the panniers do make the whole experience a little trickier, but it was still quite manageable, and we both stayed in high spirits. As previously mentioned, it took us bloody ages to get out of Hamilton, and by the time we arrived in Grimsby, it was dark, and about 9pm. Yeah. Oh well. We stopped at yet another English pub for a feed, which turned out to be pretty tasty, after much discussion about where to leave our numerous packs and paniers. While waiting for our food, we asked around about finding any campsites nearby, and the consensus seemed to be that the best option was in the next town, Jordan, which was another 16km or so onwards. One fellow, who looked and moved uncannily like my friend Bren back in Adelaide, gave us some directions that led to the service road that went along the freeway. It turned out to be a little bit of a kerfuffle to find, but find it we did, eventually, though it was 11pm by then. I was still going strong, as I had actually succumbed to the siren call of caffeine, and was therefore high as a kite. Slightly different story for Sundance, who was in somewhat lower spirits, though we managed.
Going along the service road turned out to be smooth sailing, which was nice, and we more or less kept track of where we were. At about 12:30, we arrived at a hotel where I asked directions across the freeway and into Jordan while Sundance took a ten-minute catnap. We then pushed on for the last supposedly 6.8km, which took us into the Jordan Valley campground. By the time we had set up our tents and were ready to go to sleep, it was 3am. Holy moly. It's amazing how easily time gets chewed up.
Still, we woke up at 9am, which was semi-reasonable. Mind you, again, by the time we had packed up and showered, it was midday. Turned out that our campground was a very cute and charming little place. The same also applied to the town of Jordan itself, as we saw once we had slogged our bikes up out of the valley. We stopped for a late breakfast at the Zooma Zooma Cafe (chicken paninis with wasabi mayo), and then made tracks. The first stretch of road was hellish, as we immediately got smacked in the face by a strong headwind, which was of course catching our panniers and slowing us down even more. Not to mention that the areas was a little bit hillier than what we had been used to. Still, once that was done, we were pretty well off, and going at a semi-decent pace. We decided to circumnavigate the city of St Catherine's, in the name of not getting bogged down there, and headed pretty much straight for Niagara. On the way, we stopped for a cheap-arse high-protein lunch at a place called Blazing Saddles, which just tickled us. Then we powered into Niagara itself, and upon briefly pausing to check our map, we found ourselves trapped by a decent-sized thunderstorm. Still, the sun came out quickly enough, and we got a few moments of sparkling rain before the weather more or less reverted to what it had been for most of the day, which was quite pleasant.
After a bit of debate, we decided to cross the border via the Rainbow Bridge, which, as Sundance already mentioned, turned out to be surprisingly painless. It was already dark, but luckily our hostel of choice wasn't too far to go by then. We also ran into a gaggle of helpful locals who pointed us down the right way, and we were received by a very lovely owner. We also discovered that the place had a kitchen with a gas stove! In the light of this, after chatting to two Aussie girls who happened to be staying in the hostel that night too, we headed to the nearest supermarket and got some groceries. We cooked dinner quite late at night, though it was a joy to cook with gas again after all this time! This morning, we made use of the gas again for some fried eggs and baked tomatoes. Heaven! And now we must really make tracks, as I suspect we have outstayed our welcome, considering we only paid for one night. There are better things to do than to still be hanging out in the dining room! Our destination for the next couple of days: Cleveland, Ohio.
part 3 - Oy oy oy. Oy oy-oy oy!
Buffalo cyclist... in the heart of America... Okay, we had a very short riding day today. A bit of sight-seeing from the US side of Niagara Falls (which, unlike the casino-infested Canadian side, is actually taken up largely by a state park, and is extremely pleasant ), some rain and headwinds, and a flat tyre all slowed us down. So we only made it to Buffalo, but never mind. Tomorrow we have a full day ahead of us, and a readily-accessible bike path along the shore of Lake Erie.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
A chautauqua in Chautaqua
Total distance: 381.5 km
Part 1: Thanks, Bicycle-Repair Man!
Well, we've made it to Erie, Pennsylvania. Last night we camped out in a ridiculous windstorm, and we're having a very lazy day waiting for the headwind to settle down so we can head off again. But first things first.
We stayed in Buffalo overnight on Sunday, after a squeaky crank arm was causing trouble on my bike. At the recommendation of the folks in the hostel we headed to a bike repair shop up the road and got everything tightened and our tyres inflated with real compressed air-pressure on Monday morning, then headed out of town. There's a wonderful thing called the Seaway trail which we're following, that runs along the south shore of Lake Erie, although it can be a bit difficult to follow at times, as it disappears onto footpaths and around train tracks in places.
Eventually we found our way onto an easy-to-follow section of the trail that follows Route 5, a smaller road parallel to Interstate 90, with less traffic. Just perfect. Our path took us through Chautauqua county, a name we had only previously been familiar with as referring to a philosophical/educational discussion, used in the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Which is wonderfully appropriate, since this bike trip across the USA is partly inspired by ZMM. Eventually we pulled into the town of Dunkirk for the night, having broken our previous km/day record, by exceeding 80 kms. We can definitely feel ourselves getting fitter and more accustomed to the riding. We've had our fair share of "can we do this?" moments, but I think we're starting to get confident that yes, we can.
Part 2: Yana Sundance Barcelona
That being said, we had one of those gruelling bits a few miles before reaching Dunkirk. Wonderful as the Seaway Trail is, it has its disadvantages. While the bits of it that go along the waterfront are extremely pretty, they also leave us fairly exposed to the wind, so we have been buffeted by quite a few powerful cross- and headwinds. Fun. Still, it toughens us up pretty quickly, and for the most part, we haven't actually been that tempted to quit. In fact, this morning was the first time, and that's just because we were stationary in one place for too long, and I (Yana) hadn't had my protein fix. I'm more itching to go now that that has been taken care of.
Anyway, we have seen some fairly nifty things along the way. The day before yesterday (I think that makes it Monday...? It's so hard to keep track when the days of the week are irrelevant), we actually crossed paths with no less than seven deer, although they weren't all together. We seem to have left most of that pesky Ontario rain behind, so we're no longer riding along looking like waterproof convicts in our bright orange rain gear. Okay, I'm generalising, as Sundance is actually in red and gray, but I'm orange from head to toe as soon as the wet weather gear comes on. So now instead of the rain, we get to ride into those quadricep-training headwinds, hooray!
Yesterday, we went through a cute little town named Barcelona, which just tickled us. Ah, New York. Speaking of which, we have come away from these last few days with a new appreciation for just how large New York State actually is! I had expected it to be piddly and small, as a line in Crocodile Dundee II states that you can walk across it in two days. It took us three days to cycle through it! Admittedly, we weren't going at an absolutely blazing pace, but still, we were riding, as opposed to walking! Anyway, we crossed into Pennsylvania yesterday, which has been an interesting change in some ways. Wonder how long it'll take us to reach Ohio, especially with the way the wind has slowed us down.
Ah yes, the wind. Last night we cruised into Erie, Pennsylvania, and arrived at a campground near the entrance to the Presque Isle State Park, just in time for the rain and wind to start. The campsite office was closed, so we wound up cooking dinner in the camp laundry to shelter from the rain. A helpful fellow who was showering informed us there were 40 mph winds forecast for the night, and so we headed to the tent area of the campground (it's almost exclusively caravans), and crawled into our wonderful little blue tent to wait out the night. There was a LOT of wind, and the occasional concern about tree branches blowing off and falling on us, but we had set up camp in a grove of fairly young, flexible trees, so they bent instead of breaking. In the morning it was still cold and windy, but dry at least. And so we've had breakfast, showered, done laundry, and had lunch while waiting for the weather to improve. With food in our bellies we'll probably just push on regardless and see how far we get in spite of the wind. It's supposed to calm down tonight or tomorrow anyway.
Part 1: Thanks, Bicycle-Repair Man!
Well, we've made it to Erie, Pennsylvania. Last night we camped out in a ridiculous windstorm, and we're having a very lazy day waiting for the headwind to settle down so we can head off again. But first things first.
We stayed in Buffalo overnight on Sunday, after a squeaky crank arm was causing trouble on my bike. At the recommendation of the folks in the hostel we headed to a bike repair shop up the road and got everything tightened and our tyres inflated with real compressed air-pressure on Monday morning, then headed out of town. There's a wonderful thing called the Seaway trail which we're following, that runs along the south shore of Lake Erie, although it can be a bit difficult to follow at times, as it disappears onto footpaths and around train tracks in places.
Eventually we found our way onto an easy-to-follow section of the trail that follows Route 5, a smaller road parallel to Interstate 90, with less traffic. Just perfect. Our path took us through Chautauqua county, a name we had only previously been familiar with as referring to a philosophical/educational discussion, used in the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Which is wonderfully appropriate, since this bike trip across the USA is partly inspired by ZMM. Eventually we pulled into the town of Dunkirk for the night, having broken our previous km/day record, by exceeding 80 kms. We can definitely feel ourselves getting fitter and more accustomed to the riding. We've had our fair share of "can we do this?" moments, but I think we're starting to get confident that yes, we can.
Part 2: Yana Sundance Barcelona
That being said, we had one of those gruelling bits a few miles before reaching Dunkirk. Wonderful as the Seaway Trail is, it has its disadvantages. While the bits of it that go along the waterfront are extremely pretty, they also leave us fairly exposed to the wind, so we have been buffeted by quite a few powerful cross- and headwinds. Fun. Still, it toughens us up pretty quickly, and for the most part, we haven't actually been that tempted to quit. In fact, this morning was the first time, and that's just because we were stationary in one place for too long, and I (Yana) hadn't had my protein fix. I'm more itching to go now that that has been taken care of.
Anyway, we have seen some fairly nifty things along the way. The day before yesterday (I think that makes it Monday...? It's so hard to keep track when the days of the week are irrelevant), we actually crossed paths with no less than seven deer, although they weren't all together. We seem to have left most of that pesky Ontario rain behind, so we're no longer riding along looking like waterproof convicts in our bright orange rain gear. Okay, I'm generalising, as Sundance is actually in red and gray, but I'm orange from head to toe as soon as the wet weather gear comes on. So now instead of the rain, we get to ride into those quadricep-training headwinds, hooray!
Yesterday, we went through a cute little town named Barcelona, which just tickled us. Ah, New York. Speaking of which, we have come away from these last few days with a new appreciation for just how large New York State actually is! I had expected it to be piddly and small, as a line in Crocodile Dundee II states that you can walk across it in two days. It took us three days to cycle through it! Admittedly, we weren't going at an absolutely blazing pace, but still, we were riding, as opposed to walking! Anyway, we crossed into Pennsylvania yesterday, which has been an interesting change in some ways. Wonder how long it'll take us to reach Ohio, especially with the way the wind has slowed us down.
Ah yes, the wind. Last night we cruised into Erie, Pennsylvania, and arrived at a campground near the entrance to the Presque Isle State Park, just in time for the rain and wind to start. The campsite office was closed, so we wound up cooking dinner in the camp laundry to shelter from the rain. A helpful fellow who was showering informed us there were 40 mph winds forecast for the night, and so we headed to the tent area of the campground (it's almost exclusively caravans), and crawled into our wonderful little blue tent to wait out the night. There was a LOT of wind, and the occasional concern about tree branches blowing off and falling on us, but we had set up camp in a grove of fairly young, flexible trees, so they bent instead of breaking. In the morning it was still cold and windy, but dry at least. And so we've had breakfast, showered, done laundry, and had lunch while waiting for the weather to improve. With food in our bellies we'll probably just push on regardless and see how far we get in spite of the wind. It's supposed to calm down tonight or tomorrow anyway.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Ohio gozaimasu
Total distance: 524.8 km
By Yana: Kaze no Tanai Sundance mo Yana
Well, it turned out that the blustery day we had yesterday in Erie didn't stop us for long. After our huge and protein-laden lunch in the nifty little art gallery/shop/cafe, we decided to hop on our bikes and basically go as far as we could. By then it was 5pm, but hey, what does that bother us? Upon climbing out of the windy valley where we had camped, we discovered that the winds were much more bearable. We hit our groove fairly quickly, and quite comfortably rode through the impending darkness. A few times, we were afraid that we had lost the trail, but that turned out to be unfounded. There were a few dips in the road, basically a crazy steep downward slope, followed by its upward counterpart. Those turned out to be great fun, once you get the hang of them. You go careening down those hills at 45km p/h (we checked our maximum on our speedo afterwards), and your momentum carries you up most of the slope, and at some point you start pedalling like crazy to keep up the momentum. It makes it remarkably easy to go up the hills. Of course, me not being that much of an adrenalin junkie, I do still have a moment of breaking out in cold sweat for a moment, visualising myself going arse over tit and breaking several bones. Still, much fun, and I suspect it might have been partially the adrenalin that kept us going as far as we did last night: almost 60km. We got into Ohio when it was dark, ended up going right through Conneaut, and camped at a campsite in the next town. The cool thing was that, as we arrived, we actually almost rode into a little cluster of deer, which ran off with their tails high when they saw us zooming up to them.
We got to sleep at about 2am, but that's not exactly unusual for us. We still got up at a reasonable hour the next morning, though getting packed up was still a bit of a long process. I guess we'll get better at it as time goes by. We had decided to bite off quite a huge chunk to chew today: try and get to Cleveland, which would be our first day over 100km. We've gone 80km so far, had a lovely dinner, and will probably run for it soon. More to tell later.
By Sundance: Tall in the middle and round on both ends
I'm just going to brag quickly, because the laptop's battery is almost flat, but as you will have noticed from the total distance counter at the top of this entry, we busted through the 500 km mark today! That's given us a great sense of achievement. We're also really hitting our stride, dropping into cruising speed (about 22kph) really easily and immediately whenever we hit the road. Last week has been good training, and I think we'll be really cruising in a few more weeks, powering across the country.
I may have to amend an earlier comment, as I've discovered that it's not just Canadians - the locals here also wish is a "safe journey" all the time. Must be a North American thing.
I've also decided that the word 'Ohio' looks a bit like a bicycle.
By Yana: Kaze no Tanai Sundance mo Yana
Well, it turned out that the blustery day we had yesterday in Erie didn't stop us for long. After our huge and protein-laden lunch in the nifty little art gallery/shop/cafe, we decided to hop on our bikes and basically go as far as we could. By then it was 5pm, but hey, what does that bother us? Upon climbing out of the windy valley where we had camped, we discovered that the winds were much more bearable. We hit our groove fairly quickly, and quite comfortably rode through the impending darkness. A few times, we were afraid that we had lost the trail, but that turned out to be unfounded. There were a few dips in the road, basically a crazy steep downward slope, followed by its upward counterpart. Those turned out to be great fun, once you get the hang of them. You go careening down those hills at 45km p/h (we checked our maximum on our speedo afterwards), and your momentum carries you up most of the slope, and at some point you start pedalling like crazy to keep up the momentum. It makes it remarkably easy to go up the hills. Of course, me not being that much of an adrenalin junkie, I do still have a moment of breaking out in cold sweat for a moment, visualising myself going arse over tit and breaking several bones. Still, much fun, and I suspect it might have been partially the adrenalin that kept us going as far as we did last night: almost 60km. We got into Ohio when it was dark, ended up going right through Conneaut, and camped at a campsite in the next town. The cool thing was that, as we arrived, we actually almost rode into a little cluster of deer, which ran off with their tails high when they saw us zooming up to them.
We got to sleep at about 2am, but that's not exactly unusual for us. We still got up at a reasonable hour the next morning, though getting packed up was still a bit of a long process. I guess we'll get better at it as time goes by. We had decided to bite off quite a huge chunk to chew today: try and get to Cleveland, which would be our first day over 100km. We've gone 80km so far, had a lovely dinner, and will probably run for it soon. More to tell later.
By Sundance: Tall in the middle and round on both ends
I'm just going to brag quickly, because the laptop's battery is almost flat, but as you will have noticed from the total distance counter at the top of this entry, we busted through the 500 km mark today! That's given us a great sense of achievement. We're also really hitting our stride, dropping into cruising speed (about 22kph) really easily and immediately whenever we hit the road. Last week has been good training, and I think we'll be really cruising in a few more weeks, powering across the country.
I may have to amend an earlier comment, as I've discovered that it's not just Canadians - the locals here also wish is a "safe journey" all the time. Must be a North American thing.
I've also decided that the word 'Ohio' looks a bit like a bicycle.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Euclidean geography
Total distance: 564.9 km
By Sundance:
Yesterday was EPIC! After our update from the Italian restaurant where we had dinner, we hurtled through the night, through the city of Euclid (which is much bigger than it looks on the map, and Euclid ave is much less straight than the name may suggest). We eventually made it into Cleveland, and got thoroughly confused trying to find our way to the house of the friend we're staying with. At least twice we found ourselves on bridges going over the roads we wanted to get onto. In any case, we finally made it to Samantha's place, for a grand total of 124.22 km travel in one day, pulverising our previous record for distance in a single day. And we can still walk this morning! Not surprisingly we'll be taking a day to rest and veg out and resupply.
And after all the winding our way around the streets of Cleveland in the wee small hours of the morning, navigating by the GPS and Google Maps features of my Crackberry, I think I'm going to write DON'T PANIC in large friendly letters on the cover of its carry-case.
By Yana:
It feels like I should fill in some of the details we skipped in last night's entry. As you have already read, we have gone pretty damn far, and we did also get to see a few interesting things during the day. We actually spent an inordinate amount of time faffing around the first town we passed through, Geneva on the Lake. What was supposed to be just a quick stop to buy some more jelly beans turned into something much longer, as we ended up chatting with some locals, who, of all things, had a pet dingo in the backseat of their car! Okay, it was only a half-breed, but still, a bloody dingo! Whose bright idea was it to import those to the US and turn them into pets? It's somewhat reminiscent of an anecdote we read in a book a while back, in which the author's friend decided to purchase a wallaby on eBay. It seems like the line between wild animals and pets is getting increasingly blurred.
We also meandered through the very cute little town of Ashtabula. It was an intriguing mix of charmingly quaint and grittily industrial - it worked surprisingly well. We read the various information plaques, rode up a steep cobblestone street (well, Sundance did, I only went two thirds of the way before wheeling it for the rest), took a few photos, and continued onwards.
The Seaway Trail we had been so fond of (now the Coastal Ohio trail) actually let us down a little bit in terms of efficiency at that point. It was going to be a big day regardless, and instead of the usual efficient nearly as-the-crow-flies line to our destination, it actually took us on an extended zig zag. Eventually, we got fed up with that and abandoned it in favour of the more direct route down the 20. It also decided to start raining on us, but apparently that is just no longer a biggie. We just put on our wet weather gear, and forged ahead. And hey, there was little to no wind, so we ended up cruising at a surprisingly high speed. We'd gotten so used to having to deal with a headwind that not having it makes us feel downright superhuman!
One thing which is a little bit bothersome: we have caught so many whiffs of skunk on this trip that at times, it seems like everything has a very slight skunk-like aroma as we're riding along...
By Sundance:
Yesterday was EPIC! After our update from the Italian restaurant where we had dinner, we hurtled through the night, through the city of Euclid (which is much bigger than it looks on the map, and Euclid ave is much less straight than the name may suggest). We eventually made it into Cleveland, and got thoroughly confused trying to find our way to the house of the friend we're staying with. At least twice we found ourselves on bridges going over the roads we wanted to get onto. In any case, we finally made it to Samantha's place, for a grand total of 124.22 km travel in one day, pulverising our previous record for distance in a single day. And we can still walk this morning! Not surprisingly we'll be taking a day to rest and veg out and resupply.
And after all the winding our way around the streets of Cleveland in the wee small hours of the morning, navigating by the GPS and Google Maps features of my Crackberry, I think I'm going to write DON'T PANIC in large friendly letters on the cover of its carry-case.
By Yana:
It feels like I should fill in some of the details we skipped in last night's entry. As you have already read, we have gone pretty damn far, and we did also get to see a few interesting things during the day. We actually spent an inordinate amount of time faffing around the first town we passed through, Geneva on the Lake. What was supposed to be just a quick stop to buy some more jelly beans turned into something much longer, as we ended up chatting with some locals, who, of all things, had a pet dingo in the backseat of their car! Okay, it was only a half-breed, but still, a bloody dingo! Whose bright idea was it to import those to the US and turn them into pets? It's somewhat reminiscent of an anecdote we read in a book a while back, in which the author's friend decided to purchase a wallaby on eBay. It seems like the line between wild animals and pets is getting increasingly blurred.
We also meandered through the very cute little town of Ashtabula. It was an intriguing mix of charmingly quaint and grittily industrial - it worked surprisingly well. We read the various information plaques, rode up a steep cobblestone street (well, Sundance did, I only went two thirds of the way before wheeling it for the rest), took a few photos, and continued onwards.
The Seaway Trail we had been so fond of (now the Coastal Ohio trail) actually let us down a little bit in terms of efficiency at that point. It was going to be a big day regardless, and instead of the usual efficient nearly as-the-crow-flies line to our destination, it actually took us on an extended zig zag. Eventually, we got fed up with that and abandoned it in favour of the more direct route down the 20. It also decided to start raining on us, but apparently that is just no longer a biggie. We just put on our wet weather gear, and forged ahead. And hey, there was little to no wind, so we ended up cruising at a surprisingly high speed. We'd gotten so used to having to deal with a headwind that not having it makes us feel downright superhuman!
One thing which is a little bit bothersome: we have caught so many whiffs of skunk on this trip that at times, it seems like everything has a very slight skunk-like aroma as we're riding along...
Monday, October 19, 2009
Never thought I'd be on a boat (so soon, anyway)
Total distance: 953.9 km
The past couple of days have been utterly wonderful. They're the kind of days that make us glad we chose to travel like this, and filled us with gratitude and humility for the generosity of our fellow human beings. We'll tell you why in a minute.
After we left Mt Vernon we made our way through the south-western side of town seeking a bike trail we had been told ran along our anticipated course towards Columbus. This resulted in much faffing around and confuzzlement, since the trail in question wasn't very easy to find, and the only section we did manage to find led us straight into a drag racing track (fortunately not in use at the time). As it turned out, the trail had not been completed yet, which was probably why it was all so confusing. By the time we had ridden around the race circuit, we decided that it was just going to have to be a road day.
We headed west on the 36, with the occasional vehicle buzzing past us a little closer than we would have liked. That being said, we were once again dealing with a narrow shoulder on the road, so it wasn't really ideal to begin with. We eventually entered the town of Centerville, where we decided to stop for lunch. After a brief chat with the local deputy Sheriff about our trip and where we might get spare bike parts in town, we settled ourselves in the nearby park to make our sandwiches. It was actually freezing cold, to the point where it was incredibly uncomfortable to take our gloves off, or sit still while eating. One of those few times when it was tempting to hop on a Greyhound to take us a little bit further south, and out of range of the liquid nitrogen wind that tends to blow across from the Yukon territory.
We pressed on towards Columbus, having decided that despite the cold, we would try camping for the night. Our destination was Alum Creek, a little sliver of State Park just north of Columbus. As it turned out, the campsite was quite difficult to find, especially as the Visitor's Centre was already closed. Undeterred, we went exploring, and after a few circuits through the freezing cold, found ourselves riding up to the marina used by the Alum Creek Sailing Association. There were a few people hanging around, and we figured we'd ask them if they could direct us to the campsite.
After a few moments of giving some surprisingly complicated directions that involved skirting around some roadworks, they suggested that we just put up our tent inside the pavilion they had put up that day. It turned out that we'd come across the preparations for their last pre-Winter race, and they were happy for us to shelter ourselves from the impending frost by putting our tent inside their bigger tent, and jokingly suggested we could serve as "security" for the night. Then a funny thing happened; they suggested that we also hang around for the following day (Saturday) and go out sailing with them, and stick around for the party they would be throwing after the race. It's pretty hard to say no to such a wonderful offer, so we didn't.
Anyway, most of the folks who were involved headed home and left us to set up our camp, but some people were sleeping on their boats, and they invited us out for pizza at a local restaurant/pub. So we bundled into their truck, and headed out into the night, for a really fun dinner, interspersed with conversation about travel, politics, English slang, etc. And then they insisted on paying for our meals. Afterwards we crawled into our tent and reflected on how lucky we were to have met such nice people. But there was better to come.
The following morning we decided that we'd like to go out sailing, rather than head off on our bikes, as these kind of random encounters and adventures were exactly what travelling by bike was all about. Even though neither of us had been sailing properly before. We mingled at the pre-race meeting, and signed aboard the crew of a fellow named Brent, who had been intending to sail his yacht solo until we showed up. Without much further ado, we hopped aboard the Teak-Keel-Ah, and headed out onto the lake. Brent showed us the basics of what we would be doing, and what to do when the boat would tilt crazily, and off we went. Once we had the hang of it, it turned out to be great fun. Luckily, being on this trip meant that we had the right kind of wet-weather gear to sail through the cold and the spray.
We supped on hot apple cider and Kettle chips between races, and considered it all to be time extremely well spent. We ran three races, and got quite good at chucking ourselves from one side of the deck to the other to tack the jib (the little sail at the front, for ye scurvy land-lubbers out there) before the end of it. After the third race, some people on the other boats were starting to feel the cold, so we decided to call it a day and head back in to shore.
We got stuck into helping with the party preparations, which for us mostly involved taking care of the tiki torches. Everything else seemed to be pretty well in hand, and people started to bring in mountains of food. There was even going to be a band, and it actually turned out to be a Halloween party of sorts. A handful of people took this opportunity to dress up, which added a bit of extra entertainment to the evening. By nightfall, the party was in full swing, and we had a grand old time socialising with the masses, eating excellent food, and tearing up the dance floor to the Classic Rock supplied by the band. At one point, we were actually called up on stage to give a rendition of "Deadly Animals (Come to Australia)" by the Scared Weird Little Guys. The impromptu rendition we had given to our dinner group the night before had apparently gone down well, so the whole crowd had to hear it.
We actually got several couch surfing offers, which again made us feel very very welcome. We ended up accepting the offer from Mike (one of several folks called Mike), a fellow Australian who had been living in the US for several decades. The guest room was certainly several steps up from a tent! We also got some information on bike trails we could take to Cincinnatti, which proved invaluable.
The next morning, Mike drove us back to the marina, where we collected our gear and repacked everything more efficiently. Several people came up to us to say their goodbyes and swap addresses with us before they went off sailing for the day, and we lingered for a little while afterwards, taking in the beautiful clear sky and brightly coloured autumn leaves. We took quite a few photos before we could wrench ourselves away and get onto our bikes. We did a brief detour to watch everyone sailing in the distance, and then headed for the bike path that would take us through Columbus.
We stopped briefly in one of the suburbs to restock on a few supplies, and then headed onward, still marveling at the beautiful weather. The bike path turned out to be pretty good, though not quite as flat as previous ones. We decided to take a small detour into Columbus itself, just to have a bit of a look. We were rewarded with some very nice photo opportunities, including the Santa Maria, which is a little ship docked on the shore of the Olentangy river - presumably a replica of Christopher Columbus' boat of teh same name. Very cute. While we were there, a small group of pirate-clad kids was being given a tour of the ship and told about what life as a pirate would have been like. We then rode a little figure 8 through Downtown Columbus, had a look around the German Village, and then headed onwards to our camping destination for the night, which was the RV park in Alton, a little way west from Columbus. It turned out to be a bit pricey, but does have Wi-Fi access, which meant that most of this blog post was written in our tent!
We got there without further ado, and tried to get ourselves set up pretty quickly, as it was a clear night that promised to be cold. We did actually have a little frost this morning, but luckily not in the sheltered spot where we camped. You can definitely tell winter is hot, er, cold on our heels though. That being said, we're not actually heading due south today, but slightly northwest, in the name of visiting a little town called Mechanicsburg. For those of you who don't understand why this is exciting to us, we suggest that you follow this elegant and finely crafted link.
So in the last couple of days, we went looking for a campsite, and instead wound up being fed for free, to the point of bursting, sheltered, entertained, taken sailing, and generally treated like celebrities. It's a great shame that America has a bad reputation on account of the actions of its government and big businesses, because without fail the people we've met have turned out to be helpful, friendly, kind, and open-hearted, wonderful people. And it's hard to say just how warm and fuzzy that makes us feel.
The past couple of days have been utterly wonderful. They're the kind of days that make us glad we chose to travel like this, and filled us with gratitude and humility for the generosity of our fellow human beings. We'll tell you why in a minute.
After we left Mt Vernon we made our way through the south-western side of town seeking a bike trail we had been told ran along our anticipated course towards Columbus. This resulted in much faffing around and confuzzlement, since the trail in question wasn't very easy to find, and the only section we did manage to find led us straight into a drag racing track (fortunately not in use at the time). As it turned out, the trail had not been completed yet, which was probably why it was all so confusing. By the time we had ridden around the race circuit, we decided that it was just going to have to be a road day.
We headed west on the 36, with the occasional vehicle buzzing past us a little closer than we would have liked. That being said, we were once again dealing with a narrow shoulder on the road, so it wasn't really ideal to begin with. We eventually entered the town of Centerville, where we decided to stop for lunch. After a brief chat with the local deputy Sheriff about our trip and where we might get spare bike parts in town, we settled ourselves in the nearby park to make our sandwiches. It was actually freezing cold, to the point where it was incredibly uncomfortable to take our gloves off, or sit still while eating. One of those few times when it was tempting to hop on a Greyhound to take us a little bit further south, and out of range of the liquid nitrogen wind that tends to blow across from the Yukon territory.
We pressed on towards Columbus, having decided that despite the cold, we would try camping for the night. Our destination was Alum Creek, a little sliver of State Park just north of Columbus. As it turned out, the campsite was quite difficult to find, especially as the Visitor's Centre was already closed. Undeterred, we went exploring, and after a few circuits through the freezing cold, found ourselves riding up to the marina used by the Alum Creek Sailing Association. There were a few people hanging around, and we figured we'd ask them if they could direct us to the campsite.
After a few moments of giving some surprisingly complicated directions that involved skirting around some roadworks, they suggested that we just put up our tent inside the pavilion they had put up that day. It turned out that we'd come across the preparations for their last pre-Winter race, and they were happy for us to shelter ourselves from the impending frost by putting our tent inside their bigger tent, and jokingly suggested we could serve as "security" for the night. Then a funny thing happened; they suggested that we also hang around for the following day (Saturday) and go out sailing with them, and stick around for the party they would be throwing after the race. It's pretty hard to say no to such a wonderful offer, so we didn't.
Anyway, most of the folks who were involved headed home and left us to set up our camp, but some people were sleeping on their boats, and they invited us out for pizza at a local restaurant/pub. So we bundled into their truck, and headed out into the night, for a really fun dinner, interspersed with conversation about travel, politics, English slang, etc. And then they insisted on paying for our meals. Afterwards we crawled into our tent and reflected on how lucky we were to have met such nice people. But there was better to come.
The following morning we decided that we'd like to go out sailing, rather than head off on our bikes, as these kind of random encounters and adventures were exactly what travelling by bike was all about. Even though neither of us had been sailing properly before. We mingled at the pre-race meeting, and signed aboard the crew of a fellow named Brent, who had been intending to sail his yacht solo until we showed up. Without much further ado, we hopped aboard the Teak-Keel-Ah, and headed out onto the lake. Brent showed us the basics of what we would be doing, and what to do when the boat would tilt crazily, and off we went. Once we had the hang of it, it turned out to be great fun. Luckily, being on this trip meant that we had the right kind of wet-weather gear to sail through the cold and the spray.
We supped on hot apple cider and Kettle chips between races, and considered it all to be time extremely well spent. We ran three races, and got quite good at chucking ourselves from one side of the deck to the other to tack the jib (the little sail at the front, for ye scurvy land-lubbers out there) before the end of it. After the third race, some people on the other boats were starting to feel the cold, so we decided to call it a day and head back in to shore.
We got stuck into helping with the party preparations, which for us mostly involved taking care of the tiki torches. Everything else seemed to be pretty well in hand, and people started to bring in mountains of food. There was even going to be a band, and it actually turned out to be a Halloween party of sorts. A handful of people took this opportunity to dress up, which added a bit of extra entertainment to the evening. By nightfall, the party was in full swing, and we had a grand old time socialising with the masses, eating excellent food, and tearing up the dance floor to the Classic Rock supplied by the band. At one point, we were actually called up on stage to give a rendition of "Deadly Animals (Come to Australia)" by the Scared Weird Little Guys. The impromptu rendition we had given to our dinner group the night before had apparently gone down well, so the whole crowd had to hear it.
We actually got several couch surfing offers, which again made us feel very very welcome. We ended up accepting the offer from Mike (one of several folks called Mike), a fellow Australian who had been living in the US for several decades. The guest room was certainly several steps up from a tent! We also got some information on bike trails we could take to Cincinnatti, which proved invaluable.
The next morning, Mike drove us back to the marina, where we collected our gear and repacked everything more efficiently. Several people came up to us to say their goodbyes and swap addresses with us before they went off sailing for the day, and we lingered for a little while afterwards, taking in the beautiful clear sky and brightly coloured autumn leaves. We took quite a few photos before we could wrench ourselves away and get onto our bikes. We did a brief detour to watch everyone sailing in the distance, and then headed for the bike path that would take us through Columbus.
We stopped briefly in one of the suburbs to restock on a few supplies, and then headed onward, still marveling at the beautiful weather. The bike path turned out to be pretty good, though not quite as flat as previous ones. We decided to take a small detour into Columbus itself, just to have a bit of a look. We were rewarded with some very nice photo opportunities, including the Santa Maria, which is a little ship docked on the shore of the Olentangy river - presumably a replica of Christopher Columbus' boat of teh same name. Very cute. While we were there, a small group of pirate-clad kids was being given a tour of the ship and told about what life as a pirate would have been like. We then rode a little figure 8 through Downtown Columbus, had a look around the German Village, and then headed onwards to our camping destination for the night, which was the RV park in Alton, a little way west from Columbus. It turned out to be a bit pricey, but does have Wi-Fi access, which meant that most of this blog post was written in our tent!
We got there without further ado, and tried to get ourselves set up pretty quickly, as it was a clear night that promised to be cold. We did actually have a little frost this morning, but luckily not in the sheltered spot where we camped. You can definitely tell winter is hot, er, cold on our heels though. That being said, we're not actually heading due south today, but slightly northwest, in the name of visiting a little town called Mechanicsburg. For those of you who don't understand why this is exciting to us, we suggest that you follow this elegant and finely crafted link.
So in the last couple of days, we went looking for a campsite, and instead wound up being fed for free, to the point of bursting, sheltered, entertained, taken sailing, and generally treated like celebrities. It's a great shame that America has a bad reputation on account of the actions of its government and big businesses, because without fail the people we've met have turned out to be helpful, friendly, kind, and open-hearted, wonderful people. And it's hard to say just how warm and fuzzy that makes us feel.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Marsh 'n' canals
Total distance: 823.4 km
Part 1: Well, it's been a little while since we've had internet access and hence been able to update the blog, but more on that story later. So let me bring you up to speed.
After a few days in Cleveland, recovering from our epic long-distance ride into town, going to food markets, collecting extra camping gear, and the like, we headed out of of town and inland, along the Towpath trail. This is a bike and walking trail that runs from Cleveland to New Philadelphia along an old canal, through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. As that description implies it was everything a bike trail should be - flat, smooth, devoid of cars, and quite scenic. The old stone locks from the canal are scattered along the length of the trail, and it also runs roughly parallel to the Cuyahoga river, so we were surrounded by parkland and marshes clothed in autumn colours the whole way. The first day we set out a bit late in the afternoon and got as far as Perimeter Depot before it became dark. We decided that the scenery was so nice that rather than pushing on into Akron in the dark, we'd stop and camp for the night and set off again in the morning when we could appreciate it. We set out to ask some of the locals where we could camp. At first we came across an art gallery where the residents were having a jam session, singing "Peaceful, easy feeling" by The Eagles, which brought back many memories of camping trips I'd go on with my mother up the east coast of Australia. Despite their nice singing, they weren't very helpful about where to camp, and so we asked in a local pub, and the local police station, and eventually as we were setting off to head back up the trail to a place we'd passed earlier in the evening, a couple in a car asked us how far we were going to be riding. It turned out they were keen cyclists and were quite excited about our little trip, and convinced us that the best thing was just to trespass onto the local Boy Scout camp. Well, we cycled out and tried to find the grounds keeper but there was nobody around to ask permission, so we just put up our tent and dozed off.
Part 2: Now it's siesta time in A-kron, O-hi-ooo!...
The next day we packed up our stuff, bumped into the groundskeeper on the way out of the Boy Scout camp, and headed south again. It was a pretty uneventful day. We passed through Akron, circled around a bit tying to find a place to have lunch, and eventually headed off along the trail again to make nightfall in the town of Clinton. We found a caravan park, where the owner was very surprised to see anyone showing up, as they were almost closed for the end of the season. He actually let us camp for free, and some of the local long-term residents came over and insisted on being helpful, running an electric light to our campsite, bringing us firewood, lighting a fire for us whether we wanted one or not (with an impressive "whoomp!' of gasoline-and -oil-mix home-made lighter fluid), and pointing out the location of the taps, and the showers (which, being about seven metres from our tent, we may have otherwise missed!).
By Yana:
Part 4: I for one welcome our new Ohio-bike-path constructing overlords...
As the Amish fellow who let us stay in his cabin had predicted, we were greeted with rain the next morning. Not much we could do about that, of course, so we saddled up and headed onwards. We had more lovely wet hills to deal with, and the road was curvy, with only a very narrow shoulder. I shudder to think of the crashes that could have happened, but thankfully didn't. The motorists apparently weren't too worried about hooning over the crest of a hill on the wrong side of the road, if it meant they were giving us a berth. Anyway, I don't think either of us have ever used the low gears of our bikes so much. Of course, our progress was frustratingly slow, and we ended up wearing plastic bags as socks in the name of keeping our feet dry.
We had only done maybe 25km by the time we stopped for lunch, in a vaguely cute little town named Millersburg. Upon asking a random local, we decided to stop into the nearest Pizza place, and proceeded to gleefully stuff our faces. The food was excellent, and restored our will to live. We were actually still peckish afterwards, and the delivery driver actually bought us our second round of food, which was lovely of him. We have certainly run into a lot of kindness and generosity here in Ohio, which has been very humbling.
After watching a pair of Amish boys duck in, purchase rainbow-coloured ice cream cones, and wander out again, we got up the gumption to keep moving again. At least it had stopped raining, and we had also found out about another bike trail to keep us off those horrible roads. The bike trail was exactly what we had gotten used to: flat, smooth, and scenic. Not at all like those crazy Canadian bike paths, which some genius decided should be surfaced with a layer of loose, medium-grit gravel! We can certainly applaud Ohio for its bike paths. We forged ahead a little longer, and ended up in Killbuck. We decided to push on a little further still, and when the clock struck 6:30, we ended up knocking on a random door on the side of the road and asking if they minded us pitching a tent in their backyard. They were very nice about it, and even offered us a hot shower, though I concede that this may have just been a case of us looking and smelling like absolute hobos. They also showed us photo albums of their own extensive travels, which was inspiring, to say the least. We eventually crawled into our tent, and slept surprisingly well.
Part 5: But I would ride 500 miles... and I would ride 500 more...
Yet another rainy morning, with hills to look forward to. After a long and convoluted packing process, we hopped on our bikes and did the old rinse and repeat of hills in the rain. It was actually surprisingly hard to push on today, at least for me - I'm guessing I'm fighting off the beginnings of a cold, which I suppose isn't surprising. No prizes for guessing who is plying herself with Vitamin C and zinc now.
Apart from the pretty but wet autumn colours, and the occasional Amish buggy, there's actually disappointingly little to report about today. It's both amusing and saddening though to note that apparently the Amish just aren't as hardcore as they used to be. I've seen quite a few of them hop out of cars and suchlike. Oh well. I guess they know best what the important nucleus of their way of life is. In any case, we eventually found another lovely bike path, and stopped for a very late lunch that basically turned out to be dinner in the town of Mount Vernon. On the grounds of my incoming cold, we have decided to do the Motel thing tonight, which helps a little with the gumption. The woman in the Mexican restaurant where we had dinner even gave us part of the cost of our motel room, so that we could stay in a nicer place. The people here really are wonderfully generous and kind. I think we'll remember Ohio for that, if nothing else.
The progress in the last few days has been kind of woeful. Well, at least we'll supposedly be out of the hills by the time we hit Columbus, and then it'll be flat. But I guess that's where we'll have to hope that we don't get swept away by any tornadoes. Though apparently a more likely thing at the moment is snow. Yep, another thing to add to our intrepid list - we did, after all, ride through a bit of hail yesterday.
In any case, once again today Sundance got chatting with someone in a shop, who said that there was a bike path right along the way we wanted to go. Ohio, you've done it again! So we hopped onto the Kokosing Gap bike trail, and it was partway along that trail that we passed the 800 km mark, which we figured was not exactly, but close enough to the 500 mile mark (Google informs us that 500 mi = 804.672 km. Like I said, close enough).
By Sundance:
Part 1: Well, it's been a little while since we've had internet access and hence been able to update the blog, but more on that story later. So let me bring you up to speed.
After a few days in Cleveland, recovering from our epic long-distance ride into town, going to food markets, collecting extra camping gear, and the like, we headed out of of town and inland, along the Towpath trail. This is a bike and walking trail that runs from Cleveland to New Philadelphia along an old canal, through the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. As that description implies it was everything a bike trail should be - flat, smooth, devoid of cars, and quite scenic. The old stone locks from the canal are scattered along the length of the trail, and it also runs roughly parallel to the Cuyahoga river, so we were surrounded by parkland and marshes clothed in autumn colours the whole way. The first day we set out a bit late in the afternoon and got as far as Perimeter Depot before it became dark. We decided that the scenery was so nice that rather than pushing on into Akron in the dark, we'd stop and camp for the night and set off again in the morning when we could appreciate it. We set out to ask some of the locals where we could camp. At first we came across an art gallery where the residents were having a jam session, singing "Peaceful, easy feeling" by The Eagles, which brought back many memories of camping trips I'd go on with my mother up the east coast of Australia. Despite their nice singing, they weren't very helpful about where to camp, and so we asked in a local pub, and the local police station, and eventually as we were setting off to head back up the trail to a place we'd passed earlier in the evening, a couple in a car asked us how far we were going to be riding. It turned out they were keen cyclists and were quite excited about our little trip, and convinced us that the best thing was just to trespass onto the local Boy Scout camp. Well, we cycled out and tried to find the grounds keeper but there was nobody around to ask permission, so we just put up our tent and dozed off.
Part 2: Now it's siesta time in A-kron, O-hi-ooo!...
The next day we packed up our stuff, bumped into the groundskeeper on the way out of the Boy Scout camp, and headed south again. It was a pretty uneventful day. We passed through Akron, circled around a bit tying to find a place to have lunch, and eventually headed off along the trail again to make nightfall in the town of Clinton. We found a caravan park, where the owner was very surprised to see anyone showing up, as they were almost closed for the end of the season. He actually let us camp for free, and some of the local long-term residents came over and insisted on being helpful, running an electric light to our campsite, bringing us firewood, lighting a fire for us whether we wanted one or not (with an impressive "whoomp!' of gasoline-and -oil-mix home-made lighter fluid), and pointing out the location of the taps, and the showers (which, being about seven metres from our tent, we may have otherwise missed!).
Part 3: Been spending most our night, camping in an Amish paradise...
The following day the hills began. We followed the Towpath trail down to the town of Navarre, and then headed off the trail, as we wanted to make our way westwards, towards Columbus. We were instant celebrities in Navarre - while I was in the local deli getting supplies, a woman started chatting to Yana outside, and convinced us to come into her favourite pub for lunch. She and her friends were amazed that we were travelling so far on our bikes, and couldn't stop talking to us, which was pretty nice. One of the great things about a trip like this is meeting locals and connecting with them. After lunch we headed out onto the road and the countryside began to get hilly, which slowed us down and sucked, a lot. We pushed on into Amish country, and into Winesburg by nightfall. Just south of there, in a little village called Trail, we were directed to an Amish family who have a cabin that guests could stay in. That was a true delight, and surprisingly high-tech. Solar-charged batteries running the lights and a fridge, self-igniting gas stoves, teflon frying pans, in fact everything but TV and an internet connection. Hence no blog updates.By Yana:
Part 4: I for one welcome our new Ohio-bike-path constructing overlords...
As the Amish fellow who let us stay in his cabin had predicted, we were greeted with rain the next morning. Not much we could do about that, of course, so we saddled up and headed onwards. We had more lovely wet hills to deal with, and the road was curvy, with only a very narrow shoulder. I shudder to think of the crashes that could have happened, but thankfully didn't. The motorists apparently weren't too worried about hooning over the crest of a hill on the wrong side of the road, if it meant they were giving us a berth. Anyway, I don't think either of us have ever used the low gears of our bikes so much. Of course, our progress was frustratingly slow, and we ended up wearing plastic bags as socks in the name of keeping our feet dry.
We had only done maybe 25km by the time we stopped for lunch, in a vaguely cute little town named Millersburg. Upon asking a random local, we decided to stop into the nearest Pizza place, and proceeded to gleefully stuff our faces. The food was excellent, and restored our will to live. We were actually still peckish afterwards, and the delivery driver actually bought us our second round of food, which was lovely of him. We have certainly run into a lot of kindness and generosity here in Ohio, which has been very humbling.
After watching a pair of Amish boys duck in, purchase rainbow-coloured ice cream cones, and wander out again, we got up the gumption to keep moving again. At least it had stopped raining, and we had also found out about another bike trail to keep us off those horrible roads. The bike trail was exactly what we had gotten used to: flat, smooth, and scenic. Not at all like those crazy Canadian bike paths, which some genius decided should be surfaced with a layer of loose, medium-grit gravel! We can certainly applaud Ohio for its bike paths. We forged ahead a little longer, and ended up in Killbuck. We decided to push on a little further still, and when the clock struck 6:30, we ended up knocking on a random door on the side of the road and asking if they minded us pitching a tent in their backyard. They were very nice about it, and even offered us a hot shower, though I concede that this may have just been a case of us looking and smelling like absolute hobos. They also showed us photo albums of their own extensive travels, which was inspiring, to say the least. We eventually crawled into our tent, and slept surprisingly well.
Part 5: But I would ride 500 miles... and I would ride 500 more...
Yet another rainy morning, with hills to look forward to. After a long and convoluted packing process, we hopped on our bikes and did the old rinse and repeat of hills in the rain. It was actually surprisingly hard to push on today, at least for me - I'm guessing I'm fighting off the beginnings of a cold, which I suppose isn't surprising. No prizes for guessing who is plying herself with Vitamin C and zinc now.
Apart from the pretty but wet autumn colours, and the occasional Amish buggy, there's actually disappointingly little to report about today. It's both amusing and saddening though to note that apparently the Amish just aren't as hardcore as they used to be. I've seen quite a few of them hop out of cars and suchlike. Oh well. I guess they know best what the important nucleus of their way of life is. In any case, we eventually found another lovely bike path, and stopped for a very late lunch that basically turned out to be dinner in the town of Mount Vernon. On the grounds of my incoming cold, we have decided to do the Motel thing tonight, which helps a little with the gumption. The woman in the Mexican restaurant where we had dinner even gave us part of the cost of our motel room, so that we could stay in a nicer place. The people here really are wonderfully generous and kind. I think we'll remember Ohio for that, if nothing else.
The progress in the last few days has been kind of woeful. Well, at least we'll supposedly be out of the hills by the time we hit Columbus, and then it'll be flat. But I guess that's where we'll have to hope that we don't get swept away by any tornadoes. Though apparently a more likely thing at the moment is snow. Yep, another thing to add to our intrepid list - we did, after all, ride through a bit of hail yesterday.
In any case, once again today Sundance got chatting with someone in a shop, who said that there was a bike path right along the way we wanted to go. Ohio, you've done it again! So we hopped onto the Kokosing Gap bike trail, and it was partway along that trail that we passed the 800 km mark, which we figured was not exactly, but close enough to the 500 mile mark (Google informs us that 500 mi = 804.672 km. Like I said, close enough).
Monday, October 19, 2009
Never thought I'd be on a boat (so soon, anyway)
Total distance: 953.9 km
The past couple of days have been utterly wonderful. They're the kind of days that make us glad we chose to travel like this, and filled us with gratitude and humility for the generosity of our fellow human beings. We'll tell you why in a minute.
After we left Mt Vernon we made our way through the south-western side of town seeking a bike trail we had been told ran along our anticipated course towards Columbus. This resulted in much faffing around and confuzzlement, since the trail in question wasn't very easy to find, and the only section we did manage to find led us straight into a drag racing track (fortunately not in use at the time). As it turned out, the trail had not been completed yet, which was probably why it was all so confusing. By the time we had ridden around the race circuit, we decided that it was just going to have to be a road day.
We headed west on the 36, with the occasional vehicle buzzing past us a little closer than we would have liked. That being said, we were once again dealing with a narrow shoulder on the road, so it wasn't really ideal to begin with. We eventually entered the town of Centerville, where we decided to stop for lunch. After a brief chat with the local deputy Sheriff about our trip and where we might get spare bike parts in town, we settled ourselves in the nearby park to make our sandwiches. It was actually freezing cold, to the point where it was incredibly uncomfortable to take our gloves off, or sit still while eating. One of those few times when it was tempting to hop on a Greyhound to take us a little bit further south, and out of range of the liquid nitrogen wind that tends to blow across from the Yukon territory.
We pressed on towards Columbus, having decided that despite the cold, we would try camping for the night. Our destination was Alum Creek, a little sliver of State Park just north of Columbus. As it turned out, the campsite was quite difficult to find, especially as the Visitor's Centre was already closed. Undeterred, we went exploring, and after a few circuits through the freezing cold, found ourselves riding up to the marina used by the Alum Creek Sailing Association. There were a few people hanging around, and we figured we'd ask them if they could direct us to the campsite.
After a few moments of giving some surprisingly complicated directions that involved skirting around some roadworks, they suggested that we just put up our tent inside the pavilion they had put up that day. It turned out that we'd come across the preparations for their last pre-Winter race, and they were happy for us to shelter ourselves from the impending frost by putting our tent inside their bigger tent, and jokingly suggested we could serve as "security" for the night. Then a funny thing happened; they suggested that we also hang around for the following day (Saturday) and go out sailing with them, and stick around for the party they would be throwing after the race. It's pretty hard to say no to such a wonderful offer, so we didn't.
Anyway, most of the folks who were involved headed home and left us to set up our camp, but some people were sleeping on their boats, and they invited us out for pizza at a local restaurant/pub. So we bundled into their truck, and headed out into the night, for a really fun dinner, interspersed with conversation about travel, politics, English slang, etc. And then they insisted on paying for our meals. Afterwards we crawled into our tent and reflected on how lucky we were to have met such nice people. But there was better to come.
The following morning we decided that we'd like to go out sailing, rather than head off on our bikes, as these kind of random encounters and adventures were exactly what travelling by bike was all about. Even though neither of us had been sailing properly before. We mingled at the pre-race meeting, and signed aboard the crew of a fellow named Brent, who had been intending to sail his yacht solo until we showed up. Without much further ado, we hopped aboard the Teak-Keel-Ah, and headed out onto the lake. Brent showed us the basics of what we would be doing, and what to do when the boat would tilt crazily, and off we went. Once we had the hang of it, it turned out to be great fun. Luckily, being on this trip meant that we had the right kind of wet-weather gear to sail through the cold and the spray.
We supped on hot apple cider and Kettle chips between races, and considered it all to be time extremely well spent. We ran three races, and got quite good at chucking ourselves from one side of the deck to the other to tack the jib (the little sail at the front, for ye scurvy land-lubbers out there) before the end of it. After the third race, some people on the other boats were starting to feel the cold, so we decided to call it a day and head back in to shore.
We got stuck into helping with the party preparations, which for us mostly involved taking care of the tiki torches. Everything else seemed to be pretty well in hand, and people started to bring in mountains of food. There was even going to be a band, and it actually turned out to be a Halloween party of sorts. A handful of people took this opportunity to dress up, which added a bit of extra entertainment to the evening. By nightfall, the party was in full swing, and we had a grand old time socialising with the masses, eating excellent food, and tearing up the dance floor to the Classic Rock supplied by the band. At one point, we were actually called up on stage to give a rendition of "Deadly Animals (Come to Australia)" by the Scared Weird Little Guys. The impromptu rendition we had given to our dinner group the night before had apparently gone down well, so the whole crowd had to hear it.
We actually got several couch surfing offers, which again made us feel very very welcome. We ended up accepting the offer from Mike (one of several folks called Mike), a fellow Australian who had been living in the US for several decades. The guest room was certainly several steps up from a tent! We also got some information on bike trails we could take to Cincinnatti, which proved invaluable.
The next morning, Mike drove us back to the marina, where we collected our gear and repacked everything more efficiently. Several people came up to us to say their goodbyes and swap addresses with us before they went off sailing for the day, and we lingered for a little while afterwards, taking in the beautiful clear sky and brightly coloured autumn leaves. We took quite a few photos before we could wrench ourselves away and get onto our bikes. We did a brief detour to watch everyone sailing in the distance, and then headed for the bike path that would take us through Columbus.
We stopped briefly in one of the suburbs to restock on a few supplies, and then headed onward, still marveling at the beautiful weather. The bike path turned out to be pretty good, though not quite as flat as previous ones. We decided to take a small detour into Columbus itself, just to have a bit of a look. We were rewarded with some very nice photo opportunities, including the Santa Maria, which is a little ship docked on the shore of the Olentangy river - presumably a replica of Christopher Columbus' boat of teh same name. Very cute. While we were there, a small group of pirate-clad kids was being given a tour of the ship and told about what life as a pirate would have been like. We then rode a little figure 8 through Downtown Columbus, had a look around the German Village, and then headed onwards to our camping destination for the night, which was the RV park in Alton, a little way west from Columbus. It turned out to be a bit pricey, but does have Wi-Fi access, which meant that most of this blog post was written in our tent!
We got there without further ado, and tried to get ourselves set up pretty quickly, as it was a clear night that promised to be cold. We did actually have a little frost this morning, but luckily not in the sheltered spot where we camped. You can definitely tell winter is hot, er, cold on our heels though. That being said, we're not actually heading due south today, but slightly northwest, in the name of visiting a little town called Mechanicsburg. For those of you who don't understand why this is exciting to us, we suggest that you follow this elegant and finely crafted link.
So in the last couple of days, we went looking for a campsite, and instead wound up being fed for free, to the point of bursting, sheltered, entertained, taken sailing, and generally treated like celebrities. It's a great shame that America has a bad reputation on account of the actions of its government and big businesses, because without fail the people we've met have turned out to be helpful, friendly, kind, and open-hearted, wonderful people. And it's hard to say just how warm and fuzzy that makes us feel.
The past couple of days have been utterly wonderful. They're the kind of days that make us glad we chose to travel like this, and filled us with gratitude and humility for the generosity of our fellow human beings. We'll tell you why in a minute.
After we left Mt Vernon we made our way through the south-western side of town seeking a bike trail we had been told ran along our anticipated course towards Columbus. This resulted in much faffing around and confuzzlement, since the trail in question wasn't very easy to find, and the only section we did manage to find led us straight into a drag racing track (fortunately not in use at the time). As it turned out, the trail had not been completed yet, which was probably why it was all so confusing. By the time we had ridden around the race circuit, we decided that it was just going to have to be a road day.
We headed west on the 36, with the occasional vehicle buzzing past us a little closer than we would have liked. That being said, we were once again dealing with a narrow shoulder on the road, so it wasn't really ideal to begin with. We eventually entered the town of Centerville, where we decided to stop for lunch. After a brief chat with the local deputy Sheriff about our trip and where we might get spare bike parts in town, we settled ourselves in the nearby park to make our sandwiches. It was actually freezing cold, to the point where it was incredibly uncomfortable to take our gloves off, or sit still while eating. One of those few times when it was tempting to hop on a Greyhound to take us a little bit further south, and out of range of the liquid nitrogen wind that tends to blow across from the Yukon territory.
We pressed on towards Columbus, having decided that despite the cold, we would try camping for the night. Our destination was Alum Creek, a little sliver of State Park just north of Columbus. As it turned out, the campsite was quite difficult to find, especially as the Visitor's Centre was already closed. Undeterred, we went exploring, and after a few circuits through the freezing cold, found ourselves riding up to the marina used by the Alum Creek Sailing Association. There were a few people hanging around, and we figured we'd ask them if they could direct us to the campsite.
After a few moments of giving some surprisingly complicated directions that involved skirting around some roadworks, they suggested that we just put up our tent inside the pavilion they had put up that day. It turned out that we'd come across the preparations for their last pre-Winter race, and they were happy for us to shelter ourselves from the impending frost by putting our tent inside their bigger tent, and jokingly suggested we could serve as "security" for the night. Then a funny thing happened; they suggested that we also hang around for the following day (Saturday) and go out sailing with them, and stick around for the party they would be throwing after the race. It's pretty hard to say no to such a wonderful offer, so we didn't.
Anyway, most of the folks who were involved headed home and left us to set up our camp, but some people were sleeping on their boats, and they invited us out for pizza at a local restaurant/pub. So we bundled into their truck, and headed out into the night, for a really fun dinner, interspersed with conversation about travel, politics, English slang, etc. And then they insisted on paying for our meals. Afterwards we crawled into our tent and reflected on how lucky we were to have met such nice people. But there was better to come.
The following morning we decided that we'd like to go out sailing, rather than head off on our bikes, as these kind of random encounters and adventures were exactly what travelling by bike was all about. Even though neither of us had been sailing properly before. We mingled at the pre-race meeting, and signed aboard the crew of a fellow named Brent, who had been intending to sail his yacht solo until we showed up. Without much further ado, we hopped aboard the Teak-Keel-Ah, and headed out onto the lake. Brent showed us the basics of what we would be doing, and what to do when the boat would tilt crazily, and off we went. Once we had the hang of it, it turned out to be great fun. Luckily, being on this trip meant that we had the right kind of wet-weather gear to sail through the cold and the spray.
We supped on hot apple cider and Kettle chips between races, and considered it all to be time extremely well spent. We ran three races, and got quite good at chucking ourselves from one side of the deck to the other to tack the jib (the little sail at the front, for ye scurvy land-lubbers out there) before the end of it. After the third race, some people on the other boats were starting to feel the cold, so we decided to call it a day and head back in to shore.
We got stuck into helping with the party preparations, which for us mostly involved taking care of the tiki torches. Everything else seemed to be pretty well in hand, and people started to bring in mountains of food. There was even going to be a band, and it actually turned out to be a Halloween party of sorts. A handful of people took this opportunity to dress up, which added a bit of extra entertainment to the evening. By nightfall, the party was in full swing, and we had a grand old time socialising with the masses, eating excellent food, and tearing up the dance floor to the Classic Rock supplied by the band. At one point, we were actually called up on stage to give a rendition of "Deadly Animals (Come to Australia)" by the Scared Weird Little Guys. The impromptu rendition we had given to our dinner group the night before had apparently gone down well, so the whole crowd had to hear it.
We actually got several couch surfing offers, which again made us feel very very welcome. We ended up accepting the offer from Mike (one of several folks called Mike), a fellow Australian who had been living in the US for several decades. The guest room was certainly several steps up from a tent! We also got some information on bike trails we could take to Cincinnatti, which proved invaluable.
The next morning, Mike drove us back to the marina, where we collected our gear and repacked everything more efficiently. Several people came up to us to say their goodbyes and swap addresses with us before they went off sailing for the day, and we lingered for a little while afterwards, taking in the beautiful clear sky and brightly coloured autumn leaves. We took quite a few photos before we could wrench ourselves away and get onto our bikes. We did a brief detour to watch everyone sailing in the distance, and then headed for the bike path that would take us through Columbus.
We stopped briefly in one of the suburbs to restock on a few supplies, and then headed onward, still marveling at the beautiful weather. The bike path turned out to be pretty good, though not quite as flat as previous ones. We decided to take a small detour into Columbus itself, just to have a bit of a look. We were rewarded with some very nice photo opportunities, including the Santa Maria, which is a little ship docked on the shore of the Olentangy river - presumably a replica of Christopher Columbus' boat of teh same name. Very cute. While we were there, a small group of pirate-clad kids was being given a tour of the ship and told about what life as a pirate would have been like. We then rode a little figure 8 through Downtown Columbus, had a look around the German Village, and then headed onwards to our camping destination for the night, which was the RV park in Alton, a little way west from Columbus. It turned out to be a bit pricey, but does have Wi-Fi access, which meant that most of this blog post was written in our tent!
We got there without further ado, and tried to get ourselves set up pretty quickly, as it was a clear night that promised to be cold. We did actually have a little frost this morning, but luckily not in the sheltered spot where we camped. You can definitely tell winter is hot, er, cold on our heels though. That being said, we're not actually heading due south today, but slightly northwest, in the name of visiting a little town called Mechanicsburg. For those of you who don't understand why this is exciting to us, we suggest that you follow this elegant and finely crafted link.
So in the last couple of days, we went looking for a campsite, and instead wound up being fed for free, to the point of bursting, sheltered, entertained, taken sailing, and generally treated like celebrities. It's a great shame that America has a bad reputation on account of the actions of its government and big businesses, because without fail the people we've met have turned out to be helpful, friendly, kind, and open-hearted, wonderful people. And it's hard to say just how warm and fuzzy that makes us feel.
Friday, October 23, 2009
This is a great day... for SCIENCE!
Total distance: 1220.2 km
Well, it must be time for another blog update, it's been a few days, and we've been slacking off a little with posting.
We went a little Girl Genius-crazy, and took our intended detour through Mechanicsburg, which turned out to be a fairly pleasant little town, with a nice coffee shop where we stopped for some sandwiches - and not the dangerous home of mad scientists and inventors galore, as the name implies. Oh well. But we still took time to pose for photos on the way into town,
as well as a photo of the main street witha grain-processing facility Castle Heterodyne peeking over the rooftops.
After that, we set course (straight into a headwind) for Springfield, passing through the 1000 km mark of our journey in the process. We got almost into town, but camped at the Buck Creek state park campground on the eastern outskirts of town for the night.
We set off into Springfield the following morning, after a crisp, clear sunrise, mostly in search of a bike shop, as there seemed to be something non-obvious making it difficult for Yana to pedal. We'd checked all the options in terms of rubbing brake pads, less-than-full tyres, loose chain, etc. but to no avail.
Springfield certainly showed a distinct personality, as we rapidly found ourselves pedalling past "Vote Nobama. I Luv Sarah" slogans on fences, and the first guy we asked for directions to a bike shop declared that he wanted to pray with us for our safety and luck on the way to the shop. Okay. Whatever.
We set off in the intended direction, got thrown off course by a road that changed its name part way along so that we didn't realise we were actually on the road we were supposed to be on, asked for other directions, and finally made it to a bike shop that was closed. So much for the power of prayer. We decided that one word sums up Springfield, Ohio;
D'oh!
In some frustration we decided to just get ourselves on the Little Miami bike trail, which wound its way through the suburbs of the south of town, along some roads, before eventually making its way onto a nice off-road path that ran south towards Cincinnati. We stopped for a little while in the surprisingly delightful town of Yellow Springs because I smelled pizza, and take Yana's bike to a bike shop (an open one!), where they guessed that the brakes were not rubbing when we examined the bike, but that the weight of a rider was distorting the frame and wheel just enough to make the rear brakes rub. They tweaked that, after which the bike moved a lot more smoothly, and then we grabbed a wholemeal-crust pizza and a couple of fruit smoothies. We then headed on through the town of Xenia (warrior princess! :-) and steered ourselves towards the Caesar Creek state park to camp. We muddled our way back and forth following (the lack of) signs for the campsite, headed to the park office which was closed, found a map on a noticeboard, located a campground, rode out there, discovered it was 'group permit' only, and decided we were too tired to be bothered camping elsewhere so we just wheeled our bikes around the gate and made camp for the night. It was a beautiful clear night, and had we known it was also the night of the Orionid meteor shower we might have stayed up to watch some of it, but instead we just fell asleep.
The following morning we broke camp, headed back to the bike trail, and proceeded south. We sailed straight past the Fort Ancient archeological site, which would have been nice to look at, but we felt that it was good to keep our pace up, stopped for lunch a little further on, then dropped into a library in Morrow to try to find a place to stay in Cincinnati using CouchSurfing. By the time we reached Loveland, we had two possible hosts to stay with (so that's another point for science/the internet), and we got in touch with one host (Mike U.) who gave us directions to his place near downtown Cincinnati.
The last part of getting there was, of course, the most challenging. Once the bike trail ran out we had to find our way through the hilly suburbs of Cincinnati - although at one point a couple in an SUV wanted to know where we were riding to with all our gear, and were so impressed that they offered to buy us dinner, which we regretfully declined as we didn't want to keep Mike waiting up for us too long- and on a couple of occasions found ourselves backtracking or hauling our bikes over railway tracks to get to the streets we wanted to be on, and not on roads where trucks, bikes, and pedestrians were not allowed. But we made it eventually, and were greeted to a cozy bed, a kitchen in which we cooked rice, chicken, and stir-fried veggies to fill our bellies, and a good night's rest.
By Sundance:
Well, it must be time for another blog update, it's been a few days, and we've been slacking off a little with posting.
We went a little Girl Genius-crazy, and took our intended detour through Mechanicsburg, which turned out to be a fairly pleasant little town, with a nice coffee shop where we stopped for some sandwiches - and not the dangerous home of mad scientists and inventors galore, as the name implies. Oh well. But we still took time to pose for photos on the way into town,
as well as a photo of the main street with
After that, we set course (straight into a headwind) for Springfield, passing through the 1000 km mark of our journey in the process. We got almost into town, but camped at the Buck Creek state park campground on the eastern outskirts of town for the night.
We set off into Springfield the following morning, after a crisp, clear sunrise, mostly in search of a bike shop, as there seemed to be something non-obvious making it difficult for Yana to pedal. We'd checked all the options in terms of rubbing brake pads, less-than-full tyres, loose chain, etc. but to no avail.
Springfield certainly showed a distinct personality, as we rapidly found ourselves pedalling past "Vote Nobama. I Luv Sarah" slogans on fences, and the first guy we asked for directions to a bike shop declared that he wanted to pray with us for our safety and luck on the way to the shop. Okay. Whatever.
We set off in the intended direction, got thrown off course by a road that changed its name part way along so that we didn't realise we were actually on the road we were supposed to be on, asked for other directions, and finally made it to a bike shop that was closed. So much for the power of prayer. We decided that one word sums up Springfield, Ohio;
D'oh!
In some frustration we decided to just get ourselves on the Little Miami bike trail, which wound its way through the suburbs of the south of town, along some roads, before eventually making its way onto a nice off-road path that ran south towards Cincinnati. We stopped for a little while in the surprisingly delightful town of Yellow Springs because I smelled pizza, and take Yana's bike to a bike shop (an open one!), where they guessed that the brakes were not rubbing when we examined the bike, but that the weight of a rider was distorting the frame and wheel just enough to make the rear brakes rub. They tweaked that, after which the bike moved a lot more smoothly, and then we grabbed a wholemeal-crust pizza and a couple of fruit smoothies. We then headed on through the town of Xenia (warrior princess! :-) and steered ourselves towards the Caesar Creek state park to camp. We muddled our way back and forth following (the lack of) signs for the campsite, headed to the park office which was closed, found a map on a noticeboard, located a campground, rode out there, discovered it was 'group permit' only, and decided we were too tired to be bothered camping elsewhere so we just wheeled our bikes around the gate and made camp for the night. It was a beautiful clear night, and had we known it was also the night of the Orionid meteor shower we might have stayed up to watch some of it, but instead we just fell asleep.
The following morning we broke camp, headed back to the bike trail, and proceeded south. We sailed straight past the Fort Ancient archeological site, which would have been nice to look at, but we felt that it was good to keep our pace up, stopped for lunch a little further on, then dropped into a library in Morrow to try to find a place to stay in Cincinnati using CouchSurfing. By the time we reached Loveland, we had two possible hosts to stay with (so that's another point for science/the internet), and we got in touch with one host (Mike U.) who gave us directions to his place near downtown Cincinnati.
The last part of getting there was, of course, the most challenging. Once the bike trail ran out we had to find our way through the hilly suburbs of Cincinnati - although at one point a couple in an SUV wanted to know where we were riding to with all our gear, and were so impressed that they offered to buy us dinner, which we regretfully declined as we didn't want to keep Mike waiting up for us too long- and on a couple of occasions found ourselves backtracking or hauling our bikes over railway tracks to get to the streets we wanted to be on, and not on roads where trucks, bikes, and pedestrians were not allowed. But we made it eventually, and were greeted to a cozy bed, a kitchen in which we cooked rice, chicken, and stir-fried veggies to fill our bellies, and a good night's rest.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Teenage Mutant Ninja Roadkill
Total distance: 1448.9km
By Yana (mostly):
So, our first couch surfing experience has turned out to be a very positive one indeed. Our host, Mike, turned out to be most excellent, and we did our best to repay him by feeding him with our hopefully equally excellent cooking. This was no mean feat in some ways, as it turned out that the local grocery joint, affectionately called "Ghetto Kroger" (the neighbourhood had some sketchy elements, but was really quite charming), stocks only a limited supply of healthy foods. Still, we made do, and apart from some very nice poached eggs also managed to produce a stir fry that had the dinner party raving, despite having been made with el cheapo ramen noodles. Go us! It was wonderful meeting several of Mike's friends, they have turned out to be a very cool crowd. Once again, that's what this trip is all about, really, meeting cool people and seeing cool stuff. We also got to check out the nearby markets, which included a very good spice merchant and a shop which on that day happened to stock oranges imported from Australia. Ah, the bits of home you get to see. On our last night in Cincinnati, we decided to have dinner at a Thai place with several other members of the local Couch Surfer community, which was a merry affair. One of them named Doug proceeded to drag us to Wal-Mart, so that we could stock up on things like a spare head torch and replacement pants, as one pair had worn through from all the pedalling.
We actually ended up staying three nights in Cincinatti, but eventually packed our bikes once more and headed across the river into Kentucky. Getting out of Cincinnati turned out to be a whole lot easier than it had been getting in - we zoomed downhill through a few cobble stoned back alleys, reached the bridge without further ado, and then headed west along the Ohio River. The weather was definitely on our side, although our route turned out to be a little loopy for a bit. We did stop at a random little place selling all sorts of nifty pumpkins, as well as other veggies and apple cider. All-round charming and full of photo opportunities. We alternated between a cup of hot apple cider and a cup of the cold stuff, bought some apples, and then had to do a bit of a back tracking loop over some nasty hills to find our way onto the road we wanted. We rapidly discovered that in Kentucky, main roads are the only way to travel long distances, and there really aren't very many minor roads to skirt through. It took some asking the locals for advice, but we eventually found our way, although it was getting dark by then. We had a few moments of quite low gumption, though we pushed through it. A quick feed at a petrol station helped. We decided to push on to the suspiciously-named Big Bone Lick State Park, which was basically the first state park within reach. We pedalled on through the night okay, and stopped at a little pub/restaurant called "Helen's Place" to get directions. We found out very quickly that folks in Kentucky could easily give those in Ohio a run for their money in the friendliness stakes. We were very quickly offered some space in the backyard to put up our tent, which we accepted, as it was getting late. We also came into the place for a little bit, as our hosts kept inviting us inside. In fact, they insisted on feeding us for free, which made us feel a little bit bad, though it was very nice of them. As it was karaoke night, I figured we may as well sing for our supper, so I made a point of grabbing the mike a few times, which was a big hit. Kind of nice, really.
We ended up turning in at almost 2am. Needless to say, our start the next morning wasn't that early, though at least it hadn't been as late as the previous day. We were still there when one of our two hosts, Helen, came and opened the place for the day again. She actually wanted to feed us breakfast as well, but we declined. It didn't seem fair, even though they were obviously enthusiastic about helping us out, and apparently take great pride in their friendliness. We did end up leaving a couple of dollars in their tip jar, though Helen kind of tried to stop us. I suspect that it's the kind of place where you need to be pushy about being nice, because people will try to not accept it out of politeness.
We headed into Big Bone Lick State Park, up and down some ridiculous hills. Turned out to be pretty cool, apparently the reason for the name stems from the bones of mammoths, mastodons, and other large mammals having been found there. The soil there has a high mineral content, and the salt would bubble up out of the ground at springs and attract the animals, which would gleefully lick away at it. Many of them then got bogged down in the salty mud and their bones were left behind for tens of thousands of years, making it "The birthplace of American paleontology". There are also live animals in the park, and we actually got to see some bison in the distance, which admittedly would have been much more satisfying if they hadn't just been indistinct blobs at the far side of their enclosure. There was also a little gift shop with a museum display of various mammoth bones, and an outdoor diorama type thing of various prehistoric giants sinking into the boggy ground.
It was late afternoon by the time we left the park, but we still pushed on a reasonable distance to Carrollton, where we found the state park it was practically sitting on top of. Once again, some fun hills to scale, but at least we found the camp site without too much trouble, and pitched our tent in the dark.
We woke up to a foggy morning, although it cleared up quickly as we got ourselves packed up and ready to leave. We ended up staying in Carrollton a bit late for breakfast, mainly because of the Mexican restaurant on their main drag, which turned out to be excellent. We actually practiced a few salsa moves to the sizzling tunes playing on their radio before we headed onwards.
The next stretch of road showed us that we were moving into slightly different geographical territory, mostly recognisable by the kinds of road kill we came across. We have not yet mentioned this unsavoury fact, but the truth is, we have probably come across more road kill in the last month than we have in our entire lives before. It's been interesting to note though that as the miles have gone by, the species have changed. We started out with almost exclusively raccoons, with the very occasional skunk or deer, and, sad to say, a few cats and dogs. That day, we actually encountered our first few squirrels and rabbits, if I remember correctly, not to mention quite a few snakes and at least four crushed tortoises. This description may seem very clinical, and I'm sure it is very crass of me to say this, but it made it seem like Super Mario had been doing the rounds. Honestly though, it was actually a pretty saddening sight. It's kind of disturbing to think that we've seen hundreds of maimed critters by now.
Now, off this topic. We reached the bridge to Indiana relatively promptly, and crossed into the very charming town of Madison. There we did a few loops in search of the Visitor's Centre, which gave us a sound appreciation of how pretty the place is. Lots of gorgeous autumn foliage, some very pretty buildings, lots of quaint little shops, and the weather was just glorious. The day was actually hot, which we were just stunned by. Utterly wonderful. In fact, we ducked into the local ice creamery, and were served some very nice ice cream by an equally delightful girl who was working behind the counter.
Once again, by the time we left, it was getting a bit late, but we still left Madison and powered up several high hills as the dusk fell around us. At one point, when we stopped, I had a close and painful encounter with a very large insect - once again, proof of a warmer climate, which is something to be grateful for, despite the really quite startlingly ouchy bite that the insect bestowed. We headed for one of the towns just before the cluster that is level with Louisville, Kentucky: Charlestown, another one of those places with its own little state park, which goes by the same name. It was actually 4km from the park entrance to the camp ground, with plenty more fun hills (do we notice a trend here?), and we actually ran into an elderly park ranger who assigned a camp site to us. We pitched our tent, listened to the wolves howling in the distance, packed our food away somewhere safely remote from our tent, and got to sleep at around midnight.
By Yana (mostly):
So, our first couch surfing experience has turned out to be a very positive one indeed. Our host, Mike, turned out to be most excellent, and we did our best to repay him by feeding him with our hopefully equally excellent cooking. This was no mean feat in some ways, as it turned out that the local grocery joint, affectionately called "Ghetto Kroger" (the neighbourhood had some sketchy elements, but was really quite charming), stocks only a limited supply of healthy foods. Still, we made do, and apart from some very nice poached eggs also managed to produce a stir fry that had the dinner party raving, despite having been made with el cheapo ramen noodles. Go us! It was wonderful meeting several of Mike's friends, they have turned out to be a very cool crowd. Once again, that's what this trip is all about, really, meeting cool people and seeing cool stuff. We also got to check out the nearby markets, which included a very good spice merchant and a shop which on that day happened to stock oranges imported from Australia. Ah, the bits of home you get to see. On our last night in Cincinnati, we decided to have dinner at a Thai place with several other members of the local Couch Surfer community, which was a merry affair. One of them named Doug proceeded to drag us to Wal-Mart, so that we could stock up on things like a spare head torch and replacement pants, as one pair had worn through from all the pedalling.
We actually ended up staying three nights in Cincinatti, but eventually packed our bikes once more and headed across the river into Kentucky. Getting out of Cincinnati turned out to be a whole lot easier than it had been getting in - we zoomed downhill through a few cobble stoned back alleys, reached the bridge without further ado, and then headed west along the Ohio River. The weather was definitely on our side, although our route turned out to be a little loopy for a bit. We did stop at a random little place selling all sorts of nifty pumpkins, as well as other veggies and apple cider. All-round charming and full of photo opportunities. We alternated between a cup of hot apple cider and a cup of the cold stuff, bought some apples, and then had to do a bit of a back tracking loop over some nasty hills to find our way onto the road we wanted. We rapidly discovered that in Kentucky, main roads are the only way to travel long distances, and there really aren't very many minor roads to skirt through. It took some asking the locals for advice, but we eventually found our way, although it was getting dark by then. We had a few moments of quite low gumption, though we pushed through it. A quick feed at a petrol station helped. We decided to push on to the suspiciously-named Big Bone Lick State Park, which was basically the first state park within reach. We pedalled on through the night okay, and stopped at a little pub/restaurant called "Helen's Place" to get directions. We found out very quickly that folks in Kentucky could easily give those in Ohio a run for their money in the friendliness stakes. We were very quickly offered some space in the backyard to put up our tent, which we accepted, as it was getting late. We also came into the place for a little bit, as our hosts kept inviting us inside. In fact, they insisted on feeding us for free, which made us feel a little bit bad, though it was very nice of them. As it was karaoke night, I figured we may as well sing for our supper, so I made a point of grabbing the mike a few times, which was a big hit. Kind of nice, really.
We ended up turning in at almost 2am. Needless to say, our start the next morning wasn't that early, though at least it hadn't been as late as the previous day. We were still there when one of our two hosts, Helen, came and opened the place for the day again. She actually wanted to feed us breakfast as well, but we declined. It didn't seem fair, even though they were obviously enthusiastic about helping us out, and apparently take great pride in their friendliness. We did end up leaving a couple of dollars in their tip jar, though Helen kind of tried to stop us. I suspect that it's the kind of place where you need to be pushy about being nice, because people will try to not accept it out of politeness.
We headed into Big Bone Lick State Park, up and down some ridiculous hills. Turned out to be pretty cool, apparently the reason for the name stems from the bones of mammoths, mastodons, and other large mammals having been found there. The soil there has a high mineral content, and the salt would bubble up out of the ground at springs and attract the animals, which would gleefully lick away at it. Many of them then got bogged down in the salty mud and their bones were left behind for tens of thousands of years, making it "The birthplace of American paleontology". There are also live animals in the park, and we actually got to see some bison in the distance, which admittedly would have been much more satisfying if they hadn't just been indistinct blobs at the far side of their enclosure. There was also a little gift shop with a museum display of various mammoth bones, and an outdoor diorama type thing of various prehistoric giants sinking into the boggy ground.
It was late afternoon by the time we left the park, but we still pushed on a reasonable distance to Carrollton, where we found the state park it was practically sitting on top of. Once again, some fun hills to scale, but at least we found the camp site without too much trouble, and pitched our tent in the dark.
We woke up to a foggy morning, although it cleared up quickly as we got ourselves packed up and ready to leave. We ended up staying in Carrollton a bit late for breakfast, mainly because of the Mexican restaurant on their main drag, which turned out to be excellent. We actually practiced a few salsa moves to the sizzling tunes playing on their radio before we headed onwards.
The next stretch of road showed us that we were moving into slightly different geographical territory, mostly recognisable by the kinds of road kill we came across. We have not yet mentioned this unsavoury fact, but the truth is, we have probably come across more road kill in the last month than we have in our entire lives before. It's been interesting to note though that as the miles have gone by, the species have changed. We started out with almost exclusively raccoons, with the very occasional skunk or deer, and, sad to say, a few cats and dogs. That day, we actually encountered our first few squirrels and rabbits, if I remember correctly, not to mention quite a few snakes and at least four crushed tortoises. This description may seem very clinical, and I'm sure it is very crass of me to say this, but it made it seem like Super Mario had been doing the rounds. Honestly though, it was actually a pretty saddening sight. It's kind of disturbing to think that we've seen hundreds of maimed critters by now.
Now, off this topic. We reached the bridge to Indiana relatively promptly, and crossed into the very charming town of Madison. There we did a few loops in search of the Visitor's Centre, which gave us a sound appreciation of how pretty the place is. Lots of gorgeous autumn foliage, some very pretty buildings, lots of quaint little shops, and the weather was just glorious. The day was actually hot, which we were just stunned by. Utterly wonderful. In fact, we ducked into the local ice creamery, and were served some very nice ice cream by an equally delightful girl who was working behind the counter.
Once again, by the time we left, it was getting a bit late, but we still left Madison and powered up several high hills as the dusk fell around us. At one point, when we stopped, I had a close and painful encounter with a very large insect - once again, proof of a warmer climate, which is something to be grateful for, despite the really quite startlingly ouchy bite that the insect bestowed. We headed for one of the towns just before the cluster that is level with Louisville, Kentucky: Charlestown, another one of those places with its own little state park, which goes by the same name. It was actually 4km from the park entrance to the camp ground, with plenty more fun hills (do we notice a trend here?), and we actually ran into an elderly park ranger who assigned a camp site to us. We pitched our tent, listened to the wolves howling in the distance, packed our food away somewhere safely remote from our tent, and got to sleep at around midnight.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Hoosier daddy?!
Total distance: 1577.6 km
It's worth noting that one of reasons we headed into Indiana, apart from the desire to notch up another state, was the desire to visit the home state of one of our favourite science fiction authors, Philip Jose Farmer (and also one of his best-loved characters, Kickaha). Since we wouldn't be detouring to PJF's home town of Terre Haute we instead aimed for the Hoosier National Forest, as Kickaha is always described as having a Hoosier accent.
On Tuesday morning we went through our usual pack-up routine of breakfast, drying out the dew-covered tent as well as we could, and then stashing it all away. After zooming along the 4km between campsite and park entrance, we took a left and headed towards Charlestown. As the oatmeal we'd had for breakfast hadn't really satisfied, we decided to stop at a cute little restaurant on the entrance of town, which was basically a train that had been converted. The "gourmet sandwiches" it boasted had us intrigued, so we wheeled our bikes up to their patio, and were immediately warmly greeted and invited inside. The food turned out to be quite nice, especially their choice of soups, and we had a very nice chat with the various staff members. We found out from them that the word "Hoosier" does in fact apply to anybody from Indiana, rather than just those who live around the Hoosier National Forest or any one particular part of the state.
When we had finished our meal, we discovered that it had started to rain. Luckily, our second breakfast had revived us and filled us with gumption, so we just shrugged, put on our wet weather gear, and headed off. We were pleased to find that the terrain from Charlestown onwards was nowhere near as hilly as we had been led to expect, and certainly a nice break from what we had been dealing with recently.
When we reached Jeffersonville, which is part of the cluster of towns level with Louisville on the other side of the river, we unfortunately got epically bogged down by getting groceries, which made the entire day a bit of a write-off when it came to travelling. However, we did find a motel room that was only barely more expensive than some of the campsites we've stayed at, which, although extremely convenient, was also a little disturbing. We tried to have an early night but, as usual, failed and ended up going to sleep at midnight. Go us.
On Wednesday morning we packed our belongings and discovered that I (Sundance) had lost the stuff-sack for my raincoat. This upset me quite a bit, because, sentimental fool that I am, I was quite attached to it as the jacket and stuff-sack were a birthday present from my parents. Anyway, I held us up epically by back-tracking to the supermarket from the previous day and checking the aisles, the bike parking rack, and their lost-and-found before eventually deciding that it was a lost cause, and we had better make some headway or waste the whole day. But if you're reading this in Indiana, between Charlestown and Jeffersonville and you find a black-and-red stuff sack somewhere along route 62, contact us via this blog, okay? :-) Please.
In any case, we soon headed out through Clarksville, skirting the freeways and following smaller roads as much as possible, emerged through New Albany, where we got a good view of a bridge that led to Kentucky and looked like the Sydney Harbour Bridge undergoing the later stages of mitosis, and headed up a long, gruelling hill to reach Edwardsville. Quadriceps ready to burst, we stopped to admire the view at the top, and got chatting with a couple of locals who recommended we follow a smaller road that ran between the interstate and route 62 - much less traffic. After following this road up hills and down dales and past dogs who were obviously in desperate need of something to bark at and chase (at one point an overweight bulldog on its ridiculous stubby legs fell flat and slid along on its face while trying to get up from a yard onto the road to chase us. Hilarious!) we coasted gratefully down into the town of Corydon, and pulled up next to a Mexican restaurant. The scrolling sign in the window advertising fish tacos drew is in quite successfully, as we've been hooked on fish tacos since spending last January on Maui.
The folks in the restaurant decided we must be fitter than them, since we showed up on bikes, and smelled like we'd been riding them for a while, and got chatting to us about where we were going and where we'd been. Presently we headed off, on their advice, to camp at O'Bannon Woods state park and got to the appropriate turn-off before dark although the road turned out not to be as curvy or dangerous as they'd warned us. We then slogged up another enormous hill or six-hundred until we made it to the actual park office, only to find a map informing us that there had been a "primitive" campground (i.e. one for tents) about 500 metres further along the road past the turn-off. Arrrggghhhhhh! One really frustrating thing about camping in the US is that they don't seem to consider the possibility that you might not be travelling in a motorised vehicle, or in fact might not be sleeping in an RV or caravan, and hence don't tell you about "primitive" campsites until you're so far away from them that the only reasonable way to get there is by driving. And so we decided not to head all the way back to the main road, but rather to find a flat patch of dirt between all the bitumen-covered RV campsites to put up our tent.
Thursday morning broke peacefully, apart from the roar of a park maintenance person clearing leaves off the campsites with a bobcat. Because after all, we don't want anyone to have to park their humungous RV on some leaves! Camping has nothing to do with encountering nature, now does it?
Make breakfast, pack bedding, dry tent, pack tent, admire morning sunlight on pretty autumn leaves, wash, rinse, repeat. Are you sick of reading about our morning routine yet?
We left the campground and decided to head out of the park along a gravel bike/hike trail, rather than retracing our steps from the previous night. Some of the stretches of trail were a bit loose and muddy, but fun, and when we got to the bottom we found that the trail ended at an old iron bridge over the Blue River (which was actually quite muddly and brown) which no longer had a proper surface to it, just the iron framework which was decidedly rusty. Clearly we would have to go back up the trail we'd just come down, and retrace our path from the previous night. So instead, we did this;
And now that we've given all four of our parents several panic-attacks...
Crossing that barrier refilled our gumption tanks, a lot, as it made us feel like we were not going to let anything get in our way, and all those folks on motorbikes and driving their RVs couldn't have done what we just did.
We proceeded along a minor road along the riverside through the town of Leavenworth (although I'm not sure it really was big enough to call a town), up a killer steep gravel road which had us cursing the inventor of gravel roads, and then headed into even more hills as we went towards our goal of Hoosier National Forest. We finally got there, and had a well-earned lunch of tuna and salad sandwiches just before the town of Sulphur (notice the spelling!) and found that the national forest was really just a bunch of little towns and cow paddocks with some trees around them. We stopped in a shop with a huge cabbage growing out the front to find out which way was most scenic and least hilly, and were rapidly rewarded by the terrain levelling off and heading somewhat downhill. We even managed to admire some of the scenery when we got away from the scattered population centres.
Just after dark we cruised into Meinrad, and set out to find the local abbey, in the hopes that the staff at the guest house would let us set up a tent somewhere on the grounds. Instead they monks arranged for us to have a free room for the night, complete with internet connection. And now, showered and fed, we are off to get some well-earned rest.
Oh, and just for the record, the hoosier accent sounds a bit like a southern twang, but more "rounded", almost as if there's a hint of Irish brogue mixed in. It can be quite charming, really.
It's worth noting that one of reasons we headed into Indiana, apart from the desire to notch up another state, was the desire to visit the home state of one of our favourite science fiction authors, Philip Jose Farmer (and also one of his best-loved characters, Kickaha). Since we wouldn't be detouring to PJF's home town of Terre Haute we instead aimed for the Hoosier National Forest, as Kickaha is always described as having a Hoosier accent.
On Tuesday morning we went through our usual pack-up routine of breakfast, drying out the dew-covered tent as well as we could, and then stashing it all away. After zooming along the 4km between campsite and park entrance, we took a left and headed towards Charlestown. As the oatmeal we'd had for breakfast hadn't really satisfied, we decided to stop at a cute little restaurant on the entrance of town, which was basically a train that had been converted. The "gourmet sandwiches" it boasted had us intrigued, so we wheeled our bikes up to their patio, and were immediately warmly greeted and invited inside. The food turned out to be quite nice, especially their choice of soups, and we had a very nice chat with the various staff members. We found out from them that the word "Hoosier" does in fact apply to anybody from Indiana, rather than just those who live around the Hoosier National Forest or any one particular part of the state.
When we had finished our meal, we discovered that it had started to rain. Luckily, our second breakfast had revived us and filled us with gumption, so we just shrugged, put on our wet weather gear, and headed off. We were pleased to find that the terrain from Charlestown onwards was nowhere near as hilly as we had been led to expect, and certainly a nice break from what we had been dealing with recently.
When we reached Jeffersonville, which is part of the cluster of towns level with Louisville on the other side of the river, we unfortunately got epically bogged down by getting groceries, which made the entire day a bit of a write-off when it came to travelling. However, we did find a motel room that was only barely more expensive than some of the campsites we've stayed at, which, although extremely convenient, was also a little disturbing. We tried to have an early night but, as usual, failed and ended up going to sleep at midnight. Go us.
On Wednesday morning we packed our belongings and discovered that I (Sundance) had lost the stuff-sack for my raincoat. This upset me quite a bit, because, sentimental fool that I am, I was quite attached to it as the jacket and stuff-sack were a birthday present from my parents. Anyway, I held us up epically by back-tracking to the supermarket from the previous day and checking the aisles, the bike parking rack, and their lost-and-found before eventually deciding that it was a lost cause, and we had better make some headway or waste the whole day. But if you're reading this in Indiana, between Charlestown and Jeffersonville and you find a black-and-red stuff sack somewhere along route 62, contact us via this blog, okay? :-) Please.
In any case, we soon headed out through Clarksville, skirting the freeways and following smaller roads as much as possible, emerged through New Albany, where we got a good view of a bridge that led to Kentucky and looked like the Sydney Harbour Bridge undergoing the later stages of mitosis, and headed up a long, gruelling hill to reach Edwardsville. Quadriceps ready to burst, we stopped to admire the view at the top, and got chatting with a couple of locals who recommended we follow a smaller road that ran between the interstate and route 62 - much less traffic. After following this road up hills and down dales and past dogs who were obviously in desperate need of something to bark at and chase (at one point an overweight bulldog on its ridiculous stubby legs fell flat and slid along on its face while trying to get up from a yard onto the road to chase us. Hilarious!) we coasted gratefully down into the town of Corydon, and pulled up next to a Mexican restaurant. The scrolling sign in the window advertising fish tacos drew is in quite successfully, as we've been hooked on fish tacos since spending last January on Maui.
The folks in the restaurant decided we must be fitter than them, since we showed up on bikes, and smelled like we'd been riding them for a while, and got chatting to us about where we were going and where we'd been. Presently we headed off, on their advice, to camp at O'Bannon Woods state park and got to the appropriate turn-off before dark although the road turned out not to be as curvy or dangerous as they'd warned us. We then slogged up another enormous hill or six-hundred until we made it to the actual park office, only to find a map informing us that there had been a "primitive" campground (i.e. one for tents) about 500 metres further along the road past the turn-off. Arrrggghhhhhh! One really frustrating thing about camping in the US is that they don't seem to consider the possibility that you might not be travelling in a motorised vehicle, or in fact might not be sleeping in an RV or caravan, and hence don't tell you about "primitive" campsites until you're so far away from them that the only reasonable way to get there is by driving. And so we decided not to head all the way back to the main road, but rather to find a flat patch of dirt between all the bitumen-covered RV campsites to put up our tent.
Thursday morning broke peacefully, apart from the roar of a park maintenance person clearing leaves off the campsites with a bobcat. Because after all, we don't want anyone to have to park their humungous RV on some leaves! Camping has nothing to do with encountering nature, now does it?
Make breakfast, pack bedding, dry tent, pack tent, admire morning sunlight on pretty autumn leaves, wash, rinse, repeat. Are you sick of reading about our morning routine yet?
We left the campground and decided to head out of the park along a gravel bike/hike trail, rather than retracing our steps from the previous night. Some of the stretches of trail were a bit loose and muddy, but fun, and when we got to the bottom we found that the trail ended at an old iron bridge over the Blue River (which was actually quite muddly and brown) which no longer had a proper surface to it, just the iron framework which was decidedly rusty. Clearly we would have to go back up the trail we'd just come down, and retrace our path from the previous night. So instead, we did this;
And now that we've given all four of our parents several panic-attacks...
Crossing that barrier refilled our gumption tanks, a lot, as it made us feel like we were not going to let anything get in our way, and all those folks on motorbikes and driving their RVs couldn't have done what we just did.
We proceeded along a minor road along the riverside through the town of Leavenworth (although I'm not sure it really was big enough to call a town), up a killer steep gravel road which had us cursing the inventor of gravel roads, and then headed into even more hills as we went towards our goal of Hoosier National Forest. We finally got there, and had a well-earned lunch of tuna and salad sandwiches just before the town of Sulphur (notice the spelling!) and found that the national forest was really just a bunch of little towns and cow paddocks with some trees around them. We stopped in a shop with a huge cabbage growing out the front to find out which way was most scenic and least hilly, and were rapidly rewarded by the terrain levelling off and heading somewhat downhill. We even managed to admire some of the scenery when we got away from the scattered population centres.
Just after dark we cruised into Meinrad, and set out to find the local abbey, in the hopes that the staff at the guest house would let us set up a tent somewhere on the grounds. Instead they monks arranged for us to have a free room for the night, complete with internet connection. And now, showered and fed, we are off to get some well-earned rest.
Oh, and just for the record, the hoosier accent sounds a bit like a southern twang, but more "rounded", almost as if there's a hint of Irish brogue mixed in. It can be quite charming, really.
Monday, November 2, 2009
The Christmas before Nightmare
Total distance: 1665.8 km
After our rest stop at the St Meinrad abbey we headed out of town, straight into a headwind of epic proportions, a headwind so strong that we had to pedal to roll downhill, and Yana got blown off balance a couple of times when the road changed directions and the headwind became a sidewind. It. Was. Not. Fun.
Eventually we made it to the town of Santa Claus. Yup, that's what the town is actually called. As we got there, and turned onto the main road Sundance noticed a rattling noise coming from the back of his bike - the plastic cover plate that sits on the back wheel between the spokes and the rear gear cluster had come loose. So we pulled up at a service station, and then got directions to a hardware store where Sundance was able to borrow a drill and some tools to make some holes and wire the offending plate into position. And just then it started raining! So we dashed into the hardware store, hung out with the friendly staff, and eventually donned our wet weather gear and set off into the rain.
At the top of a hill, we pulled off the road under a church's picnic shelter to adjust our gear. As we were getting organised, a local fellow who introduced himself as Gerald pulled up and told us that since the weather was so nasty we could camp out in his shed. He gave us instructions to his house, and after a bit of discussion we decided that having stayed with several folks in Ohio and Kentucky, it'd de nice to sample some Hoosier hospitality. We arrived at his house a little later, having passed the 1600 km mark of our journey just a few metres from his front gate, and he proudly showed us his shed including a beautifully-restored tractor built in 1940, and the old carburetor he was soaking in acid to clean off the old grease and paint and gunk. He introduced us to his wife Debbie as well as their daughter and her best friend (who was pretty impressed to meet a couple of real Australians). They had a son, too, but he was out hunting at the time. He turned out to be a very enthusiastic bow-hunter, which we kinda respected. Hunting with a bow seems like "authentic" hunting, even if the bows used these days are not exactly stone-age technology. In any case, we were given sweetcorn and beans and offered home-grown barbequed pork. And then we fell asleep on the comfy reclining sofa.
The next day the weather had improved substantially, and we hoped to hit the road, but Sundance decided that his rear brakes needed to be adjusted, and during this process one of the springs in the brakes turned out to be broken. So he and Gerald got to work bending a piece of wire to make a replacement spring. By the time the brakes were repaired and adjusted we decided it was too late to make any real progress so we hopped in the truck with Gerald, who drove us to Tell City to buy groceries. With these, we set out to make a wholemeal pizza and some nachos for Halloween dinner, since it was Halloween night and we wanted to feed our gracious hosts to thank them for their hospitality.
We spent most of the evening cooking, and it seemed that most of our food was well-received. Quite a few people had come around to visit, and it turned out to be a very pleasant evening. Sundance even learned how to play Beer Pong, although he didn't participate in the drinking, as he avoids alcohol. Eventually though, we decided to turn in, as it was getting late. As Gerald and Debbie's daughter was spending the night elsewhere, we actually got bundled off to the two twin beds in her room. Certainly not complaining.
The next morning, we went about the slow process of getting ready to leave. Admittedly, we got waylaid by things such as the extremely cute puppy that Gerald had acquired the week before, and which was dogging our feet, no pun intended. We finally got going in the early afternoon. We stopped briefly a little after the town of Lamar, as we hoped to get a better look at the herd of bison which lived in the paddock there. We'd gotten a brief look at them the previous day, heading into Tell City to get groceries, but they were apparently hiding when we came by again on our bikes. A little further along, we passed the 1608 km mark, which meant we'd travelled 1000 miles since we set out on our journey one month before.
We continued along the road, over some extremely steep hills, and past an extremely friendly Golden Retriever who came and said hi while we were briefly stopped along the way. Afterwards, we actually kept up a fairly steady pace, though Yana's back tyre was losing air, and we established that the little tyre pressure gauge we had gotten the previous day was in fact ineffective and a complete waste of money. We pushed on to the town of Rockport. At this point, Yana's back tyre was completely flat, so we had to stop and go through the patching procedure. We did have some Mexican food for dinner first though, and once we had finished with the tyre, we went in search of somewhere to pitch our tent. We followed a local's advice and went down one of the larger roads where there was supposedly a campsite. We did find an RV park, though it was obviously not intended for tents. However, the caretaker was happy to have us pitch our tent on a patch of grass next to his RV, which was nice. We got ourselves set up pretty quickly, and turned in, warmly wrapped up in preparation for the frost that had been predicted for the night.
We slept comfortably enough, though the frost did indeed come, as we discovered the next morning. There were still some things we needed to fix up on our bikes before we left, but leave we did, eventually. We stopped briefly on the riverfront to have a look at the caves that some locals had told us about. It was pretty enough, though not necessarily that impressive. We rode on to Owensboro, crossing the bridge back into Kentucky as we did so. We went in search of a grocery store, and found a Kroger, where we managed to stock up on some more packet curries for camping. We then decided to head out of town and towards the next state park. Unfortunately, just as we were reaching the outskirts of Owensboro, we both were treated to the sound of a loud pop, followed by a merry hissing noise from Sundance's tyre. Yep, another one. We wheeled our bikes into the parking lot of the Dollar General store we had just gone past, and got stuck into replacing the tube and patching the puncture.
While we were in the middle of it, a car stopped next to us, and the people inside us asked if we needed any help. Long story short, we ended up with an offer for a place to stay for the night, as it was getting dark. We actually fixed a few more things on Sundance's bike while we were at it, including replacing the worn-down brake pads. Actually, a completely random passer-by provided us with the replacement ones, after asking if we needed anything at all and Sundance jokingly said "new brake pads". We can really tell we're back in Kentucky. Somehow the people here are really particularly friendly. It seems to be a thing that Kentucky takes pride in.
In any case, here we are, hanging out at the place of Tracey and Tom, who are our current gracious hosts. We're really overdue to do some proper roughing it again soon, though it is always a blessing when someone offers us some turf to surf on.
After our rest stop at the St Meinrad abbey we headed out of town, straight into a headwind of epic proportions, a headwind so strong that we had to pedal to roll downhill, and Yana got blown off balance a couple of times when the road changed directions and the headwind became a sidewind. It. Was. Not. Fun.
Eventually we made it to the town of Santa Claus. Yup, that's what the town is actually called. As we got there, and turned onto the main road Sundance noticed a rattling noise coming from the back of his bike - the plastic cover plate that sits on the back wheel between the spokes and the rear gear cluster had come loose. So we pulled up at a service station, and then got directions to a hardware store where Sundance was able to borrow a drill and some tools to make some holes and wire the offending plate into position. And just then it started raining! So we dashed into the hardware store, hung out with the friendly staff, and eventually donned our wet weather gear and set off into the rain.
At the top of a hill, we pulled off the road under a church's picnic shelter to adjust our gear. As we were getting organised, a local fellow who introduced himself as Gerald pulled up and told us that since the weather was so nasty we could camp out in his shed. He gave us instructions to his house, and after a bit of discussion we decided that having stayed with several folks in Ohio and Kentucky, it'd de nice to sample some Hoosier hospitality. We arrived at his house a little later, having passed the 1600 km mark of our journey just a few metres from his front gate, and he proudly showed us his shed including a beautifully-restored tractor built in 1940, and the old carburetor he was soaking in acid to clean off the old grease and paint and gunk. He introduced us to his wife Debbie as well as their daughter and her best friend (who was pretty impressed to meet a couple of real Australians). They had a son, too, but he was out hunting at the time. He turned out to be a very enthusiastic bow-hunter, which we kinda respected. Hunting with a bow seems like "authentic" hunting, even if the bows used these days are not exactly stone-age technology. In any case, we were given sweetcorn and beans and offered home-grown barbequed pork. And then we fell asleep on the comfy reclining sofa.
The next day the weather had improved substantially, and we hoped to hit the road, but Sundance decided that his rear brakes needed to be adjusted, and during this process one of the springs in the brakes turned out to be broken. So he and Gerald got to work bending a piece of wire to make a replacement spring. By the time the brakes were repaired and adjusted we decided it was too late to make any real progress so we hopped in the truck with Gerald, who drove us to Tell City to buy groceries. With these, we set out to make a wholemeal pizza and some nachos for Halloween dinner, since it was Halloween night and we wanted to feed our gracious hosts to thank them for their hospitality.
We spent most of the evening cooking, and it seemed that most of our food was well-received. Quite a few people had come around to visit, and it turned out to be a very pleasant evening. Sundance even learned how to play Beer Pong, although he didn't participate in the drinking, as he avoids alcohol. Eventually though, we decided to turn in, as it was getting late. As Gerald and Debbie's daughter was spending the night elsewhere, we actually got bundled off to the two twin beds in her room. Certainly not complaining.
The next morning, we went about the slow process of getting ready to leave. Admittedly, we got waylaid by things such as the extremely cute puppy that Gerald had acquired the week before, and which was dogging our feet, no pun intended. We finally got going in the early afternoon. We stopped briefly a little after the town of Lamar, as we hoped to get a better look at the herd of bison which lived in the paddock there. We'd gotten a brief look at them the previous day, heading into Tell City to get groceries, but they were apparently hiding when we came by again on our bikes. A little further along, we passed the 1608 km mark, which meant we'd travelled 1000 miles since we set out on our journey one month before.
We continued along the road, over some extremely steep hills, and past an extremely friendly Golden Retriever who came and said hi while we were briefly stopped along the way. Afterwards, we actually kept up a fairly steady pace, though Yana's back tyre was losing air, and we established that the little tyre pressure gauge we had gotten the previous day was in fact ineffective and a complete waste of money. We pushed on to the town of Rockport. At this point, Yana's back tyre was completely flat, so we had to stop and go through the patching procedure. We did have some Mexican food for dinner first though, and once we had finished with the tyre, we went in search of somewhere to pitch our tent. We followed a local's advice and went down one of the larger roads where there was supposedly a campsite. We did find an RV park, though it was obviously not intended for tents. However, the caretaker was happy to have us pitch our tent on a patch of grass next to his RV, which was nice. We got ourselves set up pretty quickly, and turned in, warmly wrapped up in preparation for the frost that had been predicted for the night.
We slept comfortably enough, though the frost did indeed come, as we discovered the next morning. There were still some things we needed to fix up on our bikes before we left, but leave we did, eventually. We stopped briefly on the riverfront to have a look at the caves that some locals had told us about. It was pretty enough, though not necessarily that impressive. We rode on to Owensboro, crossing the bridge back into Kentucky as we did so. We went in search of a grocery store, and found a Kroger, where we managed to stock up on some more packet curries for camping. We then decided to head out of town and towards the next state park. Unfortunately, just as we were reaching the outskirts of Owensboro, we both were treated to the sound of a loud pop, followed by a merry hissing noise from Sundance's tyre. Yep, another one. We wheeled our bikes into the parking lot of the Dollar General store we had just gone past, and got stuck into replacing the tube and patching the puncture.
While we were in the middle of it, a car stopped next to us, and the people inside us asked if we needed any help. Long story short, we ended up with an offer for a place to stay for the night, as it was getting dark. We actually fixed a few more things on Sundance's bike while we were at it, including replacing the worn-down brake pads. Actually, a completely random passer-by provided us with the replacement ones, after asking if we needed anything at all and Sundance jokingly said "new brake pads". We can really tell we're back in Kentucky. Somehow the people here are really particularly friendly. It seems to be a thing that Kentucky takes pride in.
In any case, here we are, hanging out at the place of Tracey and Tom, who are our current gracious hosts. We're really overdue to do some proper roughing it again soon, though it is always a blessing when someone offers us some turf to surf on.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Moving to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches...
Total distance travelled: 1984.0km
By Yana (mostly):
Time to be as brief as is possible, considering the way this blog has been going.
The last time we checked in, we were leaving our gracious host, Tracy, in Owensboro. We headed through some pretty country side, and into the nifty little town of Sebree a little bit after nightfall. Apart from a kangaroo-themed petrol station, we also found accommodation in the form of the First Baptist church. The Pastor, Bob, and his lovely wife Violet not only put us up for the night, but insisted on feeding us a most excellent spread. Their church, as it turns out, has hosted many cyclists crossing the country. One of the recent people this year was a fellow riding around the world on a Penny Farthing, of all things! Proof that there is always someone more hardcore than you out there, I guess. But we could say the same thing about a family of three who had passed through as well, riding along on a bike they had made to hold all three of them.
The next day, we had a reasonably frustrating time getting ahead, as we were slowed down by things such as rescuing a praying mantis on the road, and me losing my rear blinky light, which Sundance rode a few miles back to retrieve. We ended up finding a free primitive campground at a place called Mauzie Lake.
We managed to make a nice early start the following day, and rode into the town of Morganfield. We hoped to find some information at the local fire station/cop shop about the bike trail and its various rest houses leading through the US, but no dice - the folk there had never heard of it before. So onwards we went, and crossed the border into Illinois, where we rode on to Shawneetown. At the petrol station there, we randomly met Tom, a well-preserved 60-something ex-doctor, now author who decided to stick our bikes in the back of his ute and take us on a joyride/guided tour, first through Old Shawneetown, then to his place, where we made our sandwiches for lunch. We then made to ride through the Shawnee National Forest, and Tom suggested we stay with his stepson Kyle for the night. This sounded like a good idea to us, but the directions Tom gave us proved to not be the best, much as he himself seems to be quite a champion. We found a place that seemed to be in the right general area, but it was locked. After some crossing of fields and spider-walking under barbed wire fences in the dark, we met an elderly lady who put us in contact with her granddaughter, Jamie. Originally, we had only meant to get directions from Jamie, who has lived in the area her whole life. Instead, she offered us a place to stay, as it was already dark and apparently there were cougars. So we accepted, made a Mexican-style pizza for dinner, and hit the sack fairly shortly afterwards.
Next morning, we got to meet Jamie's boyfriend Eric. While Jamie had to go to work, Eric stuck us in his car and drove us to the Garden of the Gods, a very nifty bit of rocky geography in the area. Sundance climbed up various bits of rocks, including what they call the Devil's Smokestack. Many very nifty photos were taken. Then, at midday, we hopped on our bikes and continued to head through the Shawnee National Forest. It was more scenic and less disappointing than the Hoosier National Forest, although every bit as obnoxiously hilly, and our legs were killing us by the end of the day. We had considered stopping at Cave in Rock, where pirates had once lived on the river, but it turned out to be a bit too much of a detour over uncertain terrain, so we just shot through Elizabethtown for lunch. There we discovered just how horrible canned spinach is, before we rode on and stopped in Golconda just as night was falling around us. We had only done 46km or so, but they had been hard, as we had dealt with a powerful headwind and many hills. We'd meant to just grab a meal and then keep going in the dark, but the friendly folk at the local pub (The Sweetwater Saloon) convinced us otherwise, and we ended up staying with a fellow named Butch, which of course tickled us. We didn't get a chance to get a photo of Butch and Sundance together, but never mind.
We managed another fairly early start in the morning, and laboured up a couple of steep-ish hills. We were once again dealing with a monster headwind, but it was a lovely sunny day, and the scenery flattened out and was really quite beautiful. We saw quite a few turkeys crossing the road, and also had a brief chat with a fellow in boat on a little river we crossed. We pushed onwards into the little town of Unionville, having now turned so that the headwind was a crosswind, and it was generally much better. We filled up our waterbladders there, and then went on to Brookport, where we crossed the bridge back into Paducah, Kentucky.
Amusingly, while asking for directions to the nearest grocery store, I had an unexpected encounter with a young fellow in his undies. As there were no open businesses to be seen where we had stopped, I decided to knock on the next-best residential door. No answer the first time, and the second time I knocked, I heard an irritable "Come in!", so I let myself in as politely as possible. After sticking my head into various rooms, I bumped into the owner of said voice, who was most surprised to see me, rather than his parents. Our conversation went something like this:
Him: Oh, sorry, I thought you were my parents.
Me: Nope, can't say I am, sorry.
We cut to the chase though, and he gave me some decent directions, so I let myself out of the house, not being able to suppress a little chuckle at the whole scene.
By the time we were ready to leave Paducah, it was getting dark, but we persevered nonetheless to the teensy little town of Kevil. Turned out there was nothing there, but a local family was happy for us to turf surf (i.e. set up our tent) in their backyard, so we did. We then managed another early start the following morning, but discovered a decent-sized technical problem: a big chunk of metal Sundance had ridden over in the dark the previous night had actually managed to split the rim of his rear wheel lengthwise. We rode into the next town, La Center and stopped at a service station, for it was clear the split in Sundance's rear wheel rim it was getting worse by the minute.
We asked a woman (Cheryl) who worked at the servo whether there was abike shop around, and after some checking phone books teh answer seemed to be "no, and even the one back in Paducah is closed as it's Sunday". Sundance decided the only option was to swap wheel rims, so that the split rim was on the front where it didn't take so much weight then ride on to the next place we could find a bike shop, and set about undoing spokes and swapping the rims over. This process took all day and attracted a lot of attention. A group of local bikies who were out riding on their Harley Davidsons were very impressed by our tales of travelling from Canada and heading for California.
The Chinese say that a poor man must stand on a hillside for a long time with his mouth open before a roast duck flies in. Whatever that means, by the end of the day a passer-by had donated an entire new front wheel, and Cheryl had provided us with extra tools, metal-repair cement, and an offer to turf-surf at her family's farm. When the wheel was reinstalled we hopped on our bikes, rode to a store to get some pasta and sauce for dinner, and pedalled out in the dark to Cheryl's.
Being an impromptu roadside repair job, the rear wheel was a bit lop-sided and badly balanced and so Sundance got a ride into Paducah the following morning to get the wheel professionally balanced and aligned. While there, he bumped into a journalist for the local newspaper, The Paducah Sun, who was doing a story abut people who ride bicycles a lot, he got interviewed, and after returning to Cheryl's place we found ourselves being visited by a photographer - so we're going to be in the newspaper this coming weekend! By that time it was a bit late to set off, so we decided to cook Cheryl's family dinner (she had some frozen Tilapia, a type of fish) which we accompanied with broccoli, scooped-out potatoes, marinated sauteed mushrooms, and mixed brown-and-wild rice. They had, after all, been filling us up with delicious canned home-grown peaches until they came out of our eyeballs (yum yum YUMMY!) and letting us stay in their campervan/RV parked in the backyard.
Ummm, oops... so much for brevity.
Today, after packing our stuff, we finally got back on the road, and are now sitting in the town of Wickliffe, in sight of the Mississippi for the first time this trip. Daylight savings has ended here, so the sun is setting earlier in the day, so it seems fitting to note that when the Sun goes down and the tide goes out, they all gather 'round and they all begin to shout...
By Yana (mostly):
Time to be as brief as is possible, considering the way this blog has been going.
The last time we checked in, we were leaving our gracious host, Tracy, in Owensboro. We headed through some pretty country side, and into the nifty little town of Sebree a little bit after nightfall. Apart from a kangaroo-themed petrol station, we also found accommodation in the form of the First Baptist church. The Pastor, Bob, and his lovely wife Violet not only put us up for the night, but insisted on feeding us a most excellent spread. Their church, as it turns out, has hosted many cyclists crossing the country. One of the recent people this year was a fellow riding around the world on a Penny Farthing, of all things! Proof that there is always someone more hardcore than you out there, I guess. But we could say the same thing about a family of three who had passed through as well, riding along on a bike they had made to hold all three of them.
The next day, we had a reasonably frustrating time getting ahead, as we were slowed down by things such as rescuing a praying mantis on the road, and me losing my rear blinky light, which Sundance rode a few miles back to retrieve. We ended up finding a free primitive campground at a place called Mauzie Lake.
We managed to make a nice early start the following day, and rode into the town of Morganfield. We hoped to find some information at the local fire station/cop shop about the bike trail and its various rest houses leading through the US, but no dice - the folk there had never heard of it before. So onwards we went, and crossed the border into Illinois, where we rode on to Shawneetown. At the petrol station there, we randomly met Tom, a well-preserved 60-something ex-doctor, now author who decided to stick our bikes in the back of his ute and take us on a joyride/guided tour, first through Old Shawneetown, then to his place, where we made our sandwiches for lunch. We then made to ride through the Shawnee National Forest, and Tom suggested we stay with his stepson Kyle for the night. This sounded like a good idea to us, but the directions Tom gave us proved to not be the best, much as he himself seems to be quite a champion. We found a place that seemed to be in the right general area, but it was locked. After some crossing of fields and spider-walking under barbed wire fences in the dark, we met an elderly lady who put us in contact with her granddaughter, Jamie. Originally, we had only meant to get directions from Jamie, who has lived in the area her whole life. Instead, she offered us a place to stay, as it was already dark and apparently there were cougars. So we accepted, made a Mexican-style pizza for dinner, and hit the sack fairly shortly afterwards.
Next morning, we got to meet Jamie's boyfriend Eric. While Jamie had to go to work, Eric stuck us in his car and drove us to the Garden of the Gods, a very nifty bit of rocky geography in the area. Sundance climbed up various bits of rocks, including what they call the Devil's Smokestack. Many very nifty photos were taken. Then, at midday, we hopped on our bikes and continued to head through the Shawnee National Forest. It was more scenic and less disappointing than the Hoosier National Forest, although every bit as obnoxiously hilly, and our legs were killing us by the end of the day. We had considered stopping at Cave in Rock, where pirates had once lived on the river, but it turned out to be a bit too much of a detour over uncertain terrain, so we just shot through Elizabethtown for lunch. There we discovered just how horrible canned spinach is, before we rode on and stopped in Golconda just as night was falling around us. We had only done 46km or so, but they had been hard, as we had dealt with a powerful headwind and many hills. We'd meant to just grab a meal and then keep going in the dark, but the friendly folk at the local pub (The Sweetwater Saloon) convinced us otherwise, and we ended up staying with a fellow named Butch, which of course tickled us. We didn't get a chance to get a photo of Butch and Sundance together, but never mind.
We managed another fairly early start in the morning, and laboured up a couple of steep-ish hills. We were once again dealing with a monster headwind, but it was a lovely sunny day, and the scenery flattened out and was really quite beautiful. We saw quite a few turkeys crossing the road, and also had a brief chat with a fellow in boat on a little river we crossed. We pushed onwards into the little town of Unionville, having now turned so that the headwind was a crosswind, and it was generally much better. We filled up our waterbladders there, and then went on to Brookport, where we crossed the bridge back into Paducah, Kentucky.
Amusingly, while asking for directions to the nearest grocery store, I had an unexpected encounter with a young fellow in his undies. As there were no open businesses to be seen where we had stopped, I decided to knock on the next-best residential door. No answer the first time, and the second time I knocked, I heard an irritable "Come in!", so I let myself in as politely as possible. After sticking my head into various rooms, I bumped into the owner of said voice, who was most surprised to see me, rather than his parents. Our conversation went something like this:
Him: Oh, sorry, I thought you were my parents.
Me: Nope, can't say I am, sorry.
We cut to the chase though, and he gave me some decent directions, so I let myself out of the house, not being able to suppress a little chuckle at the whole scene.
By the time we were ready to leave Paducah, it was getting dark, but we persevered nonetheless to the teensy little town of Kevil. Turned out there was nothing there, but a local family was happy for us to turf surf (i.e. set up our tent) in their backyard, so we did. We then managed another early start the following morning, but discovered a decent-sized technical problem: a big chunk of metal Sundance had ridden over in the dark the previous night had actually managed to split the rim of his rear wheel lengthwise. We rode into the next town, La Center and stopped at a service station, for it was clear the split in Sundance's rear wheel rim it was getting worse by the minute.
We asked a woman (Cheryl) who worked at the servo whether there was abike shop around, and after some checking phone books teh answer seemed to be "no, and even the one back in Paducah is closed as it's Sunday". Sundance decided the only option was to swap wheel rims, so that the split rim was on the front where it didn't take so much weight then ride on to the next place we could find a bike shop, and set about undoing spokes and swapping the rims over. This process took all day and attracted a lot of attention. A group of local bikies who were out riding on their Harley Davidsons were very impressed by our tales of travelling from Canada and heading for California.
The Chinese say that a poor man must stand on a hillside for a long time with his mouth open before a roast duck flies in. Whatever that means, by the end of the day a passer-by had donated an entire new front wheel, and Cheryl had provided us with extra tools, metal-repair cement, and an offer to turf-surf at her family's farm. When the wheel was reinstalled we hopped on our bikes, rode to a store to get some pasta and sauce for dinner, and pedalled out in the dark to Cheryl's.
Being an impromptu roadside repair job, the rear wheel was a bit lop-sided and badly balanced and so Sundance got a ride into Paducah the following morning to get the wheel professionally balanced and aligned. While there, he bumped into a journalist for the local newspaper, The Paducah Sun, who was doing a story abut people who ride bicycles a lot, he got interviewed, and after returning to Cheryl's place we found ourselves being visited by a photographer - so we're going to be in the newspaper this coming weekend! By that time it was a bit late to set off, so we decided to cook Cheryl's family dinner (she had some frozen Tilapia, a type of fish) which we accompanied with broccoli, scooped-out potatoes, marinated sauteed mushrooms, and mixed brown-and-wild rice. They had, after all, been filling us up with delicious canned home-grown peaches until they came out of our eyeballs (yum yum YUMMY!) and letting us stay in their campervan/RV parked in the backyard.
Ummm, oops... so much for brevity.
Today, after packing our stuff, we finally got back on the road, and are now sitting in the town of Wickliffe, in sight of the Mississippi for the first time this trip. Daylight savings has ended here, so the sun is setting earlier in the day, so it seems fitting to note that when the Sun goes down and the tide goes out, they all gather 'round and they all begin to shout...
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Chasey with Casey
Total distance: 2001.7 km
A quick post update here, as we have internet access again. We forgot to mention an amusing aspect of the departure from Cheryl's place at La Center yesterday. One of the dogs who lives at her place, named Casey, decided to run along with our bikes - and apparently decided to come to California with us. It was good to be chased by a good-natured dog, who wasn't trying to eat us, but after more than a mile we decided we'd better call Cheryl and tell her to come in her car and collect Casey if she ever wanted to see her again. That was quite amusing and put us in a very good mood, as we rode along the delightfully flat countryside with a fair tailwind, before pulling into Wickliffe, posting yesterday's blog update, and heading down to the banks of the Mississippi. Here's a couple of pictures of us with Kentucky on the right, the bridge to Illinois in the background, and Missouri on the left.
As the sun had set, and one of our headlights was malfunctioning, we decided we should try to find a place to turf-surf promptly. After being turned away at a place by an old man who said his wife thought we we burglars, we arrived at a house which turned out to be the home of a state trooper, Clint, and his wife Valerie and their daughter Taylor. Taylor was very impressed to meet people from another country, and we stayed up late talking about everything, and being shown her pet hermit crab. It was also nice to meet a young girl who is very smart (doing well at science and maths), as well as athletic and interested in her health. Kids like that make you hope that they get every opportunity for a good education and a bright future. Clint also showed us a possum he'd captured after it had been eating their catfood. American possums are nowhere near as cute as Aussie possums - they're like a cross between a Tasmanian Devil and a ring-tailed possum. Eventually we crawled into our tent (glad to see that it hadn't been shredded by the numerous kittens in the yard who thought climbing up the tent was the most fun they'd had in weeks), and awoke to be greeted by cows staring curiously at our tent from over the fence around their paddock.
For there is surely nothing more beautiful in this world, than the sight of a lone man facing single-handedly, a half-a-ton of angry pot-roast.
By Sundance:
A quick post update here, as we have internet access again. We forgot to mention an amusing aspect of the departure from Cheryl's place at La Center yesterday. One of the dogs who lives at her place, named Casey, decided to run along with our bikes - and apparently decided to come to California with us. It was good to be chased by a good-natured dog, who wasn't trying to eat us, but after more than a mile we decided we'd better call Cheryl and tell her to come in her car and collect Casey if she ever wanted to see her again. That was quite amusing and put us in a very good mood, as we rode along the delightfully flat countryside with a fair tailwind, before pulling into Wickliffe, posting yesterday's blog update, and heading down to the banks of the Mississippi. Here's a couple of pictures of us with Kentucky on the right, the bridge to Illinois in the background, and Missouri on the left.
Around sunset (which is extremely red and pretty), on our way south from Wickliffe we also crossed the 2000 km mark of our journey. Hooray! That made us feel very accomplished.
For there is surely nothing more beautiful in this world, than the sight of a lone man facing single-handedly, a half-a-ton of angry pot-roast.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Gratuituous image post!
By Yana:
This time I swear the actual writing will be in a nutshell, and the majority of this post will consist of various photos we have taken along the trip. We have taken over 1000 by now, of course, so there's no way we could post all of them, but a few will pop up now and then.
Our course to where we are now has taken us to Hickman, where we crossed the ferry into Missouri, came back, then rode into Tennessee, thus having achieved three states in one day. It was a tough day, but we did it. Then it was off to Tiptonville, where we spent the night put up by the wonderful Ruben and Tina Rodriguez, who own the Reelfoot Lake Inn. Next morning, we saw our first cotton fields and rode through a lot of flat countryside. A little bit after it got dark, we turf surfed with a friendly couple and their numerous cats. The following day, we pushed ourselves to one of our longest days yet (only the ride into Cleveland has this one beaten), and made it into Memphis, where we are now comfortably couch surfing/turf surfing while waiting for our muscles to recuperate, as we're both pretty stiff and sore. Once we have run a few errands and seen a few sights, we will continue.
Photos!
Yes, the things one learns on the road...
What can I say? Huge rusty old chevies are love.
A bit of barren landscape that pleases the eye...
Crossing the mighty Mississippi.
This time I swear the actual writing will be in a nutshell, and the majority of this post will consist of various photos we have taken along the trip. We have taken over 1000 by now, of course, so there's no way we could post all of them, but a few will pop up now and then.
Our course to where we are now has taken us to Hickman, where we crossed the ferry into Missouri, came back, then rode into Tennessee, thus having achieved three states in one day. It was a tough day, but we did it. Then it was off to Tiptonville, where we spent the night put up by the wonderful Ruben and Tina Rodriguez, who own the Reelfoot Lake Inn. Next morning, we saw our first cotton fields and rode through a lot of flat countryside. A little bit after it got dark, we turf surfed with a friendly couple and their numerous cats. The following day, we pushed ourselves to one of our longest days yet (only the ride into Cleveland has this one beaten), and made it into Memphis, where we are now comfortably couch surfing/turf surfing while waiting for our muscles to recuperate, as we're both pretty stiff and sore. Once we have run a few errands and seen a few sights, we will continue.
Photos!
Clint does the macho thing with a possum that doesn't want to be stroked.
What can I say? Huge rusty old chevies are love.
Holiday home?
"Now, how best to navigate across the Mississippi..."
An empty little cabin on stilts. What it was for is anyone's guess.
Crossing the mighty Mississippi.
Proof that we were there, even if it was only for a very short jaunt.
Straight-horned bovines. What sort of evolutionary advantage they might serve is a mystery to us.
The light was against us at this point, but there you have it.
She's a master at posing. :-)
Ruben's handsome six-toed part-bobcat.
Ruben and Tina, in all their awesomeness. Go visit them, 'cause they rock!
Crappie Wireless Internet! Well, I suppose if it's false advertising, nobody will mind, right?
Pick a pod of cotton!
Cookin' in Memphis.
Nice comfy turf surf spot... it's actually the warmest we've been on this trip so far, not counting the times we slept indoors.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Riding in Memphis, riding with my wheels ten feet over Beale...
By Yana:
Okay, time to finally flesh out that last post, and the days that followed it.
Our stay in Hickman was reasonably pleasant, for the most part. We rolled in after dark, and rode up an absolutely obnoxious hill in order to get to the police station. There we asked about somewhere where we might be able to put up a tent. We established that there was a little mini-park with a gazebo within spitting distance, and the cops told us that should be just fine. But first, we wanted to have some dinner, so we left our bags at the cop shop, rolled back down the hill, and headed towards Hub's, which is basically The Restaurant in Hickman. Mostly a steakhouse, which was little use to us, what with our not eating beef at the moment. Luckily, they had other tasty things, and we had some absolutely delicious blackened alligator for our appetiser. It eclipsed the catfish and fajitas, though they were pretty good, too.
We headed back up the hill, and put up our tent on that little patch of grass, with a nearby dog barking at us all the way. Eventually, it shut up and we got to go to sleep. We woke up the next morning to the spectacular view of the bayou over the fenced-off cliff our little patch of grass was on. We spent quite a bit of time finding stuff out, but eventually headed to the ferry that would take us across the Mississippi into Missouri. It was a fun little experience, though we pretty much decided not to head onwards on the Missouri side. We did ride to the next little town, Dorena, which was little more than a cluster of houses and a church. Not even a general store. Obviously, religion is more important than physical sustenance.
Just as we were about to get back on the ferry across, Sundance got hit with a flat tyre. On the other side of the river, we discovered that there must have been spiky seedpods very like the three corner jacks we have in South Australia lying around. As Sundance changed his tyre, I examined mine and dug out a spike myself. As it turned out, the spike had actually stopped up the hole it had created, so once I had it out, my tyre began to hiss loudly, and I had to change as well. Great. Not surprisingly, that chewed up more time than we would have liked. It was getting quite late in the day, but we had to grab some groceries. The sun was getting a tad low as we rolled out of Hickman, but we managed to reach the state border with Tennessee with a little bit of light to spare. The photo we got of ourselves at the border leaves quite a bit to be desired, but oh well.
We powered on into the cutely named Tiptonville, where we headed back and forth for a bit, trying to find accommodation. We tried the police station thing, and they made a few calls for us, asking if any of the local businesses would mind us putting a tent up in their backyard. The awesome folks from the Reelfoot Lake Inn, Ruben and Tina, stepped up and offered a free continental breakfast to boot. Even better! We had some substandard pizza at one of the petrol stations for dinner, and then headed to the Inn. We were warmly welcomed by our gracious hosts, who ended up just sticking us into one of their rooms, on the house. It's sometimes a little hard to accept that kind of hospitality, but Ruben and Tina were quite firm and left little room for argument, so we had a very comfortable night indeed. :-) Of course, to show our gratitude, we must spread the gospel of their awesomeness. Seriously, go see them, they rock. We actually had a very nice chat with them over breakfast, and they also bestowed on us a matted print of Reelfoot Lake, as a bit of a souvenir. We will of course treasure it. We also got to meet their very attractive cats, one of which had six toes on each foot... very intriguing! Before we left, we all took photos of each other, and as you fair readers may remember, we posted one of our photos of Ruben and Tina in our last post. They certainly represented their state well in terms of hospitality. :-)
We got back on our bikes, and headed south-ish, first along the shores of the lake. It was actually very pretty, the conifers had turned a deep rusty red with the approaching winter, and you could sort of see the clubby feet of the trees that were standing in the water. We got at least one very nice photo there ourselves, which is always gratifying. We also saw a couple of egrets flying around... it gave us an appreciation for just how big those birds actually are.
Not much further along, we passed our first cotton field, which was pretty exciting. You hear so much about the south and the cotton farming, and the sordid history attached to it, but it's somehow now quite the same as riding past those actual cotton fields. Some of them had been harvested already, though there were quite a few fields still heavy with big balls of white fluff. We actually made a point of stopping to each pick a fluffy pod of cotton. It would have been so tempting to take along with us, but it's not like the quarantine folks would have let us take it into Australia, what with it being plant matter, and with seeds in it, to boot. Pity. Still, it was a new experience.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous, the road was flat, and there was next to no traffic, so it was absolutely wonderful for riding. We actually went on some slightly loopy bits though, and it turned out in the end that we had taken a bit of an unnecessary detour in order to bypass Dyersburg. We kind of prefer to circumnavigate cities, as they slow you down like crazy. We didn't manage to get into Ripley that night, though we were roughly level with the towns of Halls and Gates when we rapped on a stranger's door and asked for a spot of grass to pitch our tent. We were greeted by a ridiculously cute little lapdog puppy, and some friendly folks who were quite happy for us to pitch our tent. We did so, then sat ourselves under the carport and made some pasta for dinner. We were watched by the tribe of cats who hung around the backyard - there were at least seven of them. One of them had weirdly crinkled up ears, which we later found out was the result of some mites it had had in its ears a while back. There was another very ratty old fellow who must have been very handsome in his youth. It's old cats like that which kind of break the hearts of cat lovers such as ourselves, even when they unfortunately sneeze at you. Poor Sundance found himself covered in cat snot! At least it didn't get into our food.
We had a fairly comfy night, packed ourselves up, took some cute photos of our various critters, and said our farewells. We rode on into the town of Ripley, where things were getting significantly hilly for the first time in a while. We stopped at a grocery store to get some bread and bananas, and briefly got talking with a lady who was curious about our adventure. She actually insisted on helping us out with some money, and introduced herself as Joyce Marie Spencer, a nurse. It was kind of a funny little exchange, actually. As we spent less than twenty dollars that day, which is how much she gave us, we actually could say that we were so frugal we made a profit!
We powered onwards, as we were determined to get into Memphis that same day. We had been told by many people that Memphis was a really rough neighbourhood, but then, we'd heard the same about the area in Cincinnati where we stayed, so we weren't that worried, albeit a little wary nonetheless. As it was, there was no way we'd get to our destination before dark, and we actually found ourself on one horrible stretch of road. Two lanes, busy, and absolutely no shoulder for us to ride on for long stretches. At one point, an irate driver honked us off the road. We did eventually get past the nasty stretch though, paused for some chicken strips at a servo, and then rode to our destination, the DeCleyre co-op, where we could couch surf. We actually went along a beautiful eight-lane stretch, smooth as anything, well-lit, no traffic, going slightly downhill towards our destination. Bliss. It immediately put us in a positive set of mind towards Memphis, although Sundance had a very sore knee from all the pedalling and was literally aching to get to our destination and rest for the night.
We got some tofu at the nearby Kroger, as tofu is a bit of a staple food item at DeCleyre, and then rode the rest of the way to Ellsworth street, where we found the house without too much hassle. It turned out to be one of those thoroughly charming places, somewhat reminiscent of one of the share houses I lived in once, but larger and more organised. There were a few people flittering in and out of the front yard, where someone had set up a little campfire in a rusty wheelbarrow. Very photogenic. Amusingly, among the various seats around the fire where two wheelchairs and an old backseat from a car.
We met the various inhabitants of DeCleyre, including Lelyn, our moustache-wearing contact. We got stuck into preparing a communal meal with our tofu, and hung out with people for a little bit before deciding to just pitch our tent in the backyard, as things were still a bit too bright and lively in the house for our tastes at that time of night. It was actually quite a warm night, the warmest we'd had yet.
The next day dawned bright and warm and sunny, and we gleefully soaked up the warmth and vitamin D in the backyard. There was actually a hammock hanging in one of the trees in the front yard, which we both tried out. We also had some social time with the two house cats, a crotchety tortoise shell named Artemis, and a mischievous ginger named Prometheus.
By Sundance:
The day after we arrived, we just relaxed and enjoyed the warm weather, and I made some yoghurt, a pleasure i haven't had since leaving Canada. Although the prospect of relaxing for a whole other day was very tempting, I felt it necessary to get out and explore. So the next day I hopped on google maps, then hopped on my bike and went in search of a phone store where I could get a pre-paid US phone account to replace my old Canadian account. I was successsful at a T-mobile store, since I'd previously found Verizon to be useless in that regard. I also found a camping store where I had to restrain myself from going nuts and blowing our budget completely, and got a new silk liner for my sleeping bag (my old one was getting a bit long-in-the-tooth and had started to tear in places), and a new stuff-sack for my raincoat. I also discovered a health food supermarket and a few other interesting stores, before heading back to DeCleyre.
The following day Yana and I headed in the direction of the downtown district. We came across the other outlet of the camping store I'd visited previously, just in time for Yana to have another flat tyre, so we pulled into the camping store where they had a bike department and Yana fixed her tyre and bought a new, more comfortable seat while I bought more stuff-sacks, camp-stove fuel, and the like. The folks at the camping store recommended we have late lunch at a Greek-Korean place around the corner, which turned out to be closed, so we went off to a district where we'd heard there were good Vietnamese restaurants, and had some of that for lunch/dinner. On the way back to our residence we found that the Greek-Korean place was open, so we stopped in for a second course of nibblies.
The following day we returned from a ride, which had turned into late lunch at another Vietnamese place, to meet another couchsurfer, Callum, from Scotland, who was crossing the country on his motorbike. We chatted for a while, and a bit later, before we turned in for the evening, Callum told us he had been in touch with a local who had a car and could take us for a tour of downtown Memphis, so she came around and we all piled into her tiny car to go for a drive across the bridge into Arkansas, then stopped off at Beale street to wander around and briefly popped into a dreadful karaoke bar because Callum wanted to grab a beer.
The following day Yana and I headed on our bikes down to the waterfront to look around more in daylight. We passed the big pyramid-shaped convention/function centre on the riverfront, cruised down Main street and past the National Civil Rights Museum which was just closing as we arrived. Then we cruised past Beale street and decided to give it a second chance, which proved to be fruitful as we wound-up sampling various foods in a few different pubs/cafes, including seafood gumbo, some crumbed alligator, spicy prawns and chicken wings, a very nice pecan pie and key lime pie. We also heard some pretty good live music.
The following day we got bogged down with grocery shopping, posting some things we no longer need back to Australia, and getting (and installing) anti-puncture tyre-liners for our bikes. The next day we headed back to the National Civil Rights Museum, which is built in the motel where Dr. martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It was much more extensive than we expected, very informative, and we didn't get to see even half of it. If you ever go there, make sure you give yourself an entire day. It's worth it, and you'll need it.
We've stayed in Memphis much longer than we intended, and today we intend to head out of town, making a quick photo-op stop in front of Graceland on the way, and head into Mississippi. It's an interesting town, and it's nice to be in the home of The Blues, but at the same time I just can't wait to get on the road again.
Okay, time to finally flesh out that last post, and the days that followed it.
Our stay in Hickman was reasonably pleasant, for the most part. We rolled in after dark, and rode up an absolutely obnoxious hill in order to get to the police station. There we asked about somewhere where we might be able to put up a tent. We established that there was a little mini-park with a gazebo within spitting distance, and the cops told us that should be just fine. But first, we wanted to have some dinner, so we left our bags at the cop shop, rolled back down the hill, and headed towards Hub's, which is basically The Restaurant in Hickman. Mostly a steakhouse, which was little use to us, what with our not eating beef at the moment. Luckily, they had other tasty things, and we had some absolutely delicious blackened alligator for our appetiser. It eclipsed the catfish and fajitas, though they were pretty good, too.
We headed back up the hill, and put up our tent on that little patch of grass, with a nearby dog barking at us all the way. Eventually, it shut up and we got to go to sleep. We woke up the next morning to the spectacular view of the bayou over the fenced-off cliff our little patch of grass was on. We spent quite a bit of time finding stuff out, but eventually headed to the ferry that would take us across the Mississippi into Missouri. It was a fun little experience, though we pretty much decided not to head onwards on the Missouri side. We did ride to the next little town, Dorena, which was little more than a cluster of houses and a church. Not even a general store. Obviously, religion is more important than physical sustenance.
Just as we were about to get back on the ferry across, Sundance got hit with a flat tyre. On the other side of the river, we discovered that there must have been spiky seedpods very like the three corner jacks we have in South Australia lying around. As Sundance changed his tyre, I examined mine and dug out a spike myself. As it turned out, the spike had actually stopped up the hole it had created, so once I had it out, my tyre began to hiss loudly, and I had to change as well. Great. Not surprisingly, that chewed up more time than we would have liked. It was getting quite late in the day, but we had to grab some groceries. The sun was getting a tad low as we rolled out of Hickman, but we managed to reach the state border with Tennessee with a little bit of light to spare. The photo we got of ourselves at the border leaves quite a bit to be desired, but oh well.
We powered on into the cutely named Tiptonville, where we headed back and forth for a bit, trying to find accommodation. We tried the police station thing, and they made a few calls for us, asking if any of the local businesses would mind us putting a tent up in their backyard. The awesome folks from the Reelfoot Lake Inn, Ruben and Tina, stepped up and offered a free continental breakfast to boot. Even better! We had some substandard pizza at one of the petrol stations for dinner, and then headed to the Inn. We were warmly welcomed by our gracious hosts, who ended up just sticking us into one of their rooms, on the house. It's sometimes a little hard to accept that kind of hospitality, but Ruben and Tina were quite firm and left little room for argument, so we had a very comfortable night indeed. :-) Of course, to show our gratitude, we must spread the gospel of their awesomeness. Seriously, go see them, they rock. We actually had a very nice chat with them over breakfast, and they also bestowed on us a matted print of Reelfoot Lake, as a bit of a souvenir. We will of course treasure it. We also got to meet their very attractive cats, one of which had six toes on each foot... very intriguing! Before we left, we all took photos of each other, and as you fair readers may remember, we posted one of our photos of Ruben and Tina in our last post. They certainly represented their state well in terms of hospitality. :-)
We got back on our bikes, and headed south-ish, first along the shores of the lake. It was actually very pretty, the conifers had turned a deep rusty red with the approaching winter, and you could sort of see the clubby feet of the trees that were standing in the water. We got at least one very nice photo there ourselves, which is always gratifying. We also saw a couple of egrets flying around... it gave us an appreciation for just how big those birds actually are.
Not much further along, we passed our first cotton field, which was pretty exciting. You hear so much about the south and the cotton farming, and the sordid history attached to it, but it's somehow now quite the same as riding past those actual cotton fields. Some of them had been harvested already, though there were quite a few fields still heavy with big balls of white fluff. We actually made a point of stopping to each pick a fluffy pod of cotton. It would have been so tempting to take along with us, but it's not like the quarantine folks would have let us take it into Australia, what with it being plant matter, and with seeds in it, to boot. Pity. Still, it was a new experience.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous, the road was flat, and there was next to no traffic, so it was absolutely wonderful for riding. We actually went on some slightly loopy bits though, and it turned out in the end that we had taken a bit of an unnecessary detour in order to bypass Dyersburg. We kind of prefer to circumnavigate cities, as they slow you down like crazy. We didn't manage to get into Ripley that night, though we were roughly level with the towns of Halls and Gates when we rapped on a stranger's door and asked for a spot of grass to pitch our tent. We were greeted by a ridiculously cute little lapdog puppy, and some friendly folks who were quite happy for us to pitch our tent. We did so, then sat ourselves under the carport and made some pasta for dinner. We were watched by the tribe of cats who hung around the backyard - there were at least seven of them. One of them had weirdly crinkled up ears, which we later found out was the result of some mites it had had in its ears a while back. There was another very ratty old fellow who must have been very handsome in his youth. It's old cats like that which kind of break the hearts of cat lovers such as ourselves, even when they unfortunately sneeze at you. Poor Sundance found himself covered in cat snot! At least it didn't get into our food.
We had a fairly comfy night, packed ourselves up, took some cute photos of our various critters, and said our farewells. We rode on into the town of Ripley, where things were getting significantly hilly for the first time in a while. We stopped at a grocery store to get some bread and bananas, and briefly got talking with a lady who was curious about our adventure. She actually insisted on helping us out with some money, and introduced herself as Joyce Marie Spencer, a nurse. It was kind of a funny little exchange, actually. As we spent less than twenty dollars that day, which is how much she gave us, we actually could say that we were so frugal we made a profit!
We powered onwards, as we were determined to get into Memphis that same day. We had been told by many people that Memphis was a really rough neighbourhood, but then, we'd heard the same about the area in Cincinnati where we stayed, so we weren't that worried, albeit a little wary nonetheless. As it was, there was no way we'd get to our destination before dark, and we actually found ourself on one horrible stretch of road. Two lanes, busy, and absolutely no shoulder for us to ride on for long stretches. At one point, an irate driver honked us off the road. We did eventually get past the nasty stretch though, paused for some chicken strips at a servo, and then rode to our destination, the DeCleyre co-op, where we could couch surf. We actually went along a beautiful eight-lane stretch, smooth as anything, well-lit, no traffic, going slightly downhill towards our destination. Bliss. It immediately put us in a positive set of mind towards Memphis, although Sundance had a very sore knee from all the pedalling and was literally aching to get to our destination and rest for the night.
We got some tofu at the nearby Kroger, as tofu is a bit of a staple food item at DeCleyre, and then rode the rest of the way to Ellsworth street, where we found the house without too much hassle. It turned out to be one of those thoroughly charming places, somewhat reminiscent of one of the share houses I lived in once, but larger and more organised. There were a few people flittering in and out of the front yard, where someone had set up a little campfire in a rusty wheelbarrow. Very photogenic. Amusingly, among the various seats around the fire where two wheelchairs and an old backseat from a car.
We met the various inhabitants of DeCleyre, including Lelyn, our moustache-wearing contact. We got stuck into preparing a communal meal with our tofu, and hung out with people for a little bit before deciding to just pitch our tent in the backyard, as things were still a bit too bright and lively in the house for our tastes at that time of night. It was actually quite a warm night, the warmest we'd had yet.
The next day dawned bright and warm and sunny, and we gleefully soaked up the warmth and vitamin D in the backyard. There was actually a hammock hanging in one of the trees in the front yard, which we both tried out. We also had some social time with the two house cats, a crotchety tortoise shell named Artemis, and a mischievous ginger named Prometheus.
By Sundance:
The day after we arrived, we just relaxed and enjoyed the warm weather, and I made some yoghurt, a pleasure i haven't had since leaving Canada. Although the prospect of relaxing for a whole other day was very tempting, I felt it necessary to get out and explore. So the next day I hopped on google maps, then hopped on my bike and went in search of a phone store where I could get a pre-paid US phone account to replace my old Canadian account. I was successsful at a T-mobile store, since I'd previously found Verizon to be useless in that regard. I also found a camping store where I had to restrain myself from going nuts and blowing our budget completely, and got a new silk liner for my sleeping bag (my old one was getting a bit long-in-the-tooth and had started to tear in places), and a new stuff-sack for my raincoat. I also discovered a health food supermarket and a few other interesting stores, before heading back to DeCleyre.
The following day Yana and I headed in the direction of the downtown district. We came across the other outlet of the camping store I'd visited previously, just in time for Yana to have another flat tyre, so we pulled into the camping store where they had a bike department and Yana fixed her tyre and bought a new, more comfortable seat while I bought more stuff-sacks, camp-stove fuel, and the like. The folks at the camping store recommended we have late lunch at a Greek-Korean place around the corner, which turned out to be closed, so we went off to a district where we'd heard there were good Vietnamese restaurants, and had some of that for lunch/dinner. On the way back to our residence we found that the Greek-Korean place was open, so we stopped in for a second course of nibblies.
The following day we returned from a ride, which had turned into late lunch at another Vietnamese place, to meet another couchsurfer, Callum, from Scotland, who was crossing the country on his motorbike. We chatted for a while, and a bit later, before we turned in for the evening, Callum told us he had been in touch with a local who had a car and could take us for a tour of downtown Memphis, so she came around and we all piled into her tiny car to go for a drive across the bridge into Arkansas, then stopped off at Beale street to wander around and briefly popped into a dreadful karaoke bar because Callum wanted to grab a beer.
The following day Yana and I headed on our bikes down to the waterfront to look around more in daylight. We passed the big pyramid-shaped convention/function centre on the riverfront, cruised down Main street and past the National Civil Rights Museum which was just closing as we arrived. Then we cruised past Beale street and decided to give it a second chance, which proved to be fruitful as we wound-up sampling various foods in a few different pubs/cafes, including seafood gumbo, some crumbed alligator, spicy prawns and chicken wings, a very nice pecan pie and key lime pie. We also heard some pretty good live music.
The following day we got bogged down with grocery shopping, posting some things we no longer need back to Australia, and getting (and installing) anti-puncture tyre-liners for our bikes. The next day we headed back to the National Civil Rights Museum, which is built in the motel where Dr. martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It was much more extensive than we expected, very informative, and we didn't get to see even half of it. If you ever go there, make sure you give yourself an entire day. It's worth it, and you'll need it.
We've stayed in Memphis much longer than we intended, and today we intend to head out of town, making a quick photo-op stop in front of Graceland on the way, and head into Mississippi. It's an interesting town, and it's nice to be in the home of The Blues, but at the same time I just can't wait to get on the road again.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Gobble gobble gobble
Total distance: 2607.9 km
Irritatingly, we're having trouble uploading images on the computer we're currently using... oh well.... We shall have to update the photos of our exploits some other time. In a nutshell, here's what we've been up to:
En route out of Memphis we stopped briefly for a quick photo-op at the front grates of Graceland, which while interesting from a purely been-there-done-that perspective also made us glad we hadn't bothered to pay the entrance fee and look around - it seemed very tacky and commercial. We then continued south and crossed into Mississippi, stopped for dinner and met a waiter named Jesus (so we can say that We Have Found Jesus!) in a Mexican restaurant (he was a lovely fellow), and then headed into the countryside, and a town called Lake Cormorant, where we found ourselves a church yard to camp in. The next morning, we got up at the crack of dawn, and powered onwards through the day to Helena, Arkansas. We had arranged (via the website warmshowers.org) to meet up with Kevin, a local who arranged a place for us to stay for teh night. Kevin and his friend and Bart worked as a team to put us up in a very funky little work-in-progress building, where old window frames are restored. Bart's astructural engineer while Kevin, who works in insurance, has actually worked in politics and been trained by Al Gore to give presentations on global warming. We wound up having a great discussion with him over dinner (Mexican again) about science education, funding, and related topics. Kevin suggested we head to Mound Bayou back in Mississippi, to make use of one of his connections who might be able to help with our visas, so we might extend them for this trip. So after getting up the following morning, and meeting the John, owner of the Quapaw Canoe Company we went back across the river, and spent the night in Clarksdale, pitching our tent behind the Quapaw Canoe Company building. The following morning, we made another very early start, and powered into Mound Bayou, where we had our appointment, and we will find out over the phone on Monday what our options are. It was in Mound Bayou where we were led to a little general store called New Deal by a kid named Jeremy. We had our first ever serving of succotash there, which was delicious. Think tomato, okra, corn, onion, and an interesting sort of sweet spicy flavour. Prior to that, all we knew about succotash was that Sylvester the Cat said "Thufferin' Thuccotash!" a lot.We also ended up getting interviewed by the nearest newspaper, which was kind of fun, and met Julius Voss, a local plumber who offered us some space in his backyard to pitch our tent. We happily accepted, and rode the rest of the way to his place just outside Cleveland. As things transpired, the following day was Thanksgiving and Julius took us along to his various family Thanksgiving celebrations. We ate so much turkey it almost came out of our eyeballs, and Sundance discovered that he has a couple of extra stomachs reserved just for Pecan Pie. We truly got to experience Southern Hospitality in all its glory. The food was delicious, and the company was great, though there were too many names to remember. Even Julius admitted he doesn't remember all his relative's names.
Today, we got a slow start, partly because we wanted to see the newspaper. As it turned out, we were on the front page, which put a bit of a smile on our faces. In any case, it was mid-afternoon by the time we actually headed off, so we only clocked another 40km or so, but these things happen. At least the weather was pleasant, and the scenery was flat, and there was very little traffic.
As it started to get dark, we decided it would be best to find somewhere to turf surf. After two failed attempts, we came upon the house of Charles and Marida, who were happy to give us a little backyard space. :-) Speaking of which, it is very close to sleepy time now, so it must be time to crawl into the tent.
Next update next time we have internet access.
Irritatingly, we're having trouble uploading images on the computer we're currently using... oh well.... We shall have to update the photos of our exploits some other time. In a nutshell, here's what we've been up to:
En route out of Memphis we stopped briefly for a quick photo-op at the front grates of Graceland, which while interesting from a purely been-there-done-that perspective also made us glad we hadn't bothered to pay the entrance fee and look around - it seemed very tacky and commercial. We then continued south and crossed into Mississippi, stopped for dinner and met a waiter named Jesus (so we can say that We Have Found Jesus!) in a Mexican restaurant (he was a lovely fellow), and then headed into the countryside, and a town called Lake Cormorant, where we found ourselves a church yard to camp in. The next morning, we got up at the crack of dawn, and powered onwards through the day to Helena, Arkansas. We had arranged (via the website warmshowers.org) to meet up with Kevin, a local who arranged a place for us to stay for teh night. Kevin and his friend and Bart worked as a team to put us up in a very funky little work-in-progress building, where old window frames are restored. Bart's astructural engineer while Kevin, who works in insurance, has actually worked in politics and been trained by Al Gore to give presentations on global warming. We wound up having a great discussion with him over dinner (Mexican again) about science education, funding, and related topics. Kevin suggested we head to Mound Bayou back in Mississippi, to make use of one of his connections who might be able to help with our visas, so we might extend them for this trip. So after getting up the following morning, and meeting the John, owner of the Quapaw Canoe Company we went back across the river, and spent the night in Clarksdale, pitching our tent behind the Quapaw Canoe Company building. The following morning, we made another very early start, and powered into Mound Bayou, where we had our appointment, and we will find out over the phone on Monday what our options are. It was in Mound Bayou where we were led to a little general store called New Deal by a kid named Jeremy. We had our first ever serving of succotash there, which was delicious. Think tomato, okra, corn, onion, and an interesting sort of sweet spicy flavour. Prior to that, all we knew about succotash was that Sylvester the Cat said "Thufferin' Thuccotash!" a lot.We also ended up getting interviewed by the nearest newspaper, which was kind of fun, and met Julius Voss, a local plumber who offered us some space in his backyard to pitch our tent. We happily accepted, and rode the rest of the way to his place just outside Cleveland. As things transpired, the following day was Thanksgiving and Julius took us along to his various family Thanksgiving celebrations. We ate so much turkey it almost came out of our eyeballs, and Sundance discovered that he has a couple of extra stomachs reserved just for Pecan Pie. We truly got to experience Southern Hospitality in all its glory. The food was delicious, and the company was great, though there were too many names to remember. Even Julius admitted he doesn't remember all his relative's names.
Today, we got a slow start, partly because we wanted to see the newspaper. As it turned out, we were on the front page, which put a bit of a smile on our faces. In any case, it was mid-afternoon by the time we actually headed off, so we only clocked another 40km or so, but these things happen. At least the weather was pleasant, and the scenery was flat, and there was very little traffic.
As it started to get dark, we decided it would be best to find somewhere to turf surf. After two failed attempts, we came upon the house of Charles and Marida, who were happy to give us a little backyard space. :-) Speaking of which, it is very close to sleepy time now, so it must be time to crawl into the tent.
Next update next time we have internet access.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Friends in high places
Total distance: 2920.4 km
This past week we've been assisted by all sorts of helpful folks along the way. Nothing too unusual there, it must be said, but it's interesting and at times amusing that police, churches, Walmart managers, and town mayors have been helping us along our way, rather than just the usual folks we bump into in the street.
As you remember from last time, we had turf-surfed with Charles and Merida on our way out of Cleveland, Mississippi. Before we left in the morning they fed us breakfast (including corn grits, which for the curious is another name for polenta), and gave us numerous fresh eggplants, tomatillos, herbs and chillies from their veggie garden. We set out for Greenville, and unfortunately my water bladder slipped off the panier rack while we were riding, and the rear wheel rubbed straight through it causing a huge leak. That held us up for a little while, as we decanted the remaining water into other receptacles and I berated myself for not tying the bladder in place more carefully. We also figured out that you can crack pecans on bike handlebars, so we gobbled up some of them and then set off into Greenville. After a shopping trip at the local Kroger supermarket (while Yana was inside I bemused passers-by by doing stretches in front of the shop), we found a Walmart which stocked replacement water bladders. Now, I have to admit I don't love shopping at Walmart. The first time I bought something there I could hear a little sucking sound as a part of my soul got slurped out. But I have to admit that when you are just passing through a town it's very handy to be able to find everything in one store, rather than hunting around for a grocery store, a camping store, a hardware store, et cetera. After all this bally-hoo it was getting a bit late and we made our way to the State Welcome/Visitor Info Centre (built into an old wooden paddle-boat parked by the road), where we were able to get advice about road conditions, pitch our tent for the night, and I cooked up a scrummy eggplant and tomatillo curry. Ah, fresh ingredients!
The next morning it was raining, but soon that cleared and we made our way to the nearest bridge into Arkansas, determined to stamp-collect yet another "Welcome to ..." signpost in our photo album. In Arkansas we stopped off for lunch at a roadside cafe/restaurant before heading south towards the Louisiana border. We crossed into Louisiana, rode on into the night a bit, and after deciding that a few of the houses we passed looked a little dodgy (rusted-out cars in the yards, and so on) we pitched our tent behind a church for the night, and enjoyed another curry.
The following morning we were awoken by a thunderstorm at around 3 am. Since we were right next to a church steeple (those things tend to attract lightning strikes being tall and pointy) we crouched into fetal positions on our thermarests (to minimise our contact with the ground, and hence the risk of shocks from electricity grounding out near us) and waited for the storm to pass. Once we climbed out of the tent we made brekkie on the less windy side of the church building and rode south again, passing the Cotton Museum, which turned out to be fascinating. We saw lots of exhibits about how cotton was grown and picked, and collected many fallen pecans from the trees in their yard. And it was free. Bonus! We then proceeded to Lake Providence, where the Visitor's Centre lady allowed us to make lunch and put up our tent and sleeping bags to dry out. We proceeded on to Tallulah, and found that the Visitor's Centre there didn't have a place to pitch a tent. Plus there were no campgrounds in town. We dropped into the local police station, who called around, and finally got the mayor's permission for us to camp on the oval at the town civic centre.
The next morning, and indignant maintenance guy told us off for camping there, but we told him that we had the permission of the mayor himself. He told us he was going to speak to the mayor himself - and that's the last we ever saw of him. I fixed a flat tyre. We then rode east to Delta, intending to cross the old bridge back into Mississippi at Vicksburg, but found that the bridge was closed. The only bridge we could use was the interstate, where bicycles aren't allowed. The woman at the town hall phoned around and apparently you need two weeks advance arrangement and need to buy insurance to cross the old bridge. Pfah! We were just about to ride back to Tallulah and down to Natchez to cross there, when a local cop offered to escort us over the interstate bridge, so we set out to meet him, and with a police escort behind us, blue lights flashing, we rode like celebrities into Vicksburg! At the Welcome Centre there we were told that we might be able to camp behind the local Walmart, and so we made our way down to the shopping centre, asked the customer service people for permission, who asked them manager, who said yes, and so we set up our tent out the back, bought some fresh chicken and veggies, and proceeded to make dinner. When it started to rain we dashed under a parked semi-trailer for shelter, and thus bas born the dish known as Chicken Sub-Semi (a spicy blend of chicken, zucchini, and spring onions, served on rice).
Next morning we were again confronted by folks (somewhat more friendly this time) asking why we were camped where we were. We told them we had the manager's permission. Friends in high places. Then we decamped, and made our way past the tourist info centre at the other side of town. Here they told us that the roads down to our next port of call were quite busy, without much shoulder. It had also been several days since we'd showered, so they arranged for us to drop in at the YMCA, and use the facilities. By the time we got there and got showered it was getting late, but the friendly folks were more than happy for us to put our mattresses down in a meeting room and cook dinner at in their kitchen. So yes, you can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal... it really is fun to stay at the YMCA. Although we covered a grand total of only about 10 km that day.
It's worth noting that by this time we'd decided to keep heading south, to New Orleans. Our original goal was California, via Texas, New Nexico and Arizona, but the weather is starting to turn cold, so we have been aiming south more and more. We'll figure out where to go from New Orleans once we get there. Presumably Mexico. Near the coast, where it's warm. And then cut across to the west coast of the Panama isthmus somehow. Isthmus is such a great word. I love using it. Isthmus. Isthmus. Isthmus.
Having consulted Google Maps we found ourselves a backroad path towards Hazlehurst, which was very pretty and relaxing. It even included a trip down Fonsylvania rd (just think "Fonzie" and "Transylvania"). Another flat held us up while we fixed lunch by a lake, and then we cruised into the outskirts of Carpenter, where a nice old fellow called Neil let us set up our tent in one of his paddocks.
The following day we could hear strangely human wailing noises through the woods. It turned out to be Neil's herd of goats, who were carrying on while trying to mate and argue over food. After watching them get fed we set out for Hazlehurst once more, but after a little while discovered that Yana's front tyre was starting to wear thin, and the tube was bulging through ominously. We dropped the pressure in her tyre and made our way slowly to Hazlehurst where we obtained a new tyre at Walmart (I see a pattern developing here). While I was inside shopping, Yana got chatting to a woman who was very concerned about us, since it was supposed to snow overnight. She contacted the sheriff, who contacted a local church, and to cut along story short (too late!) the church wound up paying for us to stay in a hotel room last night. It did indeed snow, so it's nice that we were warm and comfy, but I am a little but put out at not getting to put our nice snow-rated expedition tent through its paces. I'm sure we'll get the chance though. And we should bust through the 3000 km mark of our journey either today or tomorrow.
By Sundance:
This past week we've been assisted by all sorts of helpful folks along the way. Nothing too unusual there, it must be said, but it's interesting and at times amusing that police, churches, Walmart managers, and town mayors have been helping us along our way, rather than just the usual folks we bump into in the street.
As you remember from last time, we had turf-surfed with Charles and Merida on our way out of Cleveland, Mississippi. Before we left in the morning they fed us breakfast (including corn grits, which for the curious is another name for polenta), and gave us numerous fresh eggplants, tomatillos, herbs and chillies from their veggie garden. We set out for Greenville, and unfortunately my water bladder slipped off the panier rack while we were riding, and the rear wheel rubbed straight through it causing a huge leak. That held us up for a little while, as we decanted the remaining water into other receptacles and I berated myself for not tying the bladder in place more carefully. We also figured out that you can crack pecans on bike handlebars, so we gobbled up some of them and then set off into Greenville. After a shopping trip at the local Kroger supermarket (while Yana was inside I bemused passers-by by doing stretches in front of the shop), we found a Walmart which stocked replacement water bladders. Now, I have to admit I don't love shopping at Walmart. The first time I bought something there I could hear a little sucking sound as a part of my soul got slurped out. But I have to admit that when you are just passing through a town it's very handy to be able to find everything in one store, rather than hunting around for a grocery store, a camping store, a hardware store, et cetera. After all this bally-hoo it was getting a bit late and we made our way to the State Welcome/Visitor Info Centre (built into an old wooden paddle-boat parked by the road), where we were able to get advice about road conditions, pitch our tent for the night, and I cooked up a scrummy eggplant and tomatillo curry. Ah, fresh ingredients!
The next morning it was raining, but soon that cleared and we made our way to the nearest bridge into Arkansas, determined to stamp-collect yet another "Welcome to ..." signpost in our photo album. In Arkansas we stopped off for lunch at a roadside cafe/restaurant before heading south towards the Louisiana border. We crossed into Louisiana, rode on into the night a bit, and after deciding that a few of the houses we passed looked a little dodgy (rusted-out cars in the yards, and so on) we pitched our tent behind a church for the night, and enjoyed another curry.
The following morning we were awoken by a thunderstorm at around 3 am. Since we were right next to a church steeple (those things tend to attract lightning strikes being tall and pointy) we crouched into fetal positions on our thermarests (to minimise our contact with the ground, and hence the risk of shocks from electricity grounding out near us) and waited for the storm to pass. Once we climbed out of the tent we made brekkie on the less windy side of the church building and rode south again, passing the Cotton Museum, which turned out to be fascinating. We saw lots of exhibits about how cotton was grown and picked, and collected many fallen pecans from the trees in their yard. And it was free. Bonus! We then proceeded to Lake Providence, where the Visitor's Centre lady allowed us to make lunch and put up our tent and sleeping bags to dry out. We proceeded on to Tallulah, and found that the Visitor's Centre there didn't have a place to pitch a tent. Plus there were no campgrounds in town. We dropped into the local police station, who called around, and finally got the mayor's permission for us to camp on the oval at the town civic centre.
The next morning, and indignant maintenance guy told us off for camping there, but we told him that we had the permission of the mayor himself. He told us he was going to speak to the mayor himself - and that's the last we ever saw of him. I fixed a flat tyre. We then rode east to Delta, intending to cross the old bridge back into Mississippi at Vicksburg, but found that the bridge was closed. The only bridge we could use was the interstate, where bicycles aren't allowed. The woman at the town hall phoned around and apparently you need two weeks advance arrangement and need to buy insurance to cross the old bridge. Pfah! We were just about to ride back to Tallulah and down to Natchez to cross there, when a local cop offered to escort us over the interstate bridge, so we set out to meet him, and with a police escort behind us, blue lights flashing, we rode like celebrities into Vicksburg! At the Welcome Centre there we were told that we might be able to camp behind the local Walmart, and so we made our way down to the shopping centre, asked the customer service people for permission, who asked them manager, who said yes, and so we set up our tent out the back, bought some fresh chicken and veggies, and proceeded to make dinner. When it started to rain we dashed under a parked semi-trailer for shelter, and thus bas born the dish known as Chicken Sub-Semi (a spicy blend of chicken, zucchini, and spring onions, served on rice).
Next morning we were again confronted by folks (somewhat more friendly this time) asking why we were camped where we were. We told them we had the manager's permission. Friends in high places. Then we decamped, and made our way past the tourist info centre at the other side of town. Here they told us that the roads down to our next port of call were quite busy, without much shoulder. It had also been several days since we'd showered, so they arranged for us to drop in at the YMCA, and use the facilities. By the time we got there and got showered it was getting late, but the friendly folks were more than happy for us to put our mattresses down in a meeting room and cook dinner at in their kitchen. So yes, you can get yourself clean, you can have a good meal... it really is fun to stay at the YMCA. Although we covered a grand total of only about 10 km that day.
It's worth noting that by this time we'd decided to keep heading south, to New Orleans. Our original goal was California, via Texas, New Nexico and Arizona, but the weather is starting to turn cold, so we have been aiming south more and more. We'll figure out where to go from New Orleans once we get there. Presumably Mexico. Near the coast, where it's warm. And then cut across to the west coast of the Panama isthmus somehow. Isthmus is such a great word. I love using it. Isthmus. Isthmus. Isthmus.
Having consulted Google Maps we found ourselves a backroad path towards Hazlehurst, which was very pretty and relaxing. It even included a trip down Fonsylvania rd (just think "Fonzie" and "Transylvania"). Another flat held us up while we fixed lunch by a lake, and then we cruised into the outskirts of Carpenter, where a nice old fellow called Neil let us set up our tent in one of his paddocks.
The following day we could hear strangely human wailing noises through the woods. It turned out to be Neil's herd of goats, who were carrying on while trying to mate and argue over food. After watching them get fed we set out for Hazlehurst once more, but after a little while discovered that Yana's front tyre was starting to wear thin, and the tube was bulging through ominously. We dropped the pressure in her tyre and made our way slowly to Hazlehurst where we obtained a new tyre at Walmart (I see a pattern developing here). While I was inside shopping, Yana got chatting to a woman who was very concerned about us, since it was supposed to snow overnight. She contacted the sheriff, who contacted a local church, and to cut along story short (too late!) the church wound up paying for us to stay in a hotel room last night. It did indeed snow, so it's nice that we were warm and comfy, but I am a little but put out at not getting to put our nice snow-rated expedition tent through its paces. I'm sure we'll get the chance though. And we should bust through the 3000 km mark of our journey either today or tomorrow.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Elf-help
Total distance: 2976.4 km
By Sundance:
Our list of helpful friends just keeps growing, last night we got taken in for the night - by Santa!
We set out yesterday morning from Hazlehurst, with patches of the night's snowfall peppering the trees and the roadside. It was extremely pretty, as our photos will attest when we get around to uploading them. At the moment our 'net connection is a bit slow so we'll wait until another day. We wound our way out of town along a back road and headed through the countryside along Monticello rd. We stopped briefly to check out Katie's Cake Shop (the thougt of pecan pie was making my mouth water) but Katie was busy having a family reunion and quite impolitely told us the shop was closed. So yar boo sucks to her! We rode on, enjoying the sunshine and the clear blue sky, stopped for sandwiches by the roadside and chatted about our expectations and plans for this trip, now that the cold weather has arrived and we may wind up travelling further south than we initially planned.
As we approached Monticello, a fellow in red trousers pulled up next to us, and asked us where we were travelling. It turned out he had walked across the USA for two-and-a-half years, and would love to help us out with accommodation and showers and food. He was also the Santa for the Monticello christmas parade, so we rode into Monticello, watched the parade, and then loaded our bikes into his and his wife's van to spend the night at their place.
So another wonderful act of generosity and kindness has dropped from the sky - we spent the night in a warm bed, had a good meal (plus french toast for breakfast this morning) and a nice discussion about life, travel, religious and political attitudes in the South, and more. Plus we got to watch a few episodes of 'Meet the Natives USA', a show about some polynesian islanders who visit America to learn about the differences and similarities between lifestyles in the two countries. That was kinda cool, since we are also travelling through the USA, having come from an island in the Pacific.
What's the opposite of "Bah, humbug!"?
By Sundance:
Our list of helpful friends just keeps growing, last night we got taken in for the night - by Santa!
We set out yesterday morning from Hazlehurst, with patches of the night's snowfall peppering the trees and the roadside. It was extremely pretty, as our photos will attest when we get around to uploading them. At the moment our 'net connection is a bit slow so we'll wait until another day. We wound our way out of town along a back road and headed through the countryside along Monticello rd. We stopped briefly to check out Katie's Cake Shop (the thougt of pecan pie was making my mouth water) but Katie was busy having a family reunion and quite impolitely told us the shop was closed. So yar boo sucks to her! We rode on, enjoying the sunshine and the clear blue sky, stopped for sandwiches by the roadside and chatted about our expectations and plans for this trip, now that the cold weather has arrived and we may wind up travelling further south than we initially planned.
As we approached Monticello, a fellow in red trousers pulled up next to us, and asked us where we were travelling. It turned out he had walked across the USA for two-and-a-half years, and would love to help us out with accommodation and showers and food. He was also the Santa for the Monticello christmas parade, so we rode into Monticello, watched the parade, and then loaded our bikes into his and his wife's van to spend the night at their place.
So another wonderful act of generosity and kindness has dropped from the sky - we spent the night in a warm bed, had a good meal (plus french toast for breakfast this morning) and a nice discussion about life, travel, religious and political attitudes in the South, and more. Plus we got to watch a few episodes of 'Meet the Natives USA', a show about some polynesian islanders who visit America to learn about the differences and similarities between lifestyles in the two countries. That was kinda cool, since we are also travelling through the USA, having come from an island in the Pacific.
What's the opposite of "Bah, humbug!"?
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Three! Three thousand kilometers, ah-hah-hah-ha!
Total distance: 3159.8km
We are getting so very close to the Gulf Coast now. But more on that later. As we currently have wireless coverage, I thought I'd fill y'all (tee-hee!) in on the last few days.
We left the abode of Rich the Santa and his clan quite late in the afternoon. It was one of those days when you start so late it seems almost stupid to go at all, especially as Rich and Shan had graciously offered that we could stay another night; however, the weather was just too gorgeous to waste, especially as the next day was supposed to be rainy.
Rich drove us back to the spot from where he had picked us up, and we unloaded our bikes next to the servo. We said our goodbyes, and then headed out onto the road. As we realised after a few kilometers, we were actually not taking the one we wanted, but one that was parallel, and would eventually lead in the wrong direction. Luckily, there were plenty of little connectors, and we got ourselves on track easily enough.
We actually went at a decent speed, considering the reasonably hilly terrain and surprisingly rough bitumen. I'm sure you've encountered the kind I'm talking about: the kind that seems to basically be small gravel all kind of glued together. Doesn't make such a difference in a car, but you do feel it on a bike, in terms of speed and effort. But I can gladly say that although some of those hills were kind of obnoxious, none of them were as bad as some of the ones we braved in southern Indiana and Illinois.
A little before sundown we passed the 3000-km-point of our journey, and paused for a brief celebratory photo, as has become out tradition. We were still a little way away from Columbia, which we had been aiming for, and so a little further on as it started to get dark we decided to try for a turf surf in the little smattering of houses we were riding through. I knocked on the door closest to us, and was greeted by a fellow named David, who was nice enough to let us pitch our tent. We found ourselves a decent spot and set up, and David wandered out for a chat. He showed us his greenhouse, in which he was quite successfully growing pineapples! That just impressed the socks off us, as we haven't had anywhere near that much luck with pineapples ourselves. He also had a banana tree, which kind of boggled us, considering the snow there had been only the day before! Yow! Mind you, the snow, as it turns out, was a total freak weather pattern. Anyway, David also generously bestowed on us a few of the oranges and lemons from his garden before trundling back inside. We made ourselves some dinner by the light of the greenhouse, admired the beautifully clear night sky, and then crawled into our tent.
As it turned out, the clear night sky had been horribly misleading, and the weather forecast quite accurate. During the night, it started raining with a gleeful vengeance, to the point of us being very grateful for our new and improved skill at putting up the tent, which stops the condensation from getting inside quite as much as it used to, now that we manage to keep the tent fly and the inner from actually touching. Still, it made for a soggy start, although we made do with it pretty well. We actually got going in less than three hours, which is pretty good for us on a wet start. We also put the art of making breakfast inside the tent into practice, which kept us warm and dry fairly nicely - even if it did involve a bit of squirming and contortions to move food and plates in and out of our packs within a very confined area.
Despite the continuing rain, the ride was actually quite pleasant, and the countryside beautiful. We were still going through hilly terrain, but there were enough trees to keep us sheltered from the wind, but also little enough for us to get some beautiful views as we cruised along the roads. We stopped in the town of Foxworth (at least, I hope that's what it was called, I'm not quite sure now) for what was meant to just be a toilet stop at the first petrol station/convenience store we found. Instead, we got waylaid by a friendly local who happened to arrive shortly after we did. As the rain decided to get heavier at that point, we decided that was fine, and the fellow insisted that we try some of the honey he had brought from his own bee hive, as well as some of the food offered by the store we were in, his treat.
As it turned out, the place was under new management, and they were very grateful that this bloke was enthusiastically evangelising their awesomeness. He was certainly very friendly, though we had to stifle a bit of a chuckle when he earnestly asked, "You two aren't treehuggers, are you?" Hee hee! Apparently he felt quite strongly about the breed of environmentalists who disapprove of cows for their methane production. We decided to be diplomatic about it, and he ended up giving us the jar of honey he had brought, which we thought was very nice of him. Very good honey, too. Certainly a nice change after the jar we had absentmindedly acquired in Ohio that was more corn syrup than honey. Ick. He left shortly afterwards, with our thanks. He actually offered us a place to stay the night, but we declined, as we hadn't traveled very far yet that day. We found out from one of the people running the place that he was known as Mr Jean.
Luckily, the rain eased up a little, although we of course knew better than to expect it to stop. We got back on our bikes, and rode on to Columbia, where we made a brief stop at Walmart for ginger snaps and some more bread. We then hopped onto State route 13 south, and headed towards Poplarville, where our warmshowers.com friend Steve was waiting for us. It took some riding into the night, but luckily the rain stopped. It made for a fairly full day, but we eventually made it into Poplarville, at which point we called Steve for further directions. We actually ended up accepting his offer to pick us up from there, as he was another eight miles or so further south. We did hesitate, what with wanting to maintain the integrity of having done the entire trip by bike, but we figured that in the worst case, we could just ride back to the point where he had picked us up, and continue from there.
Steve met us in a nearby park, and after our greetings, proceeded to help us load our gear into the back of his pick-up truck. We made a quick detour for some groceries, as we had not had dinner yet. It was a fairly short drive to his place, where we got to meet his wife Tanya and some of the various cats and dogs and other critters around the place. Tanya and Steve treated us to some wonderful vegetable soup and freshly squeezed satsuma orange juice - they had a tree in their garden heavy with fruit, so their citrus juicer was getting quite the work-out. The juice was absolutely delicious, by the way, it has left us quite tempted to get a satsuma tree of our own.
We made ourselves some dinner, and crawled into bed fairly shortly afterwards - it was quite late by then. The next day was planned to be a rest day, as the weather forecast was predicting heavy thunderstorms and the like. No thanks. We'd actually had grand plans of visiting the Stennis Space Center from there, Tanya even offered to drive us; but as it turns out, security has tightened, so it has to be done from the Welcome Centre further south. In the light of this, we decided to just stop by there on our way to New Orleans, and spent the day lazing around, only venturing out in the afternoon to meet the various other farmlife. Tanya, as it turns out, is the proud owner of several large mules, which she rides. There were also quite a few goats and chickens, not to mention more cats and dogs than you can poke a stick at. Tanya's cockatiels also kept us entertained, as they were quite constant chirpers. On of them, amusingly, is named after Russel Crowe.
That evening, Tanya cooked an absolutely wonderful gumbo, while Sundance and I picked a whole lot of satsumas off the tree to make more juice. Steve was apparently quite impressed with our tenacity, as it can be a bit of a tedious process. That being said, we were working in a bit of a production line, so it was all going very efficiently. In any case, as mentioned, the gumbo was delicious, and reaffirmed our plans to learn to make it ourselves. We packed up most of our gear, so we'd be able to make a reasonably early start the next morning. The tent was drying reasonably well, which was a blessing.
The next morning, Tanya treated us to a traditional southern breakfast of biscuits (that's scones, to non-Americans) and gravy, and I showed her how to poach eggs the old-fashioned way. Apparently, she plans to adopt that method, as it's not as messy as frying them in a non-teflon pan. The day was promising to be beautiful, all bright and warm and sunny, and Tanya did have the time to drive us back to the point where Steve had picked us up, which was wonderful of her. It certainly saved us some time. Even better, we found ourselves riding on a smooth road, with an absolutely glorious tailwind. We were comfortably cruising at 27-29km per hour! Absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately, when we stopped at our first junction for a short break, we discovered that Sundance's back tire had sprung a leak. Doh! We got it fixed up, but these things eat up valuable time, which is frustrating. Still, we got back on the fast track, to the point of the scenery getting that sort of look about it that suggests you can't be too far from the beach now. We stopped at another petrol station for some directions, only to realise upon our departure that the patch on Sundance's flat tire had come off! Argh! By the time that was fixed, it was dark, so we got the permission of the petrol station folk to put up our tent in the back. It will make for a noisy night, as we're right by a freeway, but hey. It's certainly very convenient that we have wireless internet here... hooray for linksys! But it's getting late, and tomorrow is going to be full day, as we plan to go onto a tour of the Stennis Space Center and still make it to New Orleans.
By Yana:
We are getting so very close to the Gulf Coast now. But more on that later. As we currently have wireless coverage, I thought I'd fill y'all (tee-hee!) in on the last few days.
We left the abode of Rich the Santa and his clan quite late in the afternoon. It was one of those days when you start so late it seems almost stupid to go at all, especially as Rich and Shan had graciously offered that we could stay another night; however, the weather was just too gorgeous to waste, especially as the next day was supposed to be rainy.
Rich drove us back to the spot from where he had picked us up, and we unloaded our bikes next to the servo. We said our goodbyes, and then headed out onto the road. As we realised after a few kilometers, we were actually not taking the one we wanted, but one that was parallel, and would eventually lead in the wrong direction. Luckily, there were plenty of little connectors, and we got ourselves on track easily enough.
We actually went at a decent speed, considering the reasonably hilly terrain and surprisingly rough bitumen. I'm sure you've encountered the kind I'm talking about: the kind that seems to basically be small gravel all kind of glued together. Doesn't make such a difference in a car, but you do feel it on a bike, in terms of speed and effort. But I can gladly say that although some of those hills were kind of obnoxious, none of them were as bad as some of the ones we braved in southern Indiana and Illinois.
A little before sundown we passed the 3000-km-point of our journey, and paused for a brief celebratory photo, as has become out tradition. We were still a little way away from Columbia, which we had been aiming for, and so a little further on as it started to get dark we decided to try for a turf surf in the little smattering of houses we were riding through. I knocked on the door closest to us, and was greeted by a fellow named David, who was nice enough to let us pitch our tent. We found ourselves a decent spot and set up, and David wandered out for a chat. He showed us his greenhouse, in which he was quite successfully growing pineapples! That just impressed the socks off us, as we haven't had anywhere near that much luck with pineapples ourselves. He also had a banana tree, which kind of boggled us, considering the snow there had been only the day before! Yow! Mind you, the snow, as it turns out, was a total freak weather pattern. Anyway, David also generously bestowed on us a few of the oranges and lemons from his garden before trundling back inside. We made ourselves some dinner by the light of the greenhouse, admired the beautifully clear night sky, and then crawled into our tent.
As it turned out, the clear night sky had been horribly misleading, and the weather forecast quite accurate. During the night, it started raining with a gleeful vengeance, to the point of us being very grateful for our new and improved skill at putting up the tent, which stops the condensation from getting inside quite as much as it used to, now that we manage to keep the tent fly and the inner from actually touching. Still, it made for a soggy start, although we made do with it pretty well. We actually got going in less than three hours, which is pretty good for us on a wet start. We also put the art of making breakfast inside the tent into practice, which kept us warm and dry fairly nicely - even if it did involve a bit of squirming and contortions to move food and plates in and out of our packs within a very confined area.
Despite the continuing rain, the ride was actually quite pleasant, and the countryside beautiful. We were still going through hilly terrain, but there were enough trees to keep us sheltered from the wind, but also little enough for us to get some beautiful views as we cruised along the roads. We stopped in the town of Foxworth (at least, I hope that's what it was called, I'm not quite sure now) for what was meant to just be a toilet stop at the first petrol station/convenience store we found. Instead, we got waylaid by a friendly local who happened to arrive shortly after we did. As the rain decided to get heavier at that point, we decided that was fine, and the fellow insisted that we try some of the honey he had brought from his own bee hive, as well as some of the food offered by the store we were in, his treat.
As it turned out, the place was under new management, and they were very grateful that this bloke was enthusiastically evangelising their awesomeness. He was certainly very friendly, though we had to stifle a bit of a chuckle when he earnestly asked, "You two aren't treehuggers, are you?" Hee hee! Apparently he felt quite strongly about the breed of environmentalists who disapprove of cows for their methane production. We decided to be diplomatic about it, and he ended up giving us the jar of honey he had brought, which we thought was very nice of him. Very good honey, too. Certainly a nice change after the jar we had absentmindedly acquired in Ohio that was more corn syrup than honey. Ick. He left shortly afterwards, with our thanks. He actually offered us a place to stay the night, but we declined, as we hadn't traveled very far yet that day. We found out from one of the people running the place that he was known as Mr Jean.
Luckily, the rain eased up a little, although we of course knew better than to expect it to stop. We got back on our bikes, and rode on to Columbia, where we made a brief stop at Walmart for ginger snaps and some more bread. We then hopped onto State route 13 south, and headed towards Poplarville, where our warmshowers.com friend Steve was waiting for us. It took some riding into the night, but luckily the rain stopped. It made for a fairly full day, but we eventually made it into Poplarville, at which point we called Steve for further directions. We actually ended up accepting his offer to pick us up from there, as he was another eight miles or so further south. We did hesitate, what with wanting to maintain the integrity of having done the entire trip by bike, but we figured that in the worst case, we could just ride back to the point where he had picked us up, and continue from there.
Steve met us in a nearby park, and after our greetings, proceeded to help us load our gear into the back of his pick-up truck. We made a quick detour for some groceries, as we had not had dinner yet. It was a fairly short drive to his place, where we got to meet his wife Tanya and some of the various cats and dogs and other critters around the place. Tanya and Steve treated us to some wonderful vegetable soup and freshly squeezed satsuma orange juice - they had a tree in their garden heavy with fruit, so their citrus juicer was getting quite the work-out. The juice was absolutely delicious, by the way, it has left us quite tempted to get a satsuma tree of our own.
We made ourselves some dinner, and crawled into bed fairly shortly afterwards - it was quite late by then. The next day was planned to be a rest day, as the weather forecast was predicting heavy thunderstorms and the like. No thanks. We'd actually had grand plans of visiting the Stennis Space Center from there, Tanya even offered to drive us; but as it turns out, security has tightened, so it has to be done from the Welcome Centre further south. In the light of this, we decided to just stop by there on our way to New Orleans, and spent the day lazing around, only venturing out in the afternoon to meet the various other farmlife. Tanya, as it turns out, is the proud owner of several large mules, which she rides. There were also quite a few goats and chickens, not to mention more cats and dogs than you can poke a stick at. Tanya's cockatiels also kept us entertained, as they were quite constant chirpers. On of them, amusingly, is named after Russel Crowe.
That evening, Tanya cooked an absolutely wonderful gumbo, while Sundance and I picked a whole lot of satsumas off the tree to make more juice. Steve was apparently quite impressed with our tenacity, as it can be a bit of a tedious process. That being said, we were working in a bit of a production line, so it was all going very efficiently. In any case, as mentioned, the gumbo was delicious, and reaffirmed our plans to learn to make it ourselves. We packed up most of our gear, so we'd be able to make a reasonably early start the next morning. The tent was drying reasonably well, which was a blessing.
The next morning, Tanya treated us to a traditional southern breakfast of biscuits (that's scones, to non-Americans) and gravy, and I showed her how to poach eggs the old-fashioned way. Apparently, she plans to adopt that method, as it's not as messy as frying them in a non-teflon pan. The day was promising to be beautiful, all bright and warm and sunny, and Tanya did have the time to drive us back to the point where Steve had picked us up, which was wonderful of her. It certainly saved us some time. Even better, we found ourselves riding on a smooth road, with an absolutely glorious tailwind. We were comfortably cruising at 27-29km per hour! Absolutely brilliant. Unfortunately, when we stopped at our first junction for a short break, we discovered that Sundance's back tire had sprung a leak. Doh! We got it fixed up, but these things eat up valuable time, which is frustrating. Still, we got back on the fast track, to the point of the scenery getting that sort of look about it that suggests you can't be too far from the beach now. We stopped at another petrol station for some directions, only to realise upon our departure that the patch on Sundance's flat tire had come off! Argh! By the time that was fixed, it was dark, so we got the permission of the petrol station folk to put up our tent in the back. It will make for a noisy night, as we're right by a freeway, but hey. It's certainly very convenient that we have wireless internet here... hooray for linksys! But it's getting late, and tomorrow is going to be full day, as we plan to go onto a tour of the Stennis Space Center and still make it to New Orleans.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
One small step
Total distance: 3277.4 km
Some days on this trip really stand out as highlights. Days when it all seems like a delight, and the hard work slogging up hills and through bad weather pays off. Thursday was one of those days.
Our night behind the petrol station proved to be a noisy one indeed, but at least we (and the tent) managed to remain quite dry, which is a huge blessing when it comes to getting moving in the morning. We made sure to get our tent packed up pretty quickly, as apparently the manager of the place didn't actually know about us camping out back, even though the people working there had given us permission to camp. We spent a little bit of time on breakfast and maps and checking Sundance's newly patched tyre, but still got going fairly promptly. Luckily, the highway was nowhere near as busy as it had been the previous night, and we had a reasonably stress-free cruise along it until the time came for us to turn right on the supposedly rough and nasty road we had been advised against.
Americans are nothing if not cautious. The "terrible" road was nice and quiet, and with none of the crazy race drivers we had been warned about. Mind you, we were wise to have waited until daylight to head down this road, because in the dark we would have missed the beautiful scenery. We happily ambled along, enjoying the wonderfully sunny weather and discussing the apparent ethnic divide in people's reactions to us. Just before we had set off on our bikes that morning, a pair of black girls had come up to us and asked what we were up to. They were really impressed when we told them, and asked to have their photo taken with us, which we happily went along with. Now, we have noticed that white people tend to tell us to be safe, ask us if we have lost our minds, point out the discomforts we are courting, and so on. By comparison, African Americans tend to get really excited and enthusiastic about our trip, and kind of treat us like we are celebrities of some sort. It's interesting, because we get the feeling that although segregation is no longer enforced, it still seems to prevail in a voluntary form, with black and white cultures viewing and reacting to the world in very different ways. We have a theory that white people are generally more reserved than black folks, and find their boisterous joie-de-vivre to be intimidating - leading to the (in our experience, completely mistaken) impression that African Americans are dangerous or unruly. With that in mind, it makes us all the happier that both ethnic groups seem to welcome us equally.
In any case, as we rode on, the landscape continued to become more coastal, and after a few kilometres, the bitumen stopped, and we were left with a packed dirt road. We shrugged and kept going, and found this to be one of our most enjoyable stretches of riding yet. The road was basically completely abandoned, we were surrounded by beautiful countryside, and the dirt underneath our tyres was getting sandier and sandier as we went along, occasionally riding through large, shallow puddles. We actually also figured out a way of mounting the camera on the handlebars of Yana's bike, so we have a few little videos of us cruising along that bit. Might have to see about getting that uploaded sometime.
After a brief discussion we decided to make a detour, in the name of actually hitting the beach and the Gulf of Mexico. It meant tacking about 16km onto our day, but we figured it would be worth it. We finished our little meander along the road and past the Katrina-splintered trees, crossed the freeway, and found ourselves back on a bitumen road. We had a very nice tailwind as we headed for the beach, and upon our arrival, we took our various victory photos, as we had now officially crossed the United States north to south, and not by the most efficient route, either.
After a celebratory serving of ginger snaps, and a Moon landing-like footprints-and-photos interval on the beach, we headed back to the freeway, braving a stiff headwind in order to do so. As we would have to follow the freeway for a while, it was very nice to see that there was an access road on the side that we could go on instead. Unfortunately, that one petered out after a while, and we had to move onto the real thing. Luckily though, the traffic was reasonably sedate, and we cruised our way to the Mississippi Welcome Centre, which is where the tours of the Stennis Space Centre start. This was probably the least welcoming Welcome Centre we've encountered, and it took a little bit of cajoling to get the folks there to let us put our bags somewhere safer than just the front porch, but they ended up locking them away in a little storage room, and we locked our bikes to a railing. We were just in time for the last tour of the day, actually, as the dirt road and the little jaunt to the beach had consumed quite a bit of time.
As we waited for the bus that would take us to Stennis, we had a look around the little bus terminal building, which, among other things, boasted a roughly 2 metre tall space shuttle made of lego pieces. Wowie!
The driver for the brief bus ride into and around the Space Center was extremely informative, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of what types of engines were tested where, and when. We got to see the various test stand with flame-pits where every engine that has flown a NASA rocket since the inception of the Apollo program, from Saturn-V engines to space shuttle main engines, to experiemental linear aerospike engines and the engines being designed for the planned return missions to the Moon and then to Mars. Unfortunately they don't have a schedule of when you can see the tests actually happening, since in the past too many people showed up to watch and complained when the tests got delayed by technical factors that it became a publicity issue for NASA. Apparently some people don't understand that a test is a test, not a rehearsed stage-show.
Some days on this trip really stand out as highlights. Days when it all seems like a delight, and the hard work slogging up hills and through bad weather pays off. Thursday was one of those days.
Our night behind the petrol station proved to be a noisy one indeed, but at least we (and the tent) managed to remain quite dry, which is a huge blessing when it comes to getting moving in the morning. We made sure to get our tent packed up pretty quickly, as apparently the manager of the place didn't actually know about us camping out back, even though the people working there had given us permission to camp. We spent a little bit of time on breakfast and maps and checking Sundance's newly patched tyre, but still got going fairly promptly. Luckily, the highway was nowhere near as busy as it had been the previous night, and we had a reasonably stress-free cruise along it until the time came for us to turn right on the supposedly rough and nasty road we had been advised against.
Americans are nothing if not cautious. The "terrible" road was nice and quiet, and with none of the crazy race drivers we had been warned about. Mind you, we were wise to have waited until daylight to head down this road, because in the dark we would have missed the beautiful scenery. We happily ambled along, enjoying the wonderfully sunny weather and discussing the apparent ethnic divide in people's reactions to us. Just before we had set off on our bikes that morning, a pair of black girls had come up to us and asked what we were up to. They were really impressed when we told them, and asked to have their photo taken with us, which we happily went along with. Now, we have noticed that white people tend to tell us to be safe, ask us if we have lost our minds, point out the discomforts we are courting, and so on. By comparison, African Americans tend to get really excited and enthusiastic about our trip, and kind of treat us like we are celebrities of some sort. It's interesting, because we get the feeling that although segregation is no longer enforced, it still seems to prevail in a voluntary form, with black and white cultures viewing and reacting to the world in very different ways. We have a theory that white people are generally more reserved than black folks, and find their boisterous joie-de-vivre to be intimidating - leading to the (in our experience, completely mistaken) impression that African Americans are dangerous or unruly. With that in mind, it makes us all the happier that both ethnic groups seem to welcome us equally.
In any case, as we rode on, the landscape continued to become more coastal, and after a few kilometres, the bitumen stopped, and we were left with a packed dirt road. We shrugged and kept going, and found this to be one of our most enjoyable stretches of riding yet. The road was basically completely abandoned, we were surrounded by beautiful countryside, and the dirt underneath our tyres was getting sandier and sandier as we went along, occasionally riding through large, shallow puddles. We actually also figured out a way of mounting the camera on the handlebars of Yana's bike, so we have a few little videos of us cruising along that bit. Might have to see about getting that uploaded sometime.
After a brief discussion we decided to make a detour, in the name of actually hitting the beach and the Gulf of Mexico. It meant tacking about 16km onto our day, but we figured it would be worth it. We finished our little meander along the road and past the Katrina-splintered trees, crossed the freeway, and found ourselves back on a bitumen road. We had a very nice tailwind as we headed for the beach, and upon our arrival, we took our various victory photos, as we had now officially crossed the United States north to south, and not by the most efficient route, either.
Of course, we also made sure to symbolically dip our front wheels into the Atlantic:
After a celebratory serving of ginger snaps, and a Moon landing-like footprints-and-photos interval on the beach, we headed back to the freeway, braving a stiff headwind in order to do so. As we would have to follow the freeway for a while, it was very nice to see that there was an access road on the side that we could go on instead. Unfortunately, that one petered out after a while, and we had to move onto the real thing. Luckily though, the traffic was reasonably sedate, and we cruised our way to the Mississippi Welcome Centre, which is where the tours of the Stennis Space Centre start. This was probably the least welcoming Welcome Centre we've encountered, and it took a little bit of cajoling to get the folks there to let us put our bags somewhere safer than just the front porch, but they ended up locking them away in a little storage room, and we locked our bikes to a railing. We were just in time for the last tour of the day, actually, as the dirt road and the little jaunt to the beach had consumed quite a bit of time.
As we waited for the bus that would take us to Stennis, we had a look around the little bus terminal building, which, among other things, boasted a roughly 2 metre tall space shuttle made of lego pieces. Wowie!
After seeing the various facilities, the bus dropped us off at the on-site museum, where we grabbed a bite to eat in the 1950s-themed cafeteria, then looked around at the exhibits including some office furniture that belonged to Wehrner Von Braun, the command module capsule from Apollo 4, a real chunk of moonrock, and the like. Sundance's favourite exhibit, though, was the real N1 engine (the same kind that was used on the Saturn-V rockets) out the front.
Before too long it was time to re-board the bus and head back to the Welcome Center where we collected our bags and bikes, saddled up and rode off into the sunset, literally. On a few occassions during this trip we've intended to head west, but the cold weather has prompted us to go further south. Having reached the coast, we really do have to go west now, at least for a while, so we'll be heading into the sunset from now on. And what a gorgeous sunset we started this leg of the trip with. We rolled down a quiet back road towards the Louisiana border, through the town of Pearlington, and marvelled at the hues of the sunset on the clouds, the stillness of the evening, and the beauty of the trees weighed down with dangling moss. Photos don't really do it justice, but we can try;
We crossed over into Louisiana, and rode along with a banshee of a tailwind, powering through the 2000-mile mark of our journey, along a pleasantly flat, smooth stretch of road which unfortunately seemed to go on far too long. Eventually we grew weary and stopped for directions and snacks. We wound up at a restaurant in a Vietnamese community to the east of New Orleans where the food was tasty but the service was patronising (i.e. the waitress clearly thought that since we're Caucasian it was acceptable to tell us not to bother with reading certain parts of the menu, brought us western cutlery without asking if we would be using chopsticks, and the food required a great deal of extra hot sauce to make it acceptably spicy). We also received a voice mail message from our couchsurfing host, Darryl, checking how we were going, and discovered that we were out of phone credit so needed to buy some more before we could call him back and let him know our ETA. We stopped at a petrol station, astonished the folks working there with our tales of cross-country bike exploits, and then powered the last stretch of the way into New Orleans, to Darryl's place. There we were warmly received, dumped our gear, showered, and fell into bed, feeling extremely accomplished.
The following day we arose fairly late, and set out with Darryl for the town of Shreveport in the north-west of the state. We're currently at a get-together of local members of the couchsurfing community. The drive took us through Baton Rouge and on to Lafayette, where we stopped to pick up some slacklining gear at a camping shop, and said hello to the staff at the local rockclimbing gym. We had a Cajun meal for dinner, bought some groceries, and headed out to the farm where the get-together was happening. A group of folks were gathered around a campfire, drinking and chatting, so we met everyone, set up our tent, engaged in a drawn-out alcohol-fuelled political discussion, and eventually made it to bed.
The next morning (barely, morning) we arose to a soggy, foggy day. We headed to a local flea market to look around, where Yana bought a bracelet and necklace for a whole $2. Then we returned to the farm, for a yummy dinner of chicken stew prepared by our host Josh. Sundance was feeling creative and made a veggie curry to go with it, and eventually after chewing the fat with the other people present we climbed into our tent and headed for sleepy-land.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
We're still here (wherever here is!)
Total distance: 3525.9 km
By Sundance:
Okay, just a quick update to let everyone who reads this blog (both of you), know that we're still going, even though we haven't updated in a while. Since last time we've spent a weekend in Shreveport hanging out with couchsurfers, then headed back to New Orleans and spent a few days looking around the French Quarter, looking for xmas presents, riding around town on our bikes, riding through a torrential downpour to the area southwest of New Orleans , and we're currently passing through New Iberia, spending a few minutes online in a Tourist Info centre.
The landscape has changed from swamp and bayou to sugar cane plantations, and it reminds me of both Mexico and Queensland. And the weather is beautiful. Simply beautiful!
More details to follow when we have more time to spend online, I promise.
By Sundance:
Okay, just a quick update to let everyone who reads this blog (both of you), know that we're still going, even though we haven't updated in a while. Since last time we've spent a weekend in Shreveport hanging out with couchsurfers, then headed back to New Orleans and spent a few days looking around the French Quarter, looking for xmas presents, riding around town on our bikes, riding through a torrential downpour to the area southwest of New Orleans , and we're currently passing through New Iberia, spending a few minutes online in a Tourist Info centre.
The landscape has changed from swamp and bayou to sugar cane plantations, and it reminds me of both Mexico and Queensland. And the weather is beautiful. Simply beautiful!
More details to follow when we have more time to spend online, I promise.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Size does matter
Total distance: 4225.7 km
Hello one and all, and welcome to our latest blog update. Probably the last for the year (but not the decade, since the decade actually begins in 2011. Sheeesh, didn't people get the message in 1999/2000?). As promised last time, we thought we'd fill you in on a few more details of what we've been up to, before moving forward to the stuff we have done and seen since our last, brief blog update.
After arriving in New Orleans to be received by our host Darryl, we headed off to Shereveport, in the opposite corner of Louisiana (by car!) for a couchsurfing.com get-together. The Saturday was spent hanging out, browsing a flea market, and cooking spicy food. The Sunday morning we spent engaging in that traditional Southern pastime of shooting beer cans and trying to get pickup trucks out of mud. We then got in Darryl's car and headed back to NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana), stopping briefly to pick up a Spanish-English dictionary from the flea market. The fellow who promised he'd have one turned out not to, so he purchased one from another stall and gave it to us for free which was pretty nice. We then hit the highway, Yana taking her turn to drive some of the distance and get reacquainted with driving on the "wrong" side of the road. We got back to NOLA safely, but rather late at night. The next day Darryl drove us to the French Quarter and we wandered around looking at various galleries, shops, old buildings, and sampling some local food including coconut macaroons (yum!). In the evening it started raining heavily, and Darryl came to collect us before taking us to Frenchman street to wander into a bar with a pretty good band (the Jazz Vipers) doing their thing. Actually, as Darryl arrived to pick us up we were standing talking with a busker who had impressed us, but hadn't made any money at all that day, so we gave him a couple of bucks because he definitely deserved better than he was getting.
On the Tuesday Darryl kindly loaned us his car to go driving around town and do some shopping, while he went to the pizza restaurant his is opening with a friend. We picked up some new bike tubes, and then went in search of cookbooks that would make good xmas presents, looking in a few 2nd hand bookstores as well as Borders, before finding some that we liked. This also gave us a good chance to see some of the pretty old buildings and sweeping oak trees growing in the old neighbourhoods of New Orleans. It had been a wet few days, and apparently this December was the rainiest month ever in New Orleans' recorded history, before the month was even half-over. But Wednesday was sunny and we were able to get on our bikes and ride around the main park, then down to the waterfront and catch the free ferry across to the opposite bank, where we looked around at the pretty houses before riding back to Darryl's. When Thursday came we packed our bags and headed out of town, as the rain whipped around us once again, to head towards the town of Houma, where we had arranged to stay for the night via the warmshowers.org website. We stopped for a bite to eat at a cool little Mexican cafe called The Blue Tomato, where the staff were very friendly and impressed with our ride. And speaking of food, Darryl's pizza restaurant is called MRS Pizza, and should be opening on or around New Year's Day, so if you're in NOLA, check it out. Anyway, after lunch we headed towards the Huey P. Long bridge, hoping to cross over to the other side of the river, but it was extremely busy with traffic, and a cop pulled us over before we could get onto the bridge and explained that no bikes were allowed, and that the "no bikes allowed" signs had been taken down while construction work was being done on the bridge. He was pretty friendly about it, and we asked if we could cross somewhere else. He hummed and hawed and eventually told us that the next bridge along (quite some way away) was not much better, but was not patrolled so we might be able to sneak across.
Well we could have gone the other way and taken a ferry, but we've done every centimeter of this trip under our own power, so we really wanted to find a bridge crossing instead. We'd also decided that the attempt to extend out visas was a wild-goose chase, so we just had to get out of the USA before our visas expired, making a crossing to the other side of the Mississippi essential. And although it was raining, we had a tailwind so we rode along the river levee trail until we came to the bridge. An interstate. Crap. We thought about our options, including the next bridge along (about 25 km further upstream), chatted to the folks in the nearby service station who told us that we were just as likely to be stopped at that bridge as this one, and that the nearby ferry had been out of commission since hurricane Katrina, and eventually decided that we had very little choice but to ride across. And so we did. It was a bit scary, but there was a sizeable shoulder on the road, we got to the other side, and pulled into a service station there to ask directions for the easiest way to Houma. Then after steeling ourselves for the rain again, we headed out. Sundance rode into a puddle, which turned out to be a fairly deep hole, but apart from that things were uneventful. And then a cop car pulled us over. Apparently someone driving over the bridge had called the police on their mobile phone (because using a phone while driving isn't illegal!), and the police had been looking for us. The officer in question was very gruff and told us that we shouldn't be riding bicycles in this wet weather, and that we should have found a place to stay for the night and waited until morning instead of crossing the bridge on our bikes. Why? Would a pedestrian footbridge across the Mississippi have magically appeared overnight? Here's a clue Louisiana, if you make it impossible/illegal for people to get from A to B, then people who need to get from A to B will break or bend the law - not because they want to, but because they have no other choice. And before you say we should have found a truck which could have given us a lift across the river, let us point out that that would have been hitch-hiking, which is a violation of federal law, as far as we're aware. So there!
In any case, he said we wouldn't be allowed to keep riding to Houma, so we had to pull into the local hospital, and call our host, Perry, to come and collect us, load our bikes into her truck, and drive us to her house where we met her hubby, were fed chicken curry, and got a good night's rest.
By Sundance:
Hello one and all, and welcome to our latest blog update. Probably the last for the year (but not the decade, since the decade actually begins in 2011. Sheeesh, didn't people get the message in 1999/2000?). As promised last time, we thought we'd fill you in on a few more details of what we've been up to, before moving forward to the stuff we have done and seen since our last, brief blog update.
After arriving in New Orleans to be received by our host Darryl, we headed off to Shereveport, in the opposite corner of Louisiana (by car!) for a couchsurfing.com get-together. The Saturday was spent hanging out, browsing a flea market, and cooking spicy food. The Sunday morning we spent engaging in that traditional Southern pastime of shooting beer cans and trying to get pickup trucks out of mud. We then got in Darryl's car and headed back to NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana), stopping briefly to pick up a Spanish-English dictionary from the flea market. The fellow who promised he'd have one turned out not to, so he purchased one from another stall and gave it to us for free which was pretty nice. We then hit the highway, Yana taking her turn to drive some of the distance and get reacquainted with driving on the "wrong" side of the road. We got back to NOLA safely, but rather late at night. The next day Darryl drove us to the French Quarter and we wandered around looking at various galleries, shops, old buildings, and sampling some local food including coconut macaroons (yum!). In the evening it started raining heavily, and Darryl came to collect us before taking us to Frenchman street to wander into a bar with a pretty good band (the Jazz Vipers) doing their thing. Actually, as Darryl arrived to pick us up we were standing talking with a busker who had impressed us, but hadn't made any money at all that day, so we gave him a couple of bucks because he definitely deserved better than he was getting.
On the Tuesday Darryl kindly loaned us his car to go driving around town and do some shopping, while he went to the pizza restaurant his is opening with a friend. We picked up some new bike tubes, and then went in search of cookbooks that would make good xmas presents, looking in a few 2nd hand bookstores as well as Borders, before finding some that we liked. This also gave us a good chance to see some of the pretty old buildings and sweeping oak trees growing in the old neighbourhoods of New Orleans. It had been a wet few days, and apparently this December was the rainiest month ever in New Orleans' recorded history, before the month was even half-over. But Wednesday was sunny and we were able to get on our bikes and ride around the main park, then down to the waterfront and catch the free ferry across to the opposite bank, where we looked around at the pretty houses before riding back to Darryl's. When Thursday came we packed our bags and headed out of town, as the rain whipped around us once again, to head towards the town of Houma, where we had arranged to stay for the night via the warmshowers.org website. We stopped for a bite to eat at a cool little Mexican cafe called The Blue Tomato, where the staff were very friendly and impressed with our ride. And speaking of food, Darryl's pizza restaurant is called MRS Pizza, and should be opening on or around New Year's Day, so if you're in NOLA, check it out. Anyway, after lunch we headed towards the Huey P. Long bridge, hoping to cross over to the other side of the river, but it was extremely busy with traffic, and a cop pulled us over before we could get onto the bridge and explained that no bikes were allowed, and that the "no bikes allowed" signs had been taken down while construction work was being done on the bridge. He was pretty friendly about it, and we asked if we could cross somewhere else. He hummed and hawed and eventually told us that the next bridge along (quite some way away) was not much better, but was not patrolled so we might be able to sneak across.
Well we could have gone the other way and taken a ferry, but we've done every centimeter of this trip under our own power, so we really wanted to find a bridge crossing instead. We'd also decided that the attempt to extend out visas was a wild-goose chase, so we just had to get out of the USA before our visas expired, making a crossing to the other side of the Mississippi essential. And although it was raining, we had a tailwind so we rode along the river levee trail until we came to the bridge. An interstate. Crap. We thought about our options, including the next bridge along (about 25 km further upstream), chatted to the folks in the nearby service station who told us that we were just as likely to be stopped at that bridge as this one, and that the nearby ferry had been out of commission since hurricane Katrina, and eventually decided that we had very little choice but to ride across. And so we did. It was a bit scary, but there was a sizeable shoulder on the road, we got to the other side, and pulled into a service station there to ask directions for the easiest way to Houma. Then after steeling ourselves for the rain again, we headed out. Sundance rode into a puddle, which turned out to be a fairly deep hole, but apart from that things were uneventful. And then a cop car pulled us over. Apparently someone driving over the bridge had called the police on their mobile phone (because using a phone while driving isn't illegal!), and the police had been looking for us. The officer in question was very gruff and told us that we shouldn't be riding bicycles in this wet weather, and that we should have found a place to stay for the night and waited until morning instead of crossing the bridge on our bikes. Why? Would a pedestrian footbridge across the Mississippi have magically appeared overnight? Here's a clue Louisiana, if you make it impossible/illegal for people to get from A to B, then people who need to get from A to B will break or bend the law - not because they want to, but because they have no other choice. And before you say we should have found a truck which could have given us a lift across the river, let us point out that that would have been hitch-hiking, which is a violation of federal law, as far as we're aware. So there!
In any case, he said we wouldn't be allowed to keep riding to Houma, so we had to pull into the local hospital, and call our host, Perry, to come and collect us, load our bikes into her truck, and drive us to her house where we met her hubby, were fed chicken curry, and got a good night's rest.
By Yana:
Unfortunately, Perry had other places to be very early the next morning, so we didn't get to chat more with her and her hubby. A shame, really, as they really seemed like our sort of people. In the light of all of this, we dragged ourselves out of bed pretty early, packed up our gear, and got back on our bikes. As Perry had collected us on the previous evening, we had to make our way back to that point in order to connect the lines in our trip - considering the lengths we had gone to the previous night to ride every inch of the way, we were not about to break that clean record only a day later! So off we went again, riding into one of those familiar stiff headwinds, back towards Luling. We stopped at a few petrol stations, hoping to find someone with a pick up truck going the same way who would be able to take us there, as it would have been a pretty big extra distance for us to ride the whole way. We asked a few people, but had little luck, although one nice lady donated some money to the cause of our trip. That makes her the second person to have done so, I believe.
By early afternoon, we had resigned ourselves to our fate of having to ride all the way back and into that headwind. Just as we got on the road, however, someone honked behind us - it was our nice lady, who introduced herself as Pat. As it turned out, the trunk of her car was really quite spacious, so she offered to take us. We gladly accepted, and with a bit of creativity, we managed to get everything stowed.
Pat dropped us off at the same spot where Perry had picked us up the night before, and we got ourselves reassembled and packed up. Considering we had now already been to Houma, we decided to go a slightly different route instead. We still had to head into the same general direction, but luckily the main highway had a smaller parallel road that we could take instead, which was a relief. We did have to do a few smallish stretches on the big road, but by and large, it wasn't so bad. As we started to approach the city cluster that Houma is part of, we veered off into Thibodeaux instead, at which point it was getting dark. It was a bit irritating to note that yes, we had lost a day's worth of travel at the hands of the cop who had pulled us over the previous night, but what's done is done. We stopped at a petrol station for a rest, pondering our accommodation options for the night. The young man who worked there (I believe his name was Andrew, but it's a little hard to keep track of every name we come across) offered us lodging, though he was a little out of our way. Around that time, another fellow wandered in, and also offered us some floor space. As he was within spitting distance of the petrol station, we accepted his offer instead, with apologies to Andrew, and the promise we'd pop in and say hi before we left in the morning.
Our host for the night introduced himself as Mark, and turned out to be a cop who works in Franklin. It was kind of a reminder of the fact that for the most part, we have had a very positive experience with the police on this trip. We actually had a very nice chat with Mark, and he ended up donating quite a few police patches to our collection that we had started since meeting Clint back in Kentucky. Mark also told us that in Franklin, where he works and where we were planning to head the next day, they would sometimes let weary cyclists like ourselves stay at the fire station overnight. Very helpful indeed.
The next morning dawned bright and sunny, and we got up reasonably early, as Mark and his son Aaron had places to be. We got ourselves out of the house reasonably quickly, and once Mark had driven off, sat in the sunny carport and had breakfast. We popped back into the petrol station to say hi to Andrew, where we met a few curious folks. One of them became the third person to donate to the cause of our trip. We must be looking increasingly tired and bedraggled, if the monetary donations are becoming more frequent.
We hopped on our bikes, and high-tailed it towards Franklin, which was a respectable distance away. We rode past various marshy sort of landscapes, which were also thankfully quite flat. It did pose the question whether it was home to any alligators, though we didn't find out. There were certainly a lot of vultures around though, happily processing the roadkill. We certainly see more skeletons and rotting carcasses on the road now, which is somewhat interesting.
Although the road was flat, the road surface was absolutely woeful, in typical Louisiana fashion. For the most part, we do like the place, as it is very verdant, and the climate is quite mild in winter. Nevertheless, the nobbly roads are quite hard on the old knees if you're riding a bike. Still, we made it into Franklin that night, having gone nigh on 100km that day. Go us! We also followed Mark's advice about seeing if we could get lodging at the fire station. It turned out we could, and we gratefully spread out our sleeping bags on the spare beds. Sure, there was the occasional extremely loud phone call, but other than that, it was downright luxurious by our usual travel standards.
We got up early again the next morning, with the intention of heading to Kaplan. Once again, a fairly long day. We had more rivers to cross, as you do in that kind of bayou country. But hey, it meant we continued to have flat roads. I guess every kind of terrain has its drawbacks in the end. We got into Kaplan after dark, and during our obligatory petrol station stop, met a fellow named Blaine in a black Chevy Impala. Like most black people we have met, he boggled very expressively when we told him how far we'd come on our bikes. Even better, he had a place where we could pitch our tent for the night. Turns out he owned a couple of properties in the area, one of them being a vacant lot of land, so we had a place to stay for the night. It was going to be a cold night, but that only meant that we could be quite grateful for our awesome little tent.
We got up reasonably early in the morning, as we were once again aiming for a pretty long haul. As we had expected, it had gotten quite cold overnight. Not that it had made us uncomfortable, the inside of the tent had remained quite toasty, but when I went to dry off the condensation, I discovered a thin sheet of ice on the inside of the tent fly! Hooee!
We packed up our gear and had our breakfast at the petrol station where we had met Blaine the previous night. There were a few truckers having breakfast there too, and we got to hear them speaking in a truly funky dialect, which made it hard to keep track sometimes when they switched from English into French and back again. At times they would speak predominantly one language, peppered with words from the other, or the other way round. It is of course the natural thing to do when you speak more than one language and are around people who speak the same set of languages that you do, but it can be a little unnerving when you're not used to it.
We hopped back on our bikes, and rode past some more beautiful trees (if I remember correctly, Perry from Houma told us they were called royal oaks), and over more flat but nobbly roads. It was actually quite difficult to keep going at over 20km/h for the first hour, as we were riding into a slight headwind, and the wind caused by trucks coming from the opposite direction would always slow us down by a km/h or two. Still, we took a break in one of those many little towns with names that are hard to remember, and kept our momentum going pretty well. Blaine from Kaplan actually drove past at one point, and greeted us. It was kind of nice.
We put some more distance behind us, and stopped for lunch in a slightly larger town (Lake Arthur), and also put up our tent to dry in the sun a bit. A very prudent move, as it came out of the bag pretty much soaking wet. We then continued onwards, with the intention of getting to Lake Charles before the day was out. We stopped briefly in the smaller town of Hayes though, for the sake of a toilet and some fruit juice. While guarding the bikes, I also got to find out why so many Americans leave their huge whopping cars idling while they pop into shops to do whatever it is they do in there: apparently, they want to cut down on the amount of times they actually start the engine, as the starters for those big diesel engines have a limited lifespan, and are expensive to replace. While I can sympathise with that, it still boggles my mind though how much that kind of thing must increase America's carbon footprint.
Meanwhile, Sundance got talking with Michael, the gregarious fellow who owned the little general store we were stopped at. Michael was absolutely floored by our trip, and offered us a place to stay for the night. That was actually a little bit of a tough choice for us, as the guy seemed really nice, and we figured it'd be great to hang out and chat with him, but at the same time, we had also hoped to get to Lake Charles that day, which was still a reasonable distance away, and we still had plenty of daylight. In the end, we came up with a solution: We would continue to ride until it got dark, and then Michael would pick us up from there, we'd stay with him, and he'd then bring us back there in the morning. Certainly suited us well, so we got back on our bikes and rode on. It was actually the first day on which we managed 80km before sundown, which we were very pleased with. Michael picked us up at a petrol station on the outskirts of Lake Charles, and we had a very nice evening hanging out with him and his family. We even got to watch a bit of Forrest Gump on TV, which seemed appropriate since we could sympathise with the simplicity of his approach to running (in our case, cycling) across the USA; "When I was tired, I slept. When I was hungry, I ate."
We had a slightly slower start than usual the next morning, but luckily, we were helped along by a tremendous tailwind once we got back on our bikes. Michael took us back to the petrol station, and we said our fond farewells, during which he also donated some money to our trip. He was certainly one of those people who went above and beyond the normal kindness we have received on this trip, and we were very grateful. Extremely nice guy. Perhaps if you ever find yourself in Hayes, Louisiana, you should pop by the general store and say hi to him.
We rode quite steadily throughout the day, although the weather wasn't the best. When we decided we couldn't put off lunch any longer, it was actually raining, and we knocked on the door of one of the places in the tiny little strip of a town we were passing through, asking if we could take shelter under their great big tree while we made our sandwiches. Continuing in the southern vein, the family who lived there were a very friendly lot. While their kid, Bryce, tore around the yard showing us his miniature pony and one of their crazy chickens (apparently it is called a "top hat"), which was black with a shock of white feathers on its head. One of his pasttimes was catching tiny little catfish and perch in the nearby ditch, and he was doing his darndest to keep us entertained. We also had a nice chat with the parents, Crystal and Brad, who bestowed plenty of sugary things still left over from Halloween on us. It was one of those times when we suspected that if we had asked, we would have had a turf surf right there. However, we were determined to get into Texas that night, so we headed onwards.
It was getting quite late as we set off again, but we still managed to make use of some daylight, and went at a reasonable pace towards the Texan border. It was, however, well and truly dark by the time we entered Texas.
By Sundance:
We pulled into the first service station we found, in Deweyville, and devoured a pizza and some chicken tenders which tasted delicious, although that may have had a lot to do with the distance we'd covered. We then set about finding a place to stay, by heading to the police station and asking if there was a local campground or rest area we could use. However the police seemed to be elsewhere, as the station was unattended. We did find an open wi-fi network at the adjacent library though, and a quick search of the weather forecast showed we were expecting thunderstorms, so finding an indoor area to stay seemed like a great idea. On the assumption that in a small town everyone knows everyone, we knocked on a door, explained our situation, and asked the person who answered if they knew where the local police/sheriff may be, in the hope that they would be able to arrange for us to stay in the fire station, civic centre, or the like. After a lot of phone calls and chasing back-and-forth, we met the local sheriff and deputy, but eventually were accommodated in a local church gymnasium, and were met by an enthusiastic woman named Brandy who was busy running an end-of-year social dance but took time out to ask us all about Australia. She was very friendly and said she would have loved to talk to us all night. We finally climbed into our beds and awoke the following morning to clear skies, rather than the drizzle and thunder we'd expected, so we decided to make the most of it and hit the road promptly (but not before I tried to shoot some hoops on the basketball court while riding across the court on my bike. Unsuccessfully). A short-cut we'd hoped to take turned out to lead into private roads, so we detoured north and then across through Buna, Evadale and Kountze to arrive that night in the town of Saratoga. We were pretty pooped, having done over 100 km, but we were pushing ourselves, hoping to make it to Austin to share xmas in some way with my friend Peter and his family. The woman at the local fireworks shop rang around while we ate dinner (generously donated for free by the staff of Mama's Cafe), and found us a place to sleep for the night in the parsonage at one of the local churches. We were also able to use some internet access and the bathrooms at another church (as the water was off in the parsonage). We set our watch alarms for a very early start, and retired again.
The following morning we were up before sunrise. There were flashes of lightning, so we were glad to be indoors, but by the time we had packed our gear and were ready to hit the road, around sunrise, the rain was clearing. We intended to cover a long distance that day, so we set off, into the worst headwind we'd had to face all trip! We pushed on valiantly throughout the day, but the fates were against us. We had not quite made 80 km when my front tyre began to wear thin, the tube starting to poke through a weak spot in the rubber. We were forced to stop and pull into a driveway, and ask the homeowner if we could use his space to pull a bike apart and change a tyre. The owner turned out to be a friendly and welcoming fellow called Dave who persuaded us to stay at his house for the night, drove us into the nearby town of Conroe to buy dinner groceries, and allowed us to set up mattresses in his barn, and get online to use Skype to call our respective parents for xmas, despite the fact that we were accidentally intruding on his family xmas get-together. So we were once again very grateful for our good fortune, for the kindness of strangers, and we got to stay in a barn for xmas eve!
The following morning we had a slightly special breakfast (Yana got bacon and eggs, I basically avoid eating mammals) instead of cereal, and then bid our fond farewells to Dave and set off intending to reach the town of Brenham, where we had arranged via warmshowers.org to be hosted for the night. It was a less windy, sunnier day than the previous day, but Yana got a flat which delayed us, and we didn't make such fast progress as we'd hoped, so that despite calling our host to update her on our progress, by the time we called her to say we were in range of Brenham she simply said she'd already gone to bed and wished us luck finding a place to spend the night! While I understand our lateness wasn't exactly convenient for her, it wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs for us spending xmas day riding 120 km in near-freezing conditions, instead of spending it with family eating turkey and ham! So in a certain amount of exhaustion, we just knocked on the nearest door and asked the fellow who came to the door (clearly out of bed himself) if we could put a tent up in his yard. By the time we'd started unrolling the tent, he came out fully-clothed and mentioned that he had a spare room in his shed which would be more convenient for us. It turned out he had a sofa-bed and a portable bed/cot in there, both of which were single beds, but we spread the mattresses on the floor, put our thermarests on top, and our sleeping bags, and had a very comfortable night's sleep. We awoke early on boxing day and put everything back the way we'd found it. Then we hopped on our bikes, stopped in Brenham for breakfast at a Mexican place, and then pushed on. I think we were a little afraid to jinx our trip, because we didn't say to each other that we would get to Austin that night, but by the time we'd pushed through the town of Giddings, then Paige, and reached McDade we didn't really want to give up, and had reached a silent agreement that it was Austin or bust. Even though the highway we were forced to travel on didn't have the same generous shoulders we'd grown accustomed to in Texas, after McDade things improved, and we powered on, the lights of Austin eventually spreading out before us. We had to pause briefly when Yana hit a large chunk of wood in the dark, which knocked her wheel out of alignment (but it was easily fixed by loosening and re-tightening the wheel) and finally we made our way into Austin, and arrived at Peter's place (to everyone's amazement) having cycled an epic 160.44 km (by my odometer) since the start of the day. Peter provided us with delicious left-overs from his fridge, a sizeable futon to sleep on, and we attempted to apologise to our legs for abusing them so thoroughly.
The last few days have been rest days. We've delighted in seeing the food markets in Austin, buying far too many groceries, and cooking up lots of yummy Korean food. Peter and his wife Crystal are foodie like us, so it's been a lot of fun playing in a well-equipped kitchen and sampling each other's favourite recipes.
In a few days we will have to resort to catching a bus, though. Our visas expire on new year's day, and so we don't have enough time to ride out to the border with Mexico. We'll be forced by legal requirements, not frailty of muscle or determination, to break our ride and rely on motorised transport, which is a little annoying. If not for that cop setting us back after crossing the bridge out of New Orleans, or that insane headwind on xmas eve, we might have made it all the way by bike. But for now we will head into Mexico for an indeterminate length of time. If Mexico goes well, I guess we'll travel across to the west coast there. If not, we'll try to return to the USA at some stage and continue our ride to California. The weather in Mexico will undoubtedly be warmer, which is appealing. As usual, we'll make it up as we go along. But we've definitely learned that Texas really is a big place. Distances and travel times are larger than we expected, but on the plus side the shoulders on the roads are also huge. And as you may have noticed, the blog posts are bigger too. Size really does matter, in more ways than one.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
In Old Mexico
Total distance: 4230.3 km
Happy New Year, everyone! As promised, we're back for more blogging, and presumably more cycling adventures in 2010. When we all have to get used to writing 201 on autopilot, instead of 200 when we write down the year. At least we have ten years to get used to it.
Anyway, what's been happening since last time? Well, after a bit of fiddle-faddling trying to figure out how best to get into Mexico before out 90-day visa-waiver period expired (rent a car and throw the bikes in the back, catch a bus, try to arrange a ride via craigslist...) we boxed up our bicycles and climbed onto a bus on New Year's Eve, heading from Austin via San Antonio to Eagle Pass, arriving in the evening. When we got to Eagle Pass we were actually so preoccupied with unloading our bikes carefully and reassembling them that we left our backpacks on the bus as it pulled off! Gah! After declaring that we were idiots, we rode our bikes to the bridge across the Rio Grande, paid our nominal fee to head across the bridge as pedestrians, and decided that the wind was so strong and cold that we were going to walk rather than ride across to the adjacent town of Piedras Negras. Much to our surprise nobody from the USA cared that we'd left, and nobody in Mexico cared that we'd entered Mexico or stamped our passports or anything. Once in Mexico we tried to find a working payphone, and eventually had to borrow a mobile phone from someone to call our couchsurfing.com host Jose. He arrived soon after wards with a truck to pick up our bikes and ourselves, and take us to his home where we met his wife, son, aunts, uncles, parents, sister, and entire extended family who greeted us warmly and merrily provided us with food, set off fireworks, bashed pinatas, and generally showed us how Mexican families see in the new year. Being part of a family celebration was a nice change from the two previous times I'd seen in the new year Central America (2006/2007 in the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, and 2007/2008 in Merida in the Yucatan region of Mexico) which were much more solitary experiences. After much banging and popping and the risk of singed hair, we got back into Jose's truck and he drove us out to his family's other house where we would be staying.
On New Year's Day Jose came by to drive us across the bridge back to Eagle Pass to collect our backpacks from the bus terminal. Fortunately they'd been tagged, so the bus company knew which town they were supposed to be delivered to. After collecting the backpacks we were taken for a drive out to a run-down old cathedral in Guerrero which we took many photos of, wandered through, and climbed over. The we headed back to Jose's family home again for dinner, where the courses just kept coming. We've gotten used to being the pet Australians, and it was fun to brush some of the rust off my Spanish, even though it was pretty rusty.
The next day we headed into town ourselves on our bikes, to hand in the visa waiver cards that had expired, headed across the bridge back to Eagle Pass, and after much waiting got to talk to a Customs and boprder protection officer who was very good-natured but told us that we should have handed them in when we left the USA (To whom? There was nobody there to hand them in to! Answer: There's another bridge that we were supposed to head to. Helpful), and that if we wanted to avoid this causing us bureaucratic problems when we tried to re-enter the US, we should do so within a couple of days. Then we headed back to Piedras Negras and lookeda round the markets in town, ate some sweetcorn and spirally-fried potatoes from street stalls, and eventually headed to Jose's place again. We had decided that we wanted to make some food for his family, and show them some of the food we liked to eat in the interests of cultural exchange, so the next day we headed to a supermarket and bought supplies, then attempted to prepare Pavlova, as well as some wholemeal pizza and Pindi Chana. Unfortunately the Pavlova didn't heat fast enough and just kind of collapsed instead of setting with a nice crisp crust, but the pizza and the chickpea curry worked pretty well and were gobbled up eagerly by the whole family. Yana and I had basically decided to head back to the US and cross over to California, and do a real full-on trip through Central America some other time, so on Monday we got on our bikes and headed out for a ride out of town, north of Piedras Negras, which took us through some flat arid countryside that was vaguely reminiscent of outback South Australia. That evening we made some Pad Thai for Jose and his family, and said our farewells, and thanked them for their wonderful hospitality. Jose drove out to the house and we handed the keys back to him, and we turned in for the night.
The following morning we awoke, cleaned the house, and packed our belongings into our backpacks and paniers , and rode out to the US border to see if they'd let us back in. We had no trouble at all, despite having only been out of the country for a handful of days, and after a bit of waiting got our next 90-day visa-waiver period started. We headed to the bus terminal, found the cardboard boxes we'd used to bring our bikes down from Austin still sitting behind the bus terminal (what luck!), repacked the bikes, and got ourselves on a bus back to Austin. We had about an hour-long stopover in San Antonio, during which we wandered around town looking for somewhere to eat - and much to our dismay found that everything was closed at 6pm on a Tuesday! So we eventually gave up and settled for non-nutritious, unappetising stuff at the bus station cafeteria. At least it kept us from getting painfully hungry.
We arrived back in Austin around 10pm, reassembled the bikes, and rode back to Peter and Crystal's place. This means we can pick up the next leg of the journey from the same spot we left off, making one unbroken ride from Ontario to California (albeit with a bit of a hiatus in the middle). The last couple of days have consisted of getting replacements for some parts for our bikes, buying more cold-weather outdoors gear (riding through New Mexico will probably be very chilly) and waiting for a sudden cold spell that has descended to clear. Last night we went out to a cinema where there was a regular event called the Dionysium, which consisted of brief seminars about science and technology, a modified Dionysian wedding ceremony, and debate about whether science and religion are natural adversaries. To be honest, the debate wasn't that great - I've seen better ones done by undergrad clubs at university. But it was an entertaining evening none-the-less. And either tomorrow or the next day we should hit the road again.
Incidentally it's also 400 years to the day since Galileo Galilei pointed a telescope at Jupiter and made the observations which showed that the Earth is not the only body in the Universe to be orbited by a moon or moons, and it's my father's birthday. Happy birthday and much love, Dad!
By Sundance:
Happy New Year, everyone! As promised, we're back for more blogging, and presumably more cycling adventures in 2010. When we all have to get used to writing 201 on autopilot, instead of 200 when we write down the year. At least we have ten years to get used to it.
Anyway, what's been happening since last time? Well, after a bit of fiddle-faddling trying to figure out how best to get into Mexico before out 90-day visa-waiver period expired (rent a car and throw the bikes in the back, catch a bus, try to arrange a ride via craigslist...) we boxed up our bicycles and climbed onto a bus on New Year's Eve, heading from Austin via San Antonio to Eagle Pass, arriving in the evening. When we got to Eagle Pass we were actually so preoccupied with unloading our bikes carefully and reassembling them that we left our backpacks on the bus as it pulled off! Gah! After declaring that we were idiots, we rode our bikes to the bridge across the Rio Grande, paid our nominal fee to head across the bridge as pedestrians, and decided that the wind was so strong and cold that we were going to walk rather than ride across to the adjacent town of Piedras Negras. Much to our surprise nobody from the USA cared that we'd left, and nobody in Mexico cared that we'd entered Mexico or stamped our passports or anything. Once in Mexico we tried to find a working payphone, and eventually had to borrow a mobile phone from someone to call our couchsurfing.com host Jose. He arrived soon after wards with a truck to pick up our bikes and ourselves, and take us to his home where we met his wife, son, aunts, uncles, parents, sister, and entire extended family who greeted us warmly and merrily provided us with food, set off fireworks, bashed pinatas, and generally showed us how Mexican families see in the new year. Being part of a family celebration was a nice change from the two previous times I'd seen in the new year Central America (2006/2007 in the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, and 2007/2008 in Merida in the Yucatan region of Mexico) which were much more solitary experiences. After much banging and popping and the risk of singed hair, we got back into Jose's truck and he drove us out to his family's other house where we would be staying.
On New Year's Day Jose came by to drive us across the bridge back to Eagle Pass to collect our backpacks from the bus terminal. Fortunately they'd been tagged, so the bus company knew which town they were supposed to be delivered to. After collecting the backpacks we were taken for a drive out to a run-down old cathedral in Guerrero which we took many photos of, wandered through, and climbed over. The we headed back to Jose's family home again for dinner, where the courses just kept coming. We've gotten used to being the pet Australians, and it was fun to brush some of the rust off my Spanish, even though it was pretty rusty.
The next day we headed into town ourselves on our bikes, to hand in the visa waiver cards that had expired, headed across the bridge back to Eagle Pass, and after much waiting got to talk to a Customs and boprder protection officer who was very good-natured but told us that we should have handed them in when we left the USA (To whom? There was nobody there to hand them in to! Answer: There's another bridge that we were supposed to head to. Helpful), and that if we wanted to avoid this causing us bureaucratic problems when we tried to re-enter the US, we should do so within a couple of days. Then we headed back to Piedras Negras and lookeda round the markets in town, ate some sweetcorn and spirally-fried potatoes from street stalls, and eventually headed to Jose's place again. We had decided that we wanted to make some food for his family, and show them some of the food we liked to eat in the interests of cultural exchange, so the next day we headed to a supermarket and bought supplies, then attempted to prepare Pavlova, as well as some wholemeal pizza and Pindi Chana. Unfortunately the Pavlova didn't heat fast enough and just kind of collapsed instead of setting with a nice crisp crust, but the pizza and the chickpea curry worked pretty well and were gobbled up eagerly by the whole family. Yana and I had basically decided to head back to the US and cross over to California, and do a real full-on trip through Central America some other time, so on Monday we got on our bikes and headed out for a ride out of town, north of Piedras Negras, which took us through some flat arid countryside that was vaguely reminiscent of outback South Australia. That evening we made some Pad Thai for Jose and his family, and said our farewells, and thanked them for their wonderful hospitality. Jose drove out to the house and we handed the keys back to him, and we turned in for the night.
The following morning we awoke, cleaned the house, and packed our belongings into our backpacks and paniers , and rode out to the US border to see if they'd let us back in. We had no trouble at all, despite having only been out of the country for a handful of days, and after a bit of waiting got our next 90-day visa-waiver period started. We headed to the bus terminal, found the cardboard boxes we'd used to bring our bikes down from Austin still sitting behind the bus terminal (what luck!), repacked the bikes, and got ourselves on a bus back to Austin. We had about an hour-long stopover in San Antonio, during which we wandered around town looking for somewhere to eat - and much to our dismay found that everything was closed at 6pm on a Tuesday! So we eventually gave up and settled for non-nutritious, unappetising stuff at the bus station cafeteria. At least it kept us from getting painfully hungry.
We arrived back in Austin around 10pm, reassembled the bikes, and rode back to Peter and Crystal's place. This means we can pick up the next leg of the journey from the same spot we left off, making one unbroken ride from Ontario to California (albeit with a bit of a hiatus in the middle). The last couple of days have consisted of getting replacements for some parts for our bikes, buying more cold-weather outdoors gear (riding through New Mexico will probably be very chilly) and waiting for a sudden cold spell that has descended to clear. Last night we went out to a cinema where there was a regular event called the Dionysium, which consisted of brief seminars about science and technology, a modified Dionysian wedding ceremony, and debate about whether science and religion are natural adversaries. To be honest, the debate wasn't that great - I've seen better ones done by undergrad clubs at university. But it was an entertaining evening none-the-less. And either tomorrow or the next day we should hit the road again.
Incidentally it's also 400 years to the day since Galileo Galilei pointed a telescope at Jupiter and made the observations which showed that the Earth is not the only body in the Universe to be orbited by a moon or moons, and it's my father's birthday. Happy birthday and much love, Dad!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
On the road again...
Total distance:4286.4 km
We have finally made our exit from Austin. It's a nice place, but we were getting antsy and eager to head out on the road again and see new sights, meet new people, and visit new places.
We spent our last few days in Austin buying gear, changing old chains and gear clusters and brakes for new ones and trying to get our bikes tuned and ready to run. We stocked up on healthy food supplies, including some great sourdough rye bread (difficult to come by in most small towns and roadside food stops), also met some more of Peter and Crystal's friends and cooked up a storm of wholemeal pizza, and trout, and watched Little Miss Sunshine and The Cat Returns, both of which were very enjoyable films. We stayed in Austin longer than expected, but Peter and Crystal were gracious hosts, and we're extremely grateful to them for their hospitality. The weekend weather was sunny and clear and would have been perfect for travelling, but we were still a bit busy getting our bike parts changed and our bags repacked, so we didn't set out until Monday. Almost immediately it became clear that my chain was not behaving, so we pointed ourselves (in some frustration) at the nearest bike shop, and grabbed lunch while they fiddled with it. After many tweaks (shortening the chain, taking a test ride, adjusting the gear cables, taking a test ride, etc...) and finally fitting a new rear derailleur we rode out of town, annoyed that so much of the day had been blown on bike-fixing, but determined to leave Austin behind us. A little after sunset we decided to grab dinner at a Chinese buffet, which turned out to be delicious, and got talking with two different couples about our trip. Both couples offered us accommodation for the night, so we got their addresses and headed to the closer couple (Ken and Rebecca) whose home was only a few kilometers away. They'd warned us that we had to pay for our bed by entertaining them with tales of what Australia is like, so we stayed up chatting for some time before turning in for the night.
The next morning we arose, had brekky in the sunshine in the back yard, and rode out to the home of the second couple (Dan and Sarah) for lunch, stopping briefly en route to look at a Hindu temple by the road. Dan and Sarah have a property near Buda and are working on making their place completely self-sufficient and "off the grid". We were very impressed by their nice open-plan place and the surroundings, which reminded us a bit of the semi-arid parts of South Australia, took some time to fidget with Yana's bike's gears, and eventually wound up staying for the night, giving me a chance to cook up a pasta dish I'd been trying to reinvent for a while, using freshly made coriander pesto (coriander = cilantro, for any north americans reading) instead of the more usual tomato or cream sauces that people put on pasta dishes. We had a nice long conversation about health foods, organic farming techniques, and whatnot. Today we'll be setting off into a more sparsely-populated area, so the tent will probably be coming in handy, and we'll be getting out into more open country. We're both looking forward to the change of scenery and the open spaces.
By Sundance:
We have finally made our exit from Austin. It's a nice place, but we were getting antsy and eager to head out on the road again and see new sights, meet new people, and visit new places.
We spent our last few days in Austin buying gear, changing old chains and gear clusters and brakes for new ones and trying to get our bikes tuned and ready to run. We stocked up on healthy food supplies, including some great sourdough rye bread (difficult to come by in most small towns and roadside food stops), also met some more of Peter and Crystal's friends and cooked up a storm of wholemeal pizza, and trout, and watched Little Miss Sunshine and The Cat Returns, both of which were very enjoyable films. We stayed in Austin longer than expected, but Peter and Crystal were gracious hosts, and we're extremely grateful to them for their hospitality. The weekend weather was sunny and clear and would have been perfect for travelling, but we were still a bit busy getting our bike parts changed and our bags repacked, so we didn't set out until Monday. Almost immediately it became clear that my chain was not behaving, so we pointed ourselves (in some frustration) at the nearest bike shop, and grabbed lunch while they fiddled with it. After many tweaks (shortening the chain, taking a test ride, adjusting the gear cables, taking a test ride, etc...) and finally fitting a new rear derailleur we rode out of town, annoyed that so much of the day had been blown on bike-fixing, but determined to leave Austin behind us. A little after sunset we decided to grab dinner at a Chinese buffet, which turned out to be delicious, and got talking with two different couples about our trip. Both couples offered us accommodation for the night, so we got their addresses and headed to the closer couple (Ken and Rebecca) whose home was only a few kilometers away. They'd warned us that we had to pay for our bed by entertaining them with tales of what Australia is like, so we stayed up chatting for some time before turning in for the night.
The next morning we arose, had brekky in the sunshine in the back yard, and rode out to the home of the second couple (Dan and Sarah) for lunch, stopping briefly en route to look at a Hindu temple by the road. Dan and Sarah have a property near Buda and are working on making their place completely self-sufficient and "off the grid". We were very impressed by their nice open-plan place and the surroundings, which reminded us a bit of the semi-arid parts of South Australia, took some time to fidget with Yana's bike's gears, and eventually wound up staying for the night, giving me a chance to cook up a pasta dish I'd been trying to reinvent for a while, using freshly made coriander pesto (coriander = cilantro, for any north americans reading) instead of the more usual tomato or cream sauces that people put on pasta dishes. We had a nice long conversation about health foods, organic farming techniques, and whatnot. Today we'll be setting off into a more sparsely-populated area, so the tent will probably be coming in handy, and we'll be getting out into more open country. We're both looking forward to the change of scenery and the open spaces.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Where's the Kaboom?
Total distance: 4321.2 km
Last time, we had dropped in on Dan and Sarah and spent the night. We left their place after a delicious breakfast, and rode out westward to reconverge on the main road at Dripping Springs. At their recommendation we stopped into a wonderful cafe called Thyme & Dough for lunch, where the locals and staff enthusiastically quizzed us about our travels, fed us delicious sandwiches, and at closing time gave us free loaves of bread, apple turnovers, and other baked goodies. We then headed over to the local supermarket to restock a few necessary items like breakfast cereal. As tends to happen at times like this, while one person is in the store some friendly folks started chatting with the other person who's waiting and keeping an eye on the bikes and bags. A delightful lady named Leslie mentioned that the weather was going to be awful for a couple of days and offered to let us stay in a studio apartment her family owns. After a bit of thought we decided we'd prefer to be sociable than to push ourselves cross-country at a furious rate, and accepted.
On the way out to her place Yana actually saw a peacock fly across the road in front of us. I didn't see it in flight, but we did see a few of them hanging around in a paddock. Presumably someone in the area breeds the things.
Anyway, after a little winding along small roads and up hills we found Leslie's place, met her husband and settled into our new accommodations. The weather forecast claimed there would be thunderstorms Thursday and Friday, and while the weather was indeed misty and rainy, the promised Earth-shattering kabooms did not eventuate. Instead we have spent a couple of lazy days enjoying the hospitality of Leslie and her family, learning to use a hula-hoop, cooking yet more yummy food, and meeting their chooks, dogs and cats. So it seems like a good occasion to post some photos of our recent travels;
Taking a break to stretch the spine, by a swampy Louisiana roadside.
The middle of a lake seems like an odd place for an electrical transformer station...
A sugar cane processing factory that looks like it stepped right out of a film by Miyazaki.
All Hail hypnochook!
Yana and a teeny-weeny pony
By Sundance:
Last time, we had dropped in on Dan and Sarah and spent the night. We left their place after a delicious breakfast, and rode out westward to reconverge on the main road at Dripping Springs. At their recommendation we stopped into a wonderful cafe called Thyme & Dough for lunch, where the locals and staff enthusiastically quizzed us about our travels, fed us delicious sandwiches, and at closing time gave us free loaves of bread, apple turnovers, and other baked goodies. We then headed over to the local supermarket to restock a few necessary items like breakfast cereal. As tends to happen at times like this, while one person is in the store some friendly folks started chatting with the other person who's waiting and keeping an eye on the bikes and bags. A delightful lady named Leslie mentioned that the weather was going to be awful for a couple of days and offered to let us stay in a studio apartment her family owns. After a bit of thought we decided we'd prefer to be sociable than to push ourselves cross-country at a furious rate, and accepted.
On the way out to her place Yana actually saw a peacock fly across the road in front of us. I didn't see it in flight, but we did see a few of them hanging around in a paddock. Presumably someone in the area breeds the things.
Loading our bikes for the trip back to where the grumpy cop told us we weren't allowed to ride through the rain.
Taking a break to stretch the spine, by a swampy Louisiana roadside.
The middle of a lake seems like an odd place for an electrical transformer station...
A sugar cane processing factory that looks like it stepped right out of a film by Miyazaki.
All Hail hypnochook!
Yana and a teeny-weeny ponyNext time we'll try to post some pictures from our side-trip to Mexico, and further across Texas.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Nine pictures - nine thousand words?
By Yana:
Well, time to post those photos I didn't get around to after that last epic entry. These are basically a little sample of the last few days.
Sundance and me, having reached one of our little milestones: 4444.4km.
Well, time to post those photos I didn't get around to after that last epic entry. These are basically a little sample of the last few days.
Delicious pancakes, courtesy of Jan.
One of the many gorgeous views that particular day threw at us.
Winter in Texas - just terrible!
Actually, the water was a little on the chilly side, but not completely outside semi-reasonable swimming temperature.
Sundance appreciating the pretty Rio Frio, where Mark took us.
Cactus landscape post scrub fire.
That beautiful sunrise, a little after the border patrol woke us up.
Dani and Greg, the champions.
Meep meep!
Total Distance: 4793.0 km
By Yana
Well, as Sundance has promised pics from Mexico in our last blog entry, I'll start off with just that, before launching into the story of what we have done since then. :-)
After a short while, we reached the entrance of the Pedernales Falls State Park. As we rode in, we noted the $20 tent fee, and felt quite smug for having avoided that the previous night. We still had to pay $5 each to get into the park, but hey, pretty things to be seen. After some more hills, we eventually made it to the Pedernales River itself. Honestly, it seemed a bit of an exaggeration to call what we saw the "Falls", but it was very pretty nonetheless.
By Yana
Well, as Sundance has promised pics from Mexico in our last blog entry, I'll start off with just that, before launching into the story of what we have done since then. :-)
Wandering around a little abandoned church type thing which our awesome Mexican hosts, Jose and Lolis, took us to see.
Can't find Sundance? Yep, he's probably climbing around on top of something. :-)
Obligatory "we were both here!" shot.
Sundance noms on a delicious potato spiral thingie... ah, the things those crafty Mexicans can do with the humble potato!
Oh, and they know how to make awesome sweet corn, too!
Paraplegics throttled here! :-D
The big fountain in the plaza of Piedras Negras.
One of the various monuments paying tribute to the greats of the past...
In retrospect, it's interesting to note that we didn't actually take a whole lof of photos of the social things we got up to. Bother! I guess we were too busy being sociable. Well, hopefully the above manage to convey some of the niftiness of Mexico.
So, back to the what we have been up to since our last post. After a few days of hanging around, we finally got ourselves organised again, and bid Leslie, Alex, and family farewell. It was afternoon by the time we got going, but the weather was lovely, and we were in pretty reasonably high spirits as we toodled along. We were pointing ourselves towards Johnson City, thinking it might be nice to make it there on that day, though we weren't that fussed about it. We just kind of pedalled along, lamenting how much of our fitness we had lost over our Christmas break, especially as we were definitely in the Hill Country now. Pretty, yes, but hilly, as the name suggests. Still, it's a good way to practice for what is to come, as we do have some pretty high passes to get through before we hit that west coast.
We had gone a reasonable distance when we stopped to check out our map. While we were standing there, a bloke in a pick-up truck pulled up next to us, to see if we needed anything. He also expressed his respect for what we were doing, as he had ridden around the US on a motorbike, and could only imagine how much harder it was on a bicycle! We had a brief chat, and then continued on our seperate ways. We figured by then that Johnson City was probably not going to happen tonight, though partway there, there was the Pedernales Falls State Park, which did have camping facilities. It was an option worth considering, though neither of us felt inclined to break our clean streak of not having had to pay for accommodation since all the way back in Indiana. Still, we decided to just play it by ear, and enjoy the scenery as we went. After a while, we were faced with our steepest slope yet for the day, which I was too chicken to go down full speed, though Sundance of course gleefully hooned down it. As it turned out, as the bottom of the slope was a river crossing, which was actually somewhat flooded due to the rains we had taken shelter from at Leslie's place. We took off our shoes and wheeled our bikes into the stream, but it turned out to be slower, shallower and less slippery than it could have been, and we could easily have just ridden across. Still, quite a fun crossing:
Once we had finished the crossing, we found ourselves gaping at our beautiful surroundings, and came to the conclusion that it would be an absolutely gorgeous place to put up our tent:
As there was a house on the other side of the road, we decided to seek out the residents, figuring that this was their property. It took a bit of looping around, but we found our way to the front door eventually, and knocked. We were greeted by a fellow named Ed, who was indeed the owner of the place, and because we did the polite thing and asked, he was quite happy for us to put up our tent in that spot. The timing could scarcely have been better, as it was turning dusky about then. So we got ourselves set up, had some curry and buckwheat for dinner, got some unexpected entertainment from the various people crossing the river (one car actually turned back, which we cracked up laughing about), and turned in at an uncharacteristically early hour.
The next morning, we managed to get up at a reasonably decent hour, and got ourselves packed up without too much fuss. We did spent a little bit of time mucking around in the pretty scenery, feeling all chuffed about the fact that we had finally reached cactus country on our bikes - the jaunt to Piedras Negras doesn't reeeaallly count, as that was with the help of a bus trip. So we hopped on our bikes again just as a gaggle of people on motorbikes crossed over the flooded bridge, and laboured uphill for what was going to be a very hilly day indeed.
After a short while, we reached the entrance of the Pedernales Falls State Park. As we rode in, we noted the $20 tent fee, and felt quite smug for having avoided that the previous night. We still had to pay $5 each to get into the park, but hey, pretty things to be seen. After some more hills, we eventually made it to the Pedernales River itself. Honestly, it seemed a bit of an exaggeration to call what we saw the "Falls", but it was very pretty nonetheless.We spent some quality time climbing around the surrounding rocks, taking photos, and all that. Eventually though, we had to admit that the day was moving on, so we went back to our bikes, only to discover that Sundance had a flat rear tyre! Curses! So we spent some more time sitting around, changing tubes, and all that. Afterwards, we decided to make one last detour to the Cypress Pool, on the way to which we bumped into a couple, Jeff and Noom. We chatted for a little while, and they were suitably impressed with our journey, and they offered to take us to dinner. We happily accepted, and exchanged phone numbers. We did have a brief look at the river a little bit further down, then made our way out of the park and towards Johnson City, where we would meet Jeff and Noom for dinner. On the way, we established that we had not had nearly enough carbohydrates lately, as we found our energy flagging over all those strenuous hills. We did make a few stops in the encroaching darkness to stuff ourselves with jelly beans, in the name of some quick fuel.
It was completely dark by the time we reached Johnson City, and we were completely ravenous. Luckily, we found Jeff and Noom easily enough, and headed for the nearest acceptable eatery. We chatted over our delightfully high-calorie deep fried meal. Eventually, Jeff and Noom had to head back home to Austin, so we said our farewells, and headed off to find somewhere to pitch our tent for the night. After a little bit of a wild goose chase, we found ourselves in a little convenience store, and got offered a bit of backyard space by a local lady. We gratefully followed her to her place as she drove back in her pick-up truck, and had a nice chat with her while we got our sleeping quarters organised. It was a beautifully clear, starry night, though luckily it didn't get too cold.
The next morning, we woke up with a dew-covered tent, so we headed off to the convenience store were we had met our host, and bought her breakfast there. As it turned out, they offered some very cheap and generous servings of your basic variety of breakfast tacos and pancakes and things. Highly satisfying, especially with the delicious tamarind icy pole Sundance and I shared for dessert. We also discovered that our host was nick-named "Ju-ju" by her nephews, nieces, and the like, which Sundance found surprising as that was also the family nickname for his grandmother. Our host then drove us around to see the various attractions of Johnson city, which is named after LBJ, as this used to basically be his childhood stomping ground. We had a look at the local LBJ museum, then headed back, packed up our now dry gear, and hopped on our bikes to get to Fredericksburg. However, after having battled our way into a headwind for a few kilometres, we found our way blocked by some decent-sized carnage: there had been a huge crash, two deaths, and the road would remain closed for three or four hours.
We spent some time pondering what to do, but eventually opted for heading back, and finding a different way. Of course, it threw a decent-sized spanner in the works of our plans of getting to Fredericksburg, meaning it wasn't going to happen on that day any more now. Aargh! Well, at least we found ourselves a much more pleasant road to go down, with next to no traffic, and plenty of pretty scenery. We actually went past various places which had a bunch of donkeys in the paddock - in the case of one of them, a whole bunch of adorably cute fuzzy dwarf donkeys! We stopped for a few minutes to coo at them, and then continued on our way.
As it got dark, we kept an eye out for a decent place to turf surf. There were various ranches around the place, and we eventually found one with an open gate, paddocks seperate from the backyard, and people home. The fellow we asked, John, readily agreed to let us put up our tent, assuring us that yes, no cattle would come and trample it, as long as we stayed out of the actual paddock. We made ourselves some dinner, and then briefly popped into the house to use the facilities to socialise with John, his wife Shannon, their two sons and their boisterous golden retriever. We also decided to find somewhere to charge up our various gizmos, namely my camera.
The next morning, we woke up to the sound of the cars before dawn. As it turns out, John and Shannon have a decent-length commute for work every day. We slept in a little more, and after breakfast, discovered that I had foolishly left my plastic bag full of various electronic gizmos inside the house, and we were locked out, with no idea of when John and Shannon would return! This resulted in a few hours wasted flagging down cars, finding neighbours who would contact our people, and eventually seeing Shannon return from her Johnson City doings. It was early afternoon by then, but it could have been a whole lot worse. We got the rest of our gear packed up, Shannon bestowed some munchies for the road on us, and then we finally headed off.
We did a bit of a detour to check out the LBJ ranch and the particularly extreme longhorns that hang out there. It killed another couple of hours, but we did manage to get to Fredericksburg that night. After stuffing ourselves at a Chinese buffet there which had been recommended by Jeff and Noom, we went in search of somewhere to sleep. There were plenty of RV parks, but we ended up getting permission from the local police to put up our tent on the fairgrounds instead. It was starting to rain very lightly just in time for us to crawl in, and we went to sleep pretty promptly, as it had turned out to be a late night.
We got up fairly early, as the local cops had warned us they might have to shoo us off if anyone called to complain. We stopped at the nearest petrol station to make breakfast, and then went in search of somewhere to have a shower, as we were starting to get a bit smelly. After a bit of running around, which also involved getting some groceries, we popped into one of the RV parks on the way out of town, who were happy to let us use their shower free of charge. With their permission, we also stuck up our damp tent to let it dry, did what needed to be done, and then set off for Kerrville. We got there around dusk, and pondered our accommodation options. We did actually meet a fellow, Mark, who lived in Leakey. Too far for us to still go that night, but he offered us a warm place to stay and a good Texan feed when we did pass through, which we figured would be the next day. We exchanged contact details, Mark wandered off to get himself a beer, and we went off to find ourselves a turf surf.
We actually ended up riding on to the next town, Ingram, which wasn't too far off. On the outskirts on the other side of Ingram, we started knocking on doors. Our first attempt was in a newly developed suburban-looking area, where the elderly lady at the door informed us no tents were allowed. So we left that little neck of the woods, and kept an eye out for something more friendly-looking.
We found it soon enough, and upon knocking on the door of the first-best abode, were greeted by a gregarious 70-something couple who immediately invited us in, let us use their stove, and pointed us to the less prickly places in their yard to put up our tent. Apparently they, Jan and Jerry, quite frequently put up cyclists, as their house is right on the southern tier route, which they however had not realised until we explained to them just why so many cyclicsts seemed to knock on their door. Apparently putting up weary travellers is one of their hobbies though, keeps them entertained now that their numerous progeny has left the nest. We had a very nice chat, and found out that the German girl travelling alone whom we had heard of twice before had stopped past their place, too. It's sort of making me wonder if we would be able to get in contact with her, as we quite frequently seem to ride in her tyre tracks. We also found out from Jan and Jerry that in this area, a lot of people have game ranches, where they keep all sorts of exotic deer and other quadrupeds - antelopes, axis deer, zebras, and various others. Huh.
We turned in eventually, and got to see a bunch of deer gallop (rather than prance) through the backyard just before we did so.
In the morning, Jan treated us to an enormous serving of pancakes and syrup and pecans, which was pretty much just what we needed right then. We got ourselves all packed up, in between bits of conversation and travel anecdotes. What we had not realised when we knocked on their door in the dark the previous night was that they were right on a particularly beautiful section of the river - probably great for kayaking, especially in summer!
We said our goodbyes and headed off on our bikes, with great plans of avoiding the big roads for as long as possible. We had lunch under a cute ranch sign sporting a metal T-rex skeleton, and then decided to go the shorter, probably slightly less scenic way. We found it very hard to get phone reception, but we eventually reached the main road and managed to leave a voice mail for Mark and his wife Toy, the people from Leakey. Luckily, the road was mostly in our favour. Lots of gentle downhill stretches, very little traffic, lots of space (due to several lanes being closed for roadwork). That being said, after dark, we found ourselves on a rough stretch with lots of bits of gravelly junk, though we still got there okay, a little before 8pm. As Toy had not felt like cooking, we found ourselves taken out for a very nice dinner in town instead of Mark's initial plans of a Texas barbecue at home. That suited us just fine too, and we had ourselves a veritable feast before sticking our gear in the back of Mark's pick-up truck and being taken the last three or so kilometres to their place. We found ourselves with a comfortable room, which was a bit of a nice change after a few tent nights.
We slept in comparatively late the next morning. It would have almost been tempting to stick around, as the place was beautiful, but Mark and Toy had other guests coming, so we cleared the deck. Mark did take us down to the river though, which was absolutely beautiful, and we got to see a couple of Axis deer hanging out amongst some of the trees. It was well into the afternoon by the time Mark had dropped us off out the front of the restaurant, but we still had a decent amount of time. Our next stretch of road would be a tough one, as going into the next town, Camp Wood, involved going uphill for 5km straight! Hooray for switchbacks! We hadn't had anything that intense since southern Indiana! Still, up we went, and it actually wasn't so bad, despite heavy panniers. We actually had a pair of cyclists on unladed road bikes catch up with us and ride along with us for a while, having a bit of a chat. It was actually pretty nice, and was a good reminder that civility between different breeds of cyclist is a fine thing indeed.
Just as we made it to the crest of our epic hill, I caught sight of a little feathered thing dashing across the road: a road runner! Our first one sighted for the trip, which seemed like a very apt reward for the uphill slog we had just done. Possibly even better, we also had a blissfull downhill stretch, and basically went most of the rest of the way to Camp Wood on momentum! Aaaaah, Heaven!
Once in Camp Wood, we got ourselves a few canned dinner ingredients, and rode onwards into the dusk. There would be no proper towns until Bracketville, which we had basically no hope of reaching that night, but we did decide to head on to the 10,000 acre property owned by some friends of Mark and Toy's, another 30km or so away from Camp Wood. It was a nice flat stretch with little traffic, and we reached the spot without too much interest. After some pondering and wandering back and forth, we decided to climb the barbed wire fence into the paddock - the owners of the property were out of town, and we had no idea how far off the gate was, as the property stretched on for eight miles - and get ourselves set up. While Sundance made an improvised, but delicious sort of Nacho stew, I got the tent set up, which involved a very thorough hunt for prickles, which the ground was absolutely covered with!
We had our dinner, and got to bed around midnight. We were pretty much out like lights, despite the occasional car that would zoom by. However, at one point, we found ourselves roused by some headlights pointed straight at us. It was still dark, but a glance at the watch told us it was a little after 6am. The headlights belonged to a border patrol vehicle, who considered a tent in a paddock so close to the border to be a bit suspicious. We tumbled into our clothes and out of the tent, grabbed our passports, and explained what we were on about. The border patrol guys were actually really nice and courteous, which is a incredibly refreshing after the types we have experienced in various airports!
After they had established that we were not illegally in the country, they drove off and we crawled back into our tent, watching our surroundings get lighter. Due to our early rousing, we were treated to an absolutely beautiful sunrise, and we figured it was just as well that we had been woken so early, as we had a big day ahead of us: around 90km to Del Rio!
As we were getting ourselves packed up, another border patrol vehicle showed up, and we had an amicable chat. When we asked if they were going to check if we weren't illegally imported Mexicans too, one of them comfortably drawled, "Nah, we were just bored, thought we'd come talk to you." It was a good chuckle for the morning. They eventually wandered off, and as we continued to pack up, yet another border patrol car showed up. At this point, we had to laugh. These guys didn't even look at our passports. We just had a bit of a chat, and they eventually wandered off, too. We climbed back over the fence, had our breakfast, and were greeted by one of our previous border patrol friends, telling us that there was a pair of Alaskan cyclists about 15 minutes away from us, coming our way. This was pretty cool, we thought, but we decided to get ready to go instead of waiting, as we figured they'd catch up to us when we stopped for lunch. We rode on into the beautiful scenery, over gently rolling hills, and in absolutely lovely balmy weather. However, there was no sign of the Alaskans.
We stopped for lunch in Brackettville, got some lunch ingredients, and sat ourselves at the nearest picnic table. Just as we started to make our lunch, a pair of cyclists came to our spot, laden down in a similar fashion to ours. However, when we greeted them with "you must be the Alaskans," they informed us that they were in fact from Montana, riding in from Portland, Oregon! They sat down with us, and we spent a very nice couple of hours exchanging notes and war stories. It was kind of funny how many of the little things we had in common, although they were on slightly beefed up road bikes, rather than the mountain bikes we're on. We very quickly established that they, Dani and Greg, are a pair of champions, and the whole thing put us in very high spirits. Of course, we exchanged blog addresses. You should check out their adventures, they're on http://dandgtour.blogspot.com/ .
As a result of this meeting, our one hour lunch break turned into three and a half hours, but we weren't a bit sorry, even though it meant that we were not going to make it to Del Rio before dark now. We took a bunch of photos, and eventually parted ways, delayed but delighted. Unfortunately for us, as soon as we turned onto our road towards Del Rio, we got smacked in the face by a headwind that was quite reminiscent of the monster which got us on Christmas eve. We found ourselves struggling along at 12km per hour, with the only consolation being that this meant Dani and Greg had a sweet tailwind, which they probably really needed at that point.
After several hours and jelly bean stops, we pulled into Del Rio, absolutely exhausted. Luckily, our couch surfing host, Niki, lived right on the outskirts of town, which cut several kms off our trip, and she and her boyfriend William had dinner ready for us. Let's just say that we were extremely grateful. I actually crashed out pretty quickly after dinner, though Sundance managed to stay up for a little longer. We eventually headed to our spare room with the air mattress, and slept like fossilised logs.
Yesterday we enjoyed the luxury of sleeping in, got driven into town by Niki to do some shopping, and Sundance experimented with baking a couple of loaves of bread. It didn't rise very much but still tasted yummy, and after pigging out on the delightful sourdough rye we got in Austin he's determined to maser the art of making one's own bread sometime this year.
So now here we are, in Del Rio, chilling out for a little while, eating good food, watching too much TV. But there are things that need doing now, and even though I have some more photos to post, I think I shall do so later.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
How green was my cactus
Total distance: 4906.0 km
Okay, I know we're supposed to eat lamb on Australia Day, but instead we wound up baking bread and eating pizza. At least, I wound up baking bread. After the yummy sourdough rye we got in Austin, I've become a little obsessed with getting the hang of making bread, and on my third attempt I finally got a loaf that rose pretty well (and could be cut with a bread knife rather than requiring a bandsaw).
Anyway, Tuesday disappeared in a relative flurry of packing, and watching episodes from the first season of Heroes, which kinda sucked us in while we were in Del Rio. And that evening we went out for "all you care to eat" pizza with Niki, had a nice chat about home (Oz and Adelaide), and retired for an early start.
We tumbled out of bed the following morning to clear our stuff from the house so Niki could go to work and leave us to our own devices. After saying our farewells and making breakfast we got on our bikes for the pleasant experience of a downhill run with a tailwind, though it didn't last. Yana's bike was making a mysterious ticking noise which led us to pull into the local bike shop. As usual, these things never take a short time to fix, and after getting a new bottom bracket installed, and a seemingly interminable fiddle to readjust the gears, the whole day was shot. In fact, more gear fiddling was still required the next morning so Tim, the guy from the bike store, allowed us to stay at his place overnight (since getting back to Niki's and then back to the bike shop without Yana's bike would have been a bummer). Tim and his wife were fun people to chat with, and the following day - thursday - a little after lunchtime we finally got to leave Del Rio. The wind was fortunately with us again, and the weather was warm, We rode past the Amistad Reservoir which looked beautiful in the sunlight, and made it into the town of Comstock where the one and only restaurant/bar offered us a place to shelter from the impending thunderstorm. One of the nice folks there helped us locate a place to put up our tent inside a storage shed which kept the rain and hail off quite effectively.
The weather had cleared on Friday morning but the wind was awful. 16 - 32 km/h straight in our faces. It took us over five hours to get the 50 km from Comstock to Langtry, arriving a bit after dark. After some hunting around we found the actual town center and were directed to the community center to put up put tent, where the two cyclists we met in Bracketville (Dani and Greg) had also camped.
This morning we awoke to clear skies and gentle winds. After some tyre maintenance, we wandered up to the Judge Roy Bean museum. JRB was "the law west of the Pecos" and would dispense his own verdicts rather than consulting his (only) law book. Since he didn't have a jail, everything was punishable by a fine, and he also ran a bar and staged at least one boxing match. Quite a character. The museum also has a great cactus garden , which is extremely interesting and nicely laid-out. Well worth the visit. We've really entered cactus territory now, which makes an change from the deciduous forest that we travelled through all the way south from the start of our journey. The change of vegetation really makes us feel like we're getting somewhere. Now we shall hit the road and set out for Dryden, and possibly Sanderson if we can push on that far before nighttime.
By Sundance:
Okay, I know we're supposed to eat lamb on Australia Day, but instead we wound up baking bread and eating pizza. At least, I wound up baking bread. After the yummy sourdough rye we got in Austin, I've become a little obsessed with getting the hang of making bread, and on my third attempt I finally got a loaf that rose pretty well (and could be cut with a bread knife rather than requiring a bandsaw).
Anyway, Tuesday disappeared in a relative flurry of packing, and watching episodes from the first season of Heroes, which kinda sucked us in while we were in Del Rio. And that evening we went out for "all you care to eat" pizza with Niki, had a nice chat about home (Oz and Adelaide), and retired for an early start.
We tumbled out of bed the following morning to clear our stuff from the house so Niki could go to work and leave us to our own devices. After saying our farewells and making breakfast we got on our bikes for the pleasant experience of a downhill run with a tailwind, though it didn't last. Yana's bike was making a mysterious ticking noise which led us to pull into the local bike shop. As usual, these things never take a short time to fix, and after getting a new bottom bracket installed, and a seemingly interminable fiddle to readjust the gears, the whole day was shot. In fact, more gear fiddling was still required the next morning so Tim, the guy from the bike store, allowed us to stay at his place overnight (since getting back to Niki's and then back to the bike shop without Yana's bike would have been a bummer). Tim and his wife were fun people to chat with, and the following day - thursday - a little after lunchtime we finally got to leave Del Rio. The wind was fortunately with us again, and the weather was warm, We rode past the Amistad Reservoir which looked beautiful in the sunlight, and made it into the town of Comstock where the one and only restaurant/bar offered us a place to shelter from the impending thunderstorm. One of the nice folks there helped us locate a place to put up our tent inside a storage shed which kept the rain and hail off quite effectively.
The weather had cleared on Friday morning but the wind was awful. 16 - 32 km/h straight in our faces. It took us over five hours to get the 50 km from Comstock to Langtry, arriving a bit after dark. After some hunting around we found the actual town center and were directed to the community center to put up put tent, where the two cyclists we met in Bracketville (Dani and Greg) had also camped.
This morning we awoke to clear skies and gentle winds. After some tyre maintenance, we wandered up to the Judge Roy Bean museum. JRB was "the law west of the Pecos" and would dispense his own verdicts rather than consulting his (only) law book. Since he didn't have a jail, everything was punishable by a fine, and he also ran a bar and staged at least one boxing match. Quite a character. The museum also has a great cactus garden , which is extremely interesting and nicely laid-out. Well worth the visit. We've really entered cactus territory now, which makes an change from the deciduous forest that we travelled through all the way south from the start of our journey. The change of vegetation really makes us feel like we're getting somewhere. Now we shall hit the road and set out for Dryden, and possibly Sanderson if we can push on that far before nighttime.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Thinking of Pheidippides
Total distance: 5090.4 km
As mentioned in our last post, the town of Langtry turned out to be a surprisingly interesting little place. After looking around the visitor's centre we hopped on our trusty steeds and headed down the hill to look at the view across the Rio Grande. We couldn't actually see the river itself, but the cliffs on the Mexican side of the river were scenic and spectacular. We took some happy-snaps and headed back up to the main highway. It was getting late so we scoffed down a large packet of corn chips and diced tomatoes as lunch (the only other options at the corner store being too beef-based for our tastes), and hit the road.
The countryside was arid and gently rolling, and unlike the previous day the wind was in our favour. The numerous cuttings on the road exposed layers of orange clay and white limestone, laid down 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous period, when this part of the world was a shallow sea. It's funny to think of Mosasaurs and Icthyosaurs swimming in the vicinity of where we hairless big-brained monkeys now ride our bicycles. The countryside was cut with numerous small canyons, which broke up the rolling hills and general flatness of the scenery. It's definitely looking like the countryside from a Road Runner cartoon. And in fact we even caught sight of a road-runner by the roadside, flapping its way up a small embankment as we startled it.
I said "meep meep" to it, but it didn't reply.
Having made a late start, we were still on the road when the sun set. That sure is a beautiful sight in this part of the world. There was an interesting cloud formation to the right of the sunset which I thought looked like a grey dragon. A few minutes after sunset I noticed the sky become suddenly brighter in the space of a few seconds - the dragon was no longer grey, it was lit up red and orange by the sunlight from the sunset that was happening further west beyond our horizon. The sight was almost magical, and I stopped, dumbstruck, to take a number of photos as the colours gradually changed. Shortly afterwards we noticed the bright orange moon creeping over the eastern horizon. Who needs TV?
As we were getting tired and sugar-crashy, we were glad to pull into Dryden to find the grocery store still open. We bought a few supplies for making dinner, asked the owners if there was anywhere in town to put up a tent, and discovered promptly that the owners of that particular store are probably the least helpful, friendly people we've met in the whole USA. They seemed genuinely annoyed to have customers in their store. We rode back down the road to a house which had a light on, and met a lovely woamn named Tammy (who was visiting that house) who said we could pitch a tent in her yard. She led us up there, introduced us to her dog, and chatted while we prepared dinner. After a day of cycling it's funny how good a pot of chicken noodle soup, rice, diced tomatoes, cous-cous, and mushrooms can taste. We crawled into our bed, under the extra blankets that Tammy provided us with, and snuggled up to keep warm.
In the morning we got to enjoy the luxury of a warm shower and clean clothes! Tammy even introduced us to her cat who has two extra toes on each front foot. We hit the road and pushed on to Sanderson, feeling quite weary as a result of not having eaten properly the previous day. Just short of Sanderson we crossed the 5000 km mark of our journey. In fact, Yana almost missed it! We were coming down off a plateau into Sanderson Canyon and Yana had gone ahead while I stopped to take photos. I had to pedal like crazy to catch up to her, and yell at her to stop or else she would have just kept riding. But as it was I managed to call her back to the appropriate spot and we got our souvenir photo of ourselves with my odometer showing 5000.0 km. That's quite a long way we've come. To put it in context, it's one eighth of the circumference of the Earth. Wowie!
Since we were hungry, in Sanderson we asked around and found a wonderful restaurant called the Roundhouse cafe where we gorged ourselves on chicken tacos and fajitas, the best french fries I've eaten in years (they were actually crisp and crunchy, and had a small amount of parsley flakes on them which really worked well), and slices of key lime pie - which I decided is like a limey version of my Mum's lemon cheesecake, cherry pie, and coconut creme pie. We stuffed ourselves until we could barely move, and would have kept going if the kitchen hadn't closed post-lunchtime, then headed out further west, aiming for Marathon. Along the way we added a new species to the roadkill we've encountered, a javelina (wild pig), which made me think of Asterix and Obelix hunting wild boars.
A little before sunset we were around halfway between Sanderson and Marathon. We tried door-knocking one ranch to see if we could pitch a tent, but there was nobody home. The next place we found, a little after dark, had a light on, and the elderly couple and their son Michael who lived there said we were welcome to pitch our tent. The gentleman of the house was clearly the kind who didn't say much, unless he had something important to say. He stayed mostly silent while his wife and son discussed the best place for us to pitch our tent, then led me out to a bunkhouse they had beside the main building, and together we fiddled with a gas heater and got it working, and swept up the dust on the floor, turning it into a very comfy little place for Yana and I to curl up for the night.
In the morning, after feeding their horses, our hosts drove off to town to buy groceries while we ate brekkie in their backyard, and then set off westward again. A little before lunch we saw a buffalo hanging out on a ranch to our left, looking quite bored and a bit scrawny, but still, it was a buffalo! The first one we've seen up close. This put both of us in mind of doing a movie adaptation of the World of Tiers series of novels (for reasons which will only make sense if you've read the books).
We stopped for lunch at a picnic area, and got chatting with a couple of folks who'd paused on the way back from Big Bend park. Yana's chain and derailleurs were still playing up, so I fiddled with them some more and got them to be useable, though still not perfect. We're both beginning to suspect that her rear derailleur is just worn out and needs replacing. Also, while stopped at the picnic/rest area we heard a very impressive-sounding plane fly past in the distance. We caught a glimpse of it, and though I didn't get my binoculars out in time to get a good look, it was moving fast (clearly sub-sonic but I'd guess it was ging close to Mach 1), was sleek and black, and to my untrained eye looked like an SR-71. We pushed on, and eventually made it to Marathon - feeling that the name of the town was appropriate - just before 5pm. On the recommendation of Dani and Greg, we found the French Grocer (which turned out to be stocked with an amazing assortment of good food), asked for the bike hostel place, and made our way through town to our accommodations. The bike hostel is a block of land that's being converted into an organic farm, and has a number of cool little buildings on it where touring cyclists and people who WOOF (Work On Organic Farms) as volunteers can stay for free. We met the other folks staying here (including a Serbian-born Aussie WOOFer called Norbert), headed back to the grocery to buy supplies, and cooked up some turkey paella for dinner, followed by peach crumble cooked in an iron skillet in hot coals.
On Tuesday Norbert and I fiddled with Yana's derailleur some more, and then I got stuck into making bread. I decided it'd be fun to bake by putting the pot (improvised breadpan) into the coals of the fireplace used to heat the kitchen area here. It worked pretty well, although the bottom of the loaf got a bit blackened, so I think I need to have some sort of rack or stand to keep the bread-vessel out of direct contact with the coals.
Wednesday was rainy and yucky, which means pancakes (Yana made some really good banana and pecan ones for brekkie), blog updates, and laundry instead of cycling. A couple of other Aussies showed up, who have been hitching and riding trains across North America. Their visas in the US were almost expired, so a plan eventuated to ride down to Big Bend, look around, and drop off said Aussies near the border where they could head out to Mexico. And so on Thursday morning we piled seven people plus backpacks into a car and drove down to Big Bend National Park. The whole lot of us went for a walk down a closed road (closed due to mud) to bathe in hot springs by a stream that fed into the Rio Grande, and in the evening Yana and I split from the group to pitch our tent and stay overnight in the park. At one point we heard an amazing squeal from an animal that bumped into the tent - halfway between a bird shriek and a pig squeal. I shoved my head out of the tent to discover that it was a skunk (which was apparently not paying attention and had bumped straight into the tent in the dark) but fortunately it didn't spray us!
The next morning we awoke, had brekkie, left our tent and other unnecessary items at the visitor's centre/lodge registration, and went for a day walk to the south rim of the Chisos Basin. The view from the rim, where we had lunch, was gorgeous, and well worth the 24 km round-trip (including 4 km round-trip side trail to the top of the highest peak in the park). The trail up Emory Peak doesn't actually go right to the top, but to a gorge between to stone spires, one of which I climbed up (it turned out by chance to be the taller of the two, which made me glad). The sun was setting and turning all the peaks a gorgeous orange by the time we got back to the visitor's centre.
Jared and Norbert from the bike hostel had come to collect us, and we drove back to Marathon feeling tired but satisfied with our side-trip. Today is a relaxation and repacking day, and we'll head out further west tomorrow.
Some photos of our recent exploits:
By Sundance:
As mentioned in our last post, the town of Langtry turned out to be a surprisingly interesting little place. After looking around the visitor's centre we hopped on our trusty steeds and headed down the hill to look at the view across the Rio Grande. We couldn't actually see the river itself, but the cliffs on the Mexican side of the river were scenic and spectacular. We took some happy-snaps and headed back up to the main highway. It was getting late so we scoffed down a large packet of corn chips and diced tomatoes as lunch (the only other options at the corner store being too beef-based for our tastes), and hit the road.
The countryside was arid and gently rolling, and unlike the previous day the wind was in our favour. The numerous cuttings on the road exposed layers of orange clay and white limestone, laid down 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous period, when this part of the world was a shallow sea. It's funny to think of Mosasaurs and Icthyosaurs swimming in the vicinity of where we hairless big-brained monkeys now ride our bicycles. The countryside was cut with numerous small canyons, which broke up the rolling hills and general flatness of the scenery. It's definitely looking like the countryside from a Road Runner cartoon. And in fact we even caught sight of a road-runner by the roadside, flapping its way up a small embankment as we startled it.
I said "meep meep" to it, but it didn't reply.
Having made a late start, we were still on the road when the sun set. That sure is a beautiful sight in this part of the world. There was an interesting cloud formation to the right of the sunset which I thought looked like a grey dragon. A few minutes after sunset I noticed the sky become suddenly brighter in the space of a few seconds - the dragon was no longer grey, it was lit up red and orange by the sunlight from the sunset that was happening further west beyond our horizon. The sight was almost magical, and I stopped, dumbstruck, to take a number of photos as the colours gradually changed. Shortly afterwards we noticed the bright orange moon creeping over the eastern horizon. Who needs TV?
As we were getting tired and sugar-crashy, we were glad to pull into Dryden to find the grocery store still open. We bought a few supplies for making dinner, asked the owners if there was anywhere in town to put up a tent, and discovered promptly that the owners of that particular store are probably the least helpful, friendly people we've met in the whole USA. They seemed genuinely annoyed to have customers in their store. We rode back down the road to a house which had a light on, and met a lovely woamn named Tammy (who was visiting that house) who said we could pitch a tent in her yard. She led us up there, introduced us to her dog, and chatted while we prepared dinner. After a day of cycling it's funny how good a pot of chicken noodle soup, rice, diced tomatoes, cous-cous, and mushrooms can taste. We crawled into our bed, under the extra blankets that Tammy provided us with, and snuggled up to keep warm.
In the morning we got to enjoy the luxury of a warm shower and clean clothes! Tammy even introduced us to her cat who has two extra toes on each front foot. We hit the road and pushed on to Sanderson, feeling quite weary as a result of not having eaten properly the previous day. Just short of Sanderson we crossed the 5000 km mark of our journey. In fact, Yana almost missed it! We were coming down off a plateau into Sanderson Canyon and Yana had gone ahead while I stopped to take photos. I had to pedal like crazy to catch up to her, and yell at her to stop or else she would have just kept riding. But as it was I managed to call her back to the appropriate spot and we got our souvenir photo of ourselves with my odometer showing 5000.0 km. That's quite a long way we've come. To put it in context, it's one eighth of the circumference of the Earth. Wowie!
Since we were hungry, in Sanderson we asked around and found a wonderful restaurant called the Roundhouse cafe where we gorged ourselves on chicken tacos and fajitas, the best french fries I've eaten in years (they were actually crisp and crunchy, and had a small amount of parsley flakes on them which really worked well), and slices of key lime pie - which I decided is like a limey version of my Mum's lemon cheesecake, cherry pie, and coconut creme pie. We stuffed ourselves until we could barely move, and would have kept going if the kitchen hadn't closed post-lunchtime, then headed out further west, aiming for Marathon. Along the way we added a new species to the roadkill we've encountered, a javelina (wild pig), which made me think of Asterix and Obelix hunting wild boars.
A little before sunset we were around halfway between Sanderson and Marathon. We tried door-knocking one ranch to see if we could pitch a tent, but there was nobody home. The next place we found, a little after dark, had a light on, and the elderly couple and their son Michael who lived there said we were welcome to pitch our tent. The gentleman of the house was clearly the kind who didn't say much, unless he had something important to say. He stayed mostly silent while his wife and son discussed the best place for us to pitch our tent, then led me out to a bunkhouse they had beside the main building, and together we fiddled with a gas heater and got it working, and swept up the dust on the floor, turning it into a very comfy little place for Yana and I to curl up for the night.
In the morning, after feeding their horses, our hosts drove off to town to buy groceries while we ate brekkie in their backyard, and then set off westward again. A little before lunch we saw a buffalo hanging out on a ranch to our left, looking quite bored and a bit scrawny, but still, it was a buffalo! The first one we've seen up close. This put both of us in mind of doing a movie adaptation of the World of Tiers series of novels (for reasons which will only make sense if you've read the books).
We stopped for lunch at a picnic area, and got chatting with a couple of folks who'd paused on the way back from Big Bend park. Yana's chain and derailleurs were still playing up, so I fiddled with them some more and got them to be useable, though still not perfect. We're both beginning to suspect that her rear derailleur is just worn out and needs replacing. Also, while stopped at the picnic/rest area we heard a very impressive-sounding plane fly past in the distance. We caught a glimpse of it, and though I didn't get my binoculars out in time to get a good look, it was moving fast (clearly sub-sonic but I'd guess it was ging close to Mach 1), was sleek and black, and to my untrained eye looked like an SR-71. We pushed on, and eventually made it to Marathon - feeling that the name of the town was appropriate - just before 5pm. On the recommendation of Dani and Greg, we found the French Grocer (which turned out to be stocked with an amazing assortment of good food), asked for the bike hostel place, and made our way through town to our accommodations. The bike hostel is a block of land that's being converted into an organic farm, and has a number of cool little buildings on it where touring cyclists and people who WOOF (Work On Organic Farms) as volunteers can stay for free. We met the other folks staying here (including a Serbian-born Aussie WOOFer called Norbert), headed back to the grocery to buy supplies, and cooked up some turkey paella for dinner, followed by peach crumble cooked in an iron skillet in hot coals.
On Tuesday Norbert and I fiddled with Yana's derailleur some more, and then I got stuck into making bread. I decided it'd be fun to bake by putting the pot (improvised breadpan) into the coals of the fireplace used to heat the kitchen area here. It worked pretty well, although the bottom of the loaf got a bit blackened, so I think I need to have some sort of rack or stand to keep the bread-vessel out of direct contact with the coals.
Wednesday was rainy and yucky, which means pancakes (Yana made some really good banana and pecan ones for brekkie), blog updates, and laundry instead of cycling. A couple of other Aussies showed up, who have been hitching and riding trains across North America. Their visas in the US were almost expired, so a plan eventuated to ride down to Big Bend, look around, and drop off said Aussies near the border where they could head out to Mexico. And so on Thursday morning we piled seven people plus backpacks into a car and drove down to Big Bend National Park. The whole lot of us went for a walk down a closed road (closed due to mud) to bathe in hot springs by a stream that fed into the Rio Grande, and in the evening Yana and I split from the group to pitch our tent and stay overnight in the park. At one point we heard an amazing squeal from an animal that bumped into the tent - halfway between a bird shriek and a pig squeal. I shoved my head out of the tent to discover that it was a skunk (which was apparently not paying attention and had bumped straight into the tent in the dark) but fortunately it didn't spray us!
The next morning we awoke, had brekkie, left our tent and other unnecessary items at the visitor's centre/lodge registration, and went for a day walk to the south rim of the Chisos Basin. The view from the rim, where we had lunch, was gorgeous, and well worth the 24 km round-trip (including 4 km round-trip side trail to the top of the highest peak in the park). The trail up Emory Peak doesn't actually go right to the top, but to a gorge between to stone spires, one of which I climbed up (it turned out by chance to be the taller of the two, which made me glad). The sun was setting and turning all the peaks a gorgeous orange by the time we got back to the visitor's centre.
Jared and Norbert from the bike hostel had come to collect us, and we drove back to Marathon feeling tired but satisfied with our side-trip. Today is a relaxation and repacking day, and we'll head out further west tomorrow.
Some photos of our recent exploits:
Part of the pretty cactus garden in Langtry.
5000 km mark! Hooray!
Breakfast time!
Hanging out in the hot springs with the folks from La Loma Del Chivo - once again, we're just finding winter in Texas unbearable. :-)
The view from the South Rim at Big Bend.
A lone column of rock sticking out of the mountain side... we did get to see some nifty formations on this walk.
The sun sets over the basin.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Nibblers With Altitude
Total distance: 5194.0 km
By Yana
We ended up leaving the town of Marathon at about 4pm, after some delicious vegetable burritos to fuel us on our way. Good thing we were only heading for Alpine, otherwise the late start would have been frustrating as hell. In any case, the road was reasonably nice and flat, and we were going at a reasonably decent pace, although my derailleur was still making a nuisance of itself. We basically came to the conclusion that it needed to be replaced, as every time we adjust it, it deteriorates back into its previous state within 10-20km. Annoying, but bearable for the relatively short trip we had into Alpine.
By the time Alpine came into sight, it was well and truly dark. We weren't entirely sure of our accommodation for the night, as our potential host, Chris, had not returned our calls, although he had given us directions to his place. We rode downhill into the actual town itself, passing a cop car and two cops apparently conversing with an open-mouthed apparently handcuffed fellow on his knees - our guess was a drug test. We stopped at the nearest petrol station to try calling our host again, didn't get through, and decided to head to his place in hopes that he was there. The house was dark when we arrived, and after a brief chat to the neighbour, we established that he was indeed not around. So we turned around to find some other option, but as luck had it, the next car we crossed paths with turned out to be driven by Chris, the man himself. Close call! As it turned out, he doesn't have access to his phone at work, hence our inability to contact him.
We stowed our bikes in his shed, and Chris set up some indoor sleeping arrangements for us in the adjoining house, which he also owns. He then called over his girlfriend, Phyllis, who came with a potroast in tow. For the sake of some non-beefy sustenance, Chris also got a massive slab of frozen fish out of the freezer. In the name of quickly separating it into smaller pieces for easier thawing, he actually took the slab into the toolshed and cut it into four pieces with a circular saw, which was a very entertaining sight. Phyllis also did very delicious things with that fish, and we went to bed extremely satisfied, intending to return the favour and cook them dinner the following night, if our derailleur problems were to keep us in Alpine for an extra day.
The next day, we headed to the local bikeshop. As we knew it would be, it was closed, as many businesses in Alpine are on Mondays. Sundance had e-mailed and called the owner in hopes of asking if he might briefly open the shop for us - apparently he had done so for Dani and Greg, the cyclists we had bumped into in Brackettville - but we didn't get through to him. So we rode around town a little bit, had a look at the eclectic little art galleries and cafes, had ourselves some Tex Mex for lunch, and decided to go say hi to our next potential host, Sue, who lives in Fort Davis. As she works in Alpine, we called to announce ourselves, and then dropped by to meet her. She turned out to be absolutely lovely, and showed us around the place, with the interesting red stonework walls and marble floors which actually seemed to contain a few seashell fossils. She also introduced us to some of her colleagues, who were also avid cyclists, and we had a very pleasant time chatting before getting stuck into our next problem: on our way to Sue's work, both Sundance and I had somehow acquired a puncture in our rear tyres! Sue was nice enough to call another one of her cyclist friends, who arrived with a pump in tow, so we could at least ride the short distance to the hardware store in order to get some more tubes to replace the old ones with. Of course, whenever we ride somewhere without replacement tubes or a patch kit, we get a puncture! Murphy's law strikes again, I suppose.
We actually stopped for some groceries, and upon our return, discovered that while Sundance's tyre seemed fine, mine had deflated completely. As we were only a very short distance from Chris's place, we accepted the hardware store staff's offer to let us use their bike pump so we could pump it up again, and then quickly rode back. It was certainly preferable to sitting around in the cold to fix it. We got back without too much trouble, and I got stuck into the fixing process. As it turned out, my puncture had not in fact been caused by a goat's head (the Texan version of three-corner jacks, those horrible pricklies that are the bane of bike tyres), but by the tyreliner, which had pinched the tube open! This was the third time that had happened, which made us wonder whether those liners are actually worth it. Thing is, we don't know how many punctures they have or haven't prevented. In any case, I replaced the tube, patched the puncture, and Sundance and I made ourselves some dinner before turning in for bed - there had been no sign of Chris, so we figured that work had been keeping him.
The next morning, Sundance discovered that his rear tyre had gone down again after all, and after some fiddling, I established that his puncture had also been caused by the liners. Hmmmm. In any case, we did a quick replacement job, had our breakfast, got packed up, and headed off to the bikeshop. I happened to be in the toolshed when Chris and Phyllis left for work, so I got to say goodbye and thank them again for having us.
At the bikeshop, we met the owner, John, as well as another touring cyclist, Rob, who was also having derailleur problems. As John was almost done with Rob's bike, it didn't take too long for my bike to be put in the stand, and John established that apart from my derailleur needing replacement, my chain was also stretched beyond belief - a thing that Sundance had suspected, even though it had been brand new when we got it in Austin. I guess it's proof of our strenuous riding, how quickly stuff wears out. We spent some time in the shop, in interesting conversation, and John made pretty quick work of my bike. I took it out for a test ride, and it felt pretty good, which was a nice change. The mysterious ticking noise was gone too, which Sundance guessed to have been due to the chain.
We left our gear at the shop in order to go get some lunch, as well as some cash to pay John with, as the shop doesn't accept card payments. As most places had already closed for lunch, we ended up going for a Chinese buffet. On our way to get money, we actually also got talking with a fellow who runs a local martial arts academy, and who has a pommel horse, but none of us had time for Sundance to have a whirl on it. Pity. So we got our money, wandered back to the bike shop and spotted a lime green firetruck on the way, paid John, and also decided to get some more patches for our patch kit, and some thorn-resistant tyre tubes. They are absolutely enormous. I practically dare anything to give us a flat now!
As the day was getting on, we basically had to accept that we weren't going to get to the Observatory, which had been our optimistic goal, but we were still going to go for Fort Davis, where Sue lives. As her work was on the way, we popped in on her to get directions, and then got on the road. Riding felt surprisingly hard, and we spent quite some time wondering why it was tiring us out so badly. Sundance finally clicked with a plausible hypothesis: altitude. We are over 1.5km above sea level! In fact, we came to realise that yes, taking a deep breath wasn't really doing as much as we felt it was supposed to. Well, it's just one of those things we'll have to adapt to, and we kept riding through the extremely pretty scenery. To a certain extent, the mountains start to look the same after a while, but they were closer and more clustered around us now, and there were large boulders strewn on either side of the road, which was a pretty sight. Apparently the countryside around here was largely produced by volcanic activity, as opposed to the stuff further east which formed as sediment on a sea floor back in the days of teh dinosaurs. But one of the best things that happened was that once we left Brewster County and entered Jeff Davis County, the road went from pebbly bitumen to the proper smooth stuff! Aaaaah, bliss!
It still got dark and really quite cold by the time we got to Fort Davis - the ride had taken us two-and-a-half hours, even though it had only been 40km - but at the end of the day, it hadn't been so bad, just really tiring, what with the altitude. We found Sue's place without too much trouble, and were greeted with warm beds and smoked chicken with vegetables, which was an absolute delight. We also got to meet Sue's astrophysicist husband, Matt, who works at the observatory.
We had a reasonably late night, but went to bed reasonably satisfied, although the weather forecast for the next few days is a bit icky for cycling, which was a frustrating thought to bear in mind. For now, we are taking care of mundane things, such as laundry, blog posts, and putting those uber tubes into our tyres. It would be nice to go up to the observatory tonight, although the skies are inconveniently cloudy. A fellow named John, who works and lives at the observatory, has also offered us his hospitality, as he is very interested in touring cyclists such as ourselves. It'll be a hard slog up the mountain, but no doubt worth it.
By Yana
We ended up leaving the town of Marathon at about 4pm, after some delicious vegetable burritos to fuel us on our way. Good thing we were only heading for Alpine, otherwise the late start would have been frustrating as hell. In any case, the road was reasonably nice and flat, and we were going at a reasonably decent pace, although my derailleur was still making a nuisance of itself. We basically came to the conclusion that it needed to be replaced, as every time we adjust it, it deteriorates back into its previous state within 10-20km. Annoying, but bearable for the relatively short trip we had into Alpine.
By the time Alpine came into sight, it was well and truly dark. We weren't entirely sure of our accommodation for the night, as our potential host, Chris, had not returned our calls, although he had given us directions to his place. We rode downhill into the actual town itself, passing a cop car and two cops apparently conversing with an open-mouthed apparently handcuffed fellow on his knees - our guess was a drug test. We stopped at the nearest petrol station to try calling our host again, didn't get through, and decided to head to his place in hopes that he was there. The house was dark when we arrived, and after a brief chat to the neighbour, we established that he was indeed not around. So we turned around to find some other option, but as luck had it, the next car we crossed paths with turned out to be driven by Chris, the man himself. Close call! As it turned out, he doesn't have access to his phone at work, hence our inability to contact him.
We stowed our bikes in his shed, and Chris set up some indoor sleeping arrangements for us in the adjoining house, which he also owns. He then called over his girlfriend, Phyllis, who came with a potroast in tow. For the sake of some non-beefy sustenance, Chris also got a massive slab of frozen fish out of the freezer. In the name of quickly separating it into smaller pieces for easier thawing, he actually took the slab into the toolshed and cut it into four pieces with a circular saw, which was a very entertaining sight. Phyllis also did very delicious things with that fish, and we went to bed extremely satisfied, intending to return the favour and cook them dinner the following night, if our derailleur problems were to keep us in Alpine for an extra day.
The next day, we headed to the local bikeshop. As we knew it would be, it was closed, as many businesses in Alpine are on Mondays. Sundance had e-mailed and called the owner in hopes of asking if he might briefly open the shop for us - apparently he had done so for Dani and Greg, the cyclists we had bumped into in Brackettville - but we didn't get through to him. So we rode around town a little bit, had a look at the eclectic little art galleries and cafes, had ourselves some Tex Mex for lunch, and decided to go say hi to our next potential host, Sue, who lives in Fort Davis. As she works in Alpine, we called to announce ourselves, and then dropped by to meet her. She turned out to be absolutely lovely, and showed us around the place, with the interesting red stonework walls and marble floors which actually seemed to contain a few seashell fossils. She also introduced us to some of her colleagues, who were also avid cyclists, and we had a very pleasant time chatting before getting stuck into our next problem: on our way to Sue's work, both Sundance and I had somehow acquired a puncture in our rear tyres! Sue was nice enough to call another one of her cyclist friends, who arrived with a pump in tow, so we could at least ride the short distance to the hardware store in order to get some more tubes to replace the old ones with. Of course, whenever we ride somewhere without replacement tubes or a patch kit, we get a puncture! Murphy's law strikes again, I suppose.
We actually stopped for some groceries, and upon our return, discovered that while Sundance's tyre seemed fine, mine had deflated completely. As we were only a very short distance from Chris's place, we accepted the hardware store staff's offer to let us use their bike pump so we could pump it up again, and then quickly rode back. It was certainly preferable to sitting around in the cold to fix it. We got back without too much trouble, and I got stuck into the fixing process. As it turned out, my puncture had not in fact been caused by a goat's head (the Texan version of three-corner jacks, those horrible pricklies that are the bane of bike tyres), but by the tyreliner, which had pinched the tube open! This was the third time that had happened, which made us wonder whether those liners are actually worth it. Thing is, we don't know how many punctures they have or haven't prevented. In any case, I replaced the tube, patched the puncture, and Sundance and I made ourselves some dinner before turning in for bed - there had been no sign of Chris, so we figured that work had been keeping him.
The next morning, Sundance discovered that his rear tyre had gone down again after all, and after some fiddling, I established that his puncture had also been caused by the liners. Hmmmm. In any case, we did a quick replacement job, had our breakfast, got packed up, and headed off to the bikeshop. I happened to be in the toolshed when Chris and Phyllis left for work, so I got to say goodbye and thank them again for having us.
At the bikeshop, we met the owner, John, as well as another touring cyclist, Rob, who was also having derailleur problems. As John was almost done with Rob's bike, it didn't take too long for my bike to be put in the stand, and John established that apart from my derailleur needing replacement, my chain was also stretched beyond belief - a thing that Sundance had suspected, even though it had been brand new when we got it in Austin. I guess it's proof of our strenuous riding, how quickly stuff wears out. We spent some time in the shop, in interesting conversation, and John made pretty quick work of my bike. I took it out for a test ride, and it felt pretty good, which was a nice change. The mysterious ticking noise was gone too, which Sundance guessed to have been due to the chain.
We left our gear at the shop in order to go get some lunch, as well as some cash to pay John with, as the shop doesn't accept card payments. As most places had already closed for lunch, we ended up going for a Chinese buffet. On our way to get money, we actually also got talking with a fellow who runs a local martial arts academy, and who has a pommel horse, but none of us had time for Sundance to have a whirl on it. Pity. So we got our money, wandered back to the bike shop and spotted a lime green firetruck on the way, paid John, and also decided to get some more patches for our patch kit, and some thorn-resistant tyre tubes. They are absolutely enormous. I practically dare anything to give us a flat now!
As the day was getting on, we basically had to accept that we weren't going to get to the Observatory, which had been our optimistic goal, but we were still going to go for Fort Davis, where Sue lives. As her work was on the way, we popped in on her to get directions, and then got on the road. Riding felt surprisingly hard, and we spent quite some time wondering why it was tiring us out so badly. Sundance finally clicked with a plausible hypothesis: altitude. We are over 1.5km above sea level! In fact, we came to realise that yes, taking a deep breath wasn't really doing as much as we felt it was supposed to. Well, it's just one of those things we'll have to adapt to, and we kept riding through the extremely pretty scenery. To a certain extent, the mountains start to look the same after a while, but they were closer and more clustered around us now, and there were large boulders strewn on either side of the road, which was a pretty sight. Apparently the countryside around here was largely produced by volcanic activity, as opposed to the stuff further east which formed as sediment on a sea floor back in the days of teh dinosaurs. But one of the best things that happened was that once we left Brewster County and entered Jeff Davis County, the road went from pebbly bitumen to the proper smooth stuff! Aaaaah, bliss!
It still got dark and really quite cold by the time we got to Fort Davis - the ride had taken us two-and-a-half hours, even though it had only been 40km - but at the end of the day, it hadn't been so bad, just really tiring, what with the altitude. We found Sue's place without too much trouble, and were greeted with warm beds and smoked chicken with vegetables, which was an absolute delight. We also got to meet Sue's astrophysicist husband, Matt, who works at the observatory.
We had a reasonably late night, but went to bed reasonably satisfied, although the weather forecast for the next few days is a bit icky for cycling, which was a frustrating thought to bear in mind. For now, we are taking care of mundane things, such as laundry, blog posts, and putting those uber tubes into our tyres. It would be nice to go up to the observatory tonight, although the skies are inconveniently cloudy. A fellow named John, who works and lives at the observatory, has also offered us his hospitality, as he is very interested in touring cyclists such as ourselves. It'll be a hard slog up the mountain, but no doubt worth it.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Dome on the Range
Total distance 5220.1 km
By Yana
Since our last post, Sundance and I have been doing the slow meandering thing, mostly. Before leaving Sue and Matt's place, we put some work into replacing our normal tubes with the uber tubes that are hopefully everything proof.
The next morning dawned quite misty, and we crawled out of bed for some cereal while John and Deb got ready for work. We indulged in our usual morning inefficiency, and then decided to go for a walk down to the Visitor Centre of the Observatory. Just before we headed out of the door, Sundance spotted a doe standing pretty much right outside the door.
Physics interlude by Sundance:
Perhaps it's actually an alien, secretly studying Earthling astronomers.
By Yana
Since our last post, Sundance and I have been doing the slow meandering thing, mostly. Before leaving Sue and Matt's place, we put some work into replacing our normal tubes with the uber tubes that are hopefully everything proof.
As you can see, the box they came in is about twice the size of your normal tube box, because the things are just that thick. Of course, this also means that they were significantly harder to wrestle into our tyres. Let's just say that I hope they are everything they're cracked up to be, because fixing a puncture on one of these puppies would be an absolute bitch, just because they're so difficult to get in and out. Well, time will tell. As it is, I do carry some minor injuries from the process, but nothing a band-aid couldn't fix.
It was about 4 in the afternoon by the time we were done, what with the laundry we also decided to do at that juncture in the narrative. A recurring theme for us, to be starting so late? Yes, we know. In fact, we thought we might just compound the whole thing by stopping into the local wholefoods-type shop for some sandwiches and soup, which were delicious. It was actually 5:20pm by the time we actually got going, which was of course embarrassing, but hey, we were only heading for the McDonald Observatory, which was about 25 km away. We were doing our best not to think about the fact that we were riding up a mountain, because hey, we trekked through Southern Indiana, right? Those hills were obnoxious, and we still haven't seen their like again.
We actually chewed up the first part of the way reasonably easily, as things were surprisingly flat. The remaining distance was well into the single digits by the time the sun set, and we were treated to another very pretty one.
It was of course once it was dark that the road got tough. Well, actually, it wasn't even that bad a slope. The climb out of Leakey was much steeper and more constantly up. However, that altitude thing turned out to be a problem again. Actually, Sundance seemed to be doing alright - naturally high iron levels, extra red blood cells, all that. I, however, found myself only spurred on by the fact that there was no other choice but to keep going - no cars passing by, out of mobile range, nothing to do but get there on my own steam. This has probably been my hardest stretch on this trip so far, and it very nearly set off the crybaby reflex. Still, with Sundance making sure not to scoot too far ahead of me, I managed to push through the pain barrier, and we kept heading up that hill, which wasn't even that steep. It was really just the thin air.
At some point, where it was already well and truly dark, I had moved ahead while Sundance had stopped to put on his jacket. A car coming from the other direction stopped, and it turned out to be our observatory host, John. He offered to take us the rest of the way up, but I declined, explaining that Sundance and I want to go the whole way ourselves. Luckily, it turned out we only had about a mile to go, and John turned around, to, as he put it, pretend he hadn't come looking for us. I rode on until I hit the spur we had to ride up in order to get to John's place, waited for Sundance to catch up, and we rode the last few hundred metres together. It was getting pretty chilly by then, but at least the snow that the weather forecast had threatened us with wasn't showing itself.
We got to the place before too much longer, leaned our bikes against whatever leaning post we could find, and knocked on the door. We were greeted by John, his wife Deb, and various small cuddly critters. Deb set us up bed-wise, and we got stuck into preparing a quick noodle stir-fry for dinner, before turning in for the night.
Amazingly, although she twitched a little, the doe actually didn't run away when we opened the door and stepped out. Obviously, she was rather more acclimatised to humans than any wild animal should be. She actually let Sundance come amazingly close, and cuted at us most effectively. She almost let Sundance pet her before ascertaining that we were not going to feed her, and wandering off.
It was pretty bloody chilly as we headed down to the Visitor Centre, and we found ourselves thinking that we should have bundled up a bit more. As it was, the walk was fairly short, and we had a bit of a look around the various nifty exhibits before deciding it was time to head up to the actual telescope to find John. However, he found us down at the Visitor Center, and ended up taking us down to Fort Davis, for the sake of dinner groceries, general supplies, and more lunch sandwiches. Afterwards, John drove us to a pretty bit of scenery known as Wild Rose Pass.
That being said, apparently all the wild roses have been picked. Still, it was a pretty sight, and there were plenty of rocky cliffs that many a rock climber would have killed to scale, I'd wager. Afterwards, we headed back to the observatory, deposited our groceries, and I got stuck into our various culinary exploits. Sundance dug up those stupid green split peas we had acquired in desperation for food back in Mississippi, and turned them into a pretty passable dal, while I made the various things that go into the Power House rice bowl from the Fresh cookbook. Thank you, Ruth Tal Brown. Sundance also spent some time tweaking my front derailleur, as the fact that the rear one works now obviously means that something else needs work. At some point, a few javelinas wandered past, rearing their cute little piggy heads.
A little before sunset, John spirited us off to the 107 catwalk on the Harlan J Smith telescope. Apparently, by the standards of up there, it wasn't actually that windy, but it was windy enough to be cold and uncomfortable.
Still, after a few minutes of braving the wind, we were treated to quite a pretty sunset.
We also got to look at some of the nifty telescope-type stuff, and take the obligatory photo of ourselves in front of a small wedge of it, because the thing is just so darn large. That being said, as John noted, nothing at the McDonald Observatory was ever number one, there was always something bigger out there. Still, this is nothing to be sneezed at, in my humble opinion.
We then headed back down to finish cooking dinner, and ate very well indeed.
Deb prefers to take photos, rather than being in them, so it's three people and four yummy meals.
After dinner, Sundance and John headed back up to the actual observatory, in the name of checking out the awesomeness of people actually observing. I decided to stay behind, as I felt I'd had enough of being reminded of what a tiny insignificant speck we are in all of eternity for the next little while. I'll leave it up to Sundance to elaborate on the coolness of the observatory, as I'm sure I absorbed nowhere near as much as he did during the times that I was actually up there.
Physics interlude by Sundance:
When John and I arrived, we firstly popped into the 82-inch telescope and I was introduced to a graduate student working on observations of variable white dwarfs (who was also excited that I'm an Aussie, because he's a huge Silverchair fan!). These stars are nifty, because they oscillate in brightness with an extremely precise period. By looking at the pattern of variations, you can see that there are often multiple overlapping variations - so you can clearly see beating between the periods of different oscillation cycles, for instance. In fact, the oscillations are so precise that variations in them can be used for astroseismology (studying the internal structure of the stars by looking at how vibrations and shockwaves propogate through them) and - possibly even more cool - to find planets orbiting them. Long-period planets. Not these weird things that whizz around their star in mere hours. Planets that take years to orbit their parent stars, like the ones in our solar system.
Afterwards we went across to the 107-inch telescope, where I met another couple of fellows testing out a spectroscopic system to be installed on the huge, fancy Hobby Eberly Telescope. They have a nifty system of fibre optic cables that spread the image coming into the telescope into a line (rather than across an area) which is then treated like an artificial slit and the light fed through a spectroscope, to look for high-redshift galaxies. And that means they can do dark energy studies. This led into discussions about sensitivity of the instrument, dark matter, the bullet cluster, and quantum gravity. And it turned out that one of these fellows was from Bill Bryson's home town, which led to a discussion of the Appalachian trail, Australia, and cross-country bicycle journeys. Eventually I started to get sleepy and we returned to John's place to turn in for the night.
Back to Yana:
This made for a late night, and a somewhat late morning for everyone. I actually had a moment of confusion at the fact that I had not heard anyone pottering around when I woke up, only to find the pottering around taking place after I had gotten up. Strangely comforting, that. In response to Sundance's suggestion, I made some apple and walnut pancakes for breakfast (well, I did most of the work, though he did sautee the apples for me first), and he had a preliminary look at our options when it comes to finding a cheap/free water vessel to take us across the Pacific. It seems like there are some possibilities.
I actually spent the better part of the day on this blog post, which seems strange, but I guess things take longer when you multi-task. Sundance did some more tweaking on my bike, and got it to a pretty satisfactory state. We then hopped on our bikes and rode up to the HET, which sits on one of the other peaks, and it a crazy dome with mirrors and stuff. Very nifty. Again, I realise I am being somewhat crude in my description here, but it is late, and I am hung up on dinner and webcomics right now. Have a picture though.
It was actually all very nifty, as we very much got the VIP tour, partly by virtue of being cross country cyclists. We appear to hold a semi-celebrity status around here, as the population of this county is rather small, and many people here seem to be avid cyclists themselves. It was certainly gratifying to see the actual tourists on the other side of the glass, unable to access the area we were wandering around.
And now, Sundance is making Moroccan chicken and olives, while John sits on the floor in the corner and talks science to him. The hideously ugly, yet adorably cute little dog sits at Sundance's feet, seeking protection. For some reason, the little mutt has taken a liking to us. Weird.
Perhaps it's actually an alien, secretly studying Earthling astronomers.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Valentines in Valentine
Total Distance: 5372.4km
On our last night (Friday night) with John and Debbie, we hoped to get a sound night's sleep, and awake bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to attack the ride through the Davis mountains. What actually happened was something like this;
We contacted Kevin, a mechanic at the observatory (and John and Debbie's next-door-neighbour) to see if - with his skills and access to the observatory machine shop - he would be able to find a way to fit an old rear panier rack that John gave to us onto the front forks of Yana's bike. Later, I cooked up some Moroccan chicken with green olives for dinner, after Debbie prepared an apple pie. We had a very pleasant dinner, followed by pie for dessert. I ate a subtantial quantity of pie. Then we visited Kevin to see how things were going (quite well as it turned out), and turned in for the night. Then the cats decided to cause trouble.
Yana and I are cat lovers. But we very nearly threw all the kitties out the front door to "sleep with the javelinas" (or rather, in the javelinas bellies). They found their way into the pantry and started rustling paper bags of catfood. They tried sitting on our heads while we tried to sleep. They broke into the pantry again. We threw them out of the pantry and tied the pantry door shut with a handkerchief. The cats started meowing. Loudly. We chased them around the house and herded them into spare rooms and locked them in. Then we discovered that one cat had hidden out in the pantry and was crying to be let out. And on it went. Partway through the night I also discovered that my digestive system had taken a disliking to something in dinner - either the chicken was a little bit old, or all the fructose in the huge serving of apple pie I'd had sent my intestinal flora into paroxisms of delight. In any case, it was clear that I'd be making regular toilet stops over the next day or two.
We awoke (did we ever actually get to sleep?), had breakfast, collected the bikes from Kevin's workshop, and despite feeling rather zonked bid farewell to John and Debbie. On the way out the door I noticed that their daughters have a snakeboard which I decided to try riding - and discovered that it was a lot easier than I'd ever expected. After a little mucking around, we finally hit the road, stopping briefly at the visitor's centre to buy a couple of souvenirs, and then onto the open road.
Once again, it felt good to be back on the road, making some actual progress towards our eventual destination. Of course, we expected the whole thing to be rather gruelling and difficult, as we were right in the Davis Mountains. Still, it was a pretty cool feeling, knowing that we had started out in flat old Ontario, and were now riding through mountainous country right out in the middle of nowhere in far West Texas. John had predicted that we would probably see only about three cars until we hit the 90, so we made a bit of a game of counting just how many we encountered. Meanwhile, we rode through some gorgeous countryside, which was once again eerily reminiscent of the Adelaide Hills. If the road had been a freeway, I swear we might have expected to suddenly find ourselves riding around the old Devil's Elbow (which, for you non-Adelaideans out there, is a famous bend in what used to be the main route from the hills into Adelaide).
We made a little stop at a rather nice picnic area, reasonably pleased with the time we were making. It looked a little unlikely that we'd be making it into Valentine that night, but hey, we were kind of used to that kind of thing. The last stretch towards our first junction turned out to be a nice, long, downhill coast, which was bliss after all those climbs we'd had. We took our turn, and found ourselves on a somewhat flatter stretch, though we still had some hills to cover before the end of it.
We got to see some beautiful rock formations though, and had a bit of a snicker at the spy balloon in the distance. Apparently, the local government is sufficiently worried about illegal Mexican immigrants that they invested in a blimp with what is practically Star Wars technology in optics to patrol the border. Opinions are divided on just how effective and cost-efficient the thing is, to put it mildly.
Close to sunset, we came upon a ranch, and decided to see if they'd let us turf surf. The people at the door turned out to be extremely friendly, though they explained that there would be hunters on their ranch that night, so camping there would be a bad idea. They did refill our water for us though, which was nice of them, and informed us that the next picnic spot was only a quarter of a mile away, and was frequently used as a camping spot. So we took our leave, and found that it was all downhill to the picnic area, although it was a quarter of a country mile rather than a regular mile. Not that it matters when you're just coasting downhill.
We got ourselves set up, had ourselves some dinner, hung up our foodstuffs in a tree in a bid to not attract the javelinas, and turned in for the night. This time round, we certainly got the silence that the cats had deprived us of on the previous night - it was the kind of quiet that many city folk would probably describe as "eerie", as you could practically hear your own heart beat if you stood still for a moment. We slept very well, and didn't get pestered by any of the wildlife. We had also established that if you counted the two motorcycles we had seen, our total of car encounters for the day had been 25.
When we woke up in the morning, we discovered that the tent had kept us comfortably warm throughout an impressively cold night. Our tent had acquired a thick layer of frost, and our drinking water had frozen solid! Yow!
Still, it was a sunny morning, and as we had our breakfast, we managed to thaw and dry our tent quite effectively.
We managed to get going at a time that wasn't too embarrassingly late, and kept a blissful pace of about 25 km/h for a 30 km chunk of the day. We did make a few photo stops for the scenery, as well as a paddock full of strange critters which looked like some sort of antelope. Apparently, we're still in game ranch country.
Once we turned onto the 90, we found that the blissful mostly-tailwind was now a wretched headwind/crosswind. Of course, we had known this would happen, and made sure to enjoy the fair wind while it lasted. Still, our last 11km into the town of Valentine had us going at nearly half our previous speed. Lovely. Still, we managed to smile tiredly for the photo of ourselves with the sign telling us we were entering Valentine - it was after all very fitting, as it happened to be Valentine's Day. Not a holiday we really observe much, but good for a laugh in this case. Unfortunately, our hopes for a comfy bought lunch were dashed. While Valentine had a decent population of 217, we found out from a Spanish-speaking lady that there was absolutely nothing of the sort to be had before Van Horn, which was another 60 km away. Well, it was a nice irony, in a way. We sat ourselves down on the veranda of an apparently uninhabited house, and made ourselves some sandwiches and an impromptu bean and rice soup, which turned out to be quite satisfying.
By the time we got back on our bikes, it was well into the afternoon. The wind was still against us, and we had to accept that we were probably not going to make it to Van Horn that night. There was another town, Lobo, about 40 km from Valentine, but it was one of those many itsy-bitsy things that only barely qualify as a settlement.
A few kms out of Valentine, we were greeted by a very strange sight indeed: a Prada store in the middle of nowhere!
As we found out from a Dallas couple who pulled up in their car moments after we had stopped, it was actually an art piece of sorts. A pair of nordic artists had decided to build this little replica of a Prada boutique, complete with shoes and handbags from the 2005 collection on display, and then just leave it. Apparently the idea is to just let it decay as it will, although at the moment, it's still in pretty good nick. Might be interesting to come back in a few years' time, see how it's doing. I'm just mildly surprised that nobody has smashed the window to get at the merchandise - at least the handbags, as the shoes are all missing their counterparts. I suppose shoplifters with such expensive tastes wouldn't come all the way out there though, and I guess any fashionista would probably sneer at how out of style the 2005 collection is now.
We pushed into the wind for a bit longer, and stopped at the sight of a ranch on our left. Sundance suggested we try for a turf surf there, as it was still a reasonable distance to Lobo, and the sun was close to sinking behind the hills. It turned out to be a very good idea indeed, as the wind picked up like crazy once we reached the house, and we were in fact offered the use of a very comfortable little bunk house out the back. Brilliant! We even had a heater, stove, and shower at our disposal. So we had ourselves some stir fry for dinner, watched a movie on the laptop, and turned in for a reasonably comfortable night, though we ended up having to crank down that heater.
The next morning, we got ourselves going at a reasonably decent hour. The people who owned the place were nowhere to be seen, which was a pity, as it would have been nice to thank them again. Oh well. The wind was more in our favour now, and we headed towards Van Horn at a fairly reasonable pace. It was still a bit tiring though, as the road surface was in fact that strange knobbly glued-together gravel that tries to pass for tarmac. Still, can't really complain. We also got to see our very first substantial tumbleweed, sitting right in the middle of the road.
In fact, there was a whole lot of the stuff caught in the fence to our right, which was a bit of a sight to behold. We also encountered a new critter to add to our roadkill catalogue: an owl! Poor thing looked like it had died only quite recently, too. As there weren't a whole lot of trees around, we had to wonder if it was perhaps one of those burrowing owls which supposedly live in the area.
The last few kms into Van Horn proved to be quite taxing, but we got there without further incident, although Sundance's bike was making unhappy noises. After establishing that the closest thing to a bike shop in town was a motorbike shop, we stopped for some lunch at a Tex Mex place. I also took this opportunity to get a map of New Mexico, as we are getting very close to there indeed. Over lunch, we had a look at the new map, and had to wonder whether our original plan to head to New Mexico via Guadalupe Peak was such a good idea after all. Apart from it being a very desolate area, with water availability being quite questionable, it also meant that we would either have to go over some very steep mountains, or make some huge detours. As time is slowly becoming an issue again, we had to wonder whether it wouldn't be a better idea to head towards El Paso after all, and then just hire a car to look at the various sights of New Mexico for a few days which would otherwise be too much out of our way and possibly take up several extra weeks. We left this question up in the air while we got stuck into figuring out what to do about Sundance's unhappy bike.
We ended up asking the nice fellow who runs the motorbike place if we could hang out in there while making our repairs. He was nice enough to grant us some space and some tools to use, and Sundance established that his rear axle had in fact snapped. Wow. Thing is, that has happened once before - we had discovered a broken rear axle on his bike way back at the beginning of this trip, when we went into Recycled Cycles in Kitchener to get our bikes road-ready. It shows that not all our repair jobs are in sync.
This turned out to be a problem, due to limited availability of parts in this town. Sundance went for a walk along the main street looking for second-hand shops that might have bike parts, and incidentally got waylaid by a local fellwo who insisted on telling him in drawn-out, tedious detail about a mountain lion that attacked and killed a jogger back in 1986. Eventually he escaped and ascertained that the local hardware store had bike wheels, but only the old fashioned sort, rather than the whizz-bang quick-release types we are used to. As it was, we had to accept that we were going to have to stay the night in Van Horn, and as it was getting late, we decided to figure out what to do the next day. Fortunately, Russ the bikeshop owner consented to let us stay the night in his shop, which we were very grateful for.
This morning, we got stuck into finding some appropriate parts for the bike. There were a few people in town who might have the parts to help us out with. After some wild goose chases and the acceptance that there was only the old-fashioned sort of axle to be had in town, we established that we may be able to cannibalise one of the old rusty bikes owned by the lady who runs the hardware store. She was nice enough to drive us to her place and showed us a selection of bikes we could get stuck into taking parts from. Apparently, two of the three had been standing outside for ten years. Judging by the rusted-stiff chains, stuck-fast gear clusters, and thoroughly degraded rubber, I can believe that.
Still, we found some decent candidates, and the nice lady also drove us to the place of another fellow with scrappable bikes, just in case we could find the quick-release type. However, looking through a large box of old wheels yielded nothing useful. The guy actually offered to sell us one of his complete bikes for $40, though it was obvious that those bikes would have been a recreational mode of transport at best, and certainly not up for the rest of the journey to California. Still, the whole thing made us think of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman's adventures on their first huge motorbike trip, going through the desolate areas, and having to improvise. It actually explains why so many people have been commenting lately on how nice our bikes are, even though they are really quite comparatively cheap models. In the end, though, the brand-new wheels for sale at the hardware store proved to be the only viable option.
While Sundance got stuck into his repairs, I headed off to the grocery store. Foolishly, I didn't think that the mile it was said to be away was in fact a country mile. I guess even in a decent-sized place like Van Horn, these things still apply. Well, it made for a decent walk, and we have established that the repairs will keep us in town for another day and night, which has pretty much convinced us to head to El Paso rather than Guadalupe. The old-fashioned axle will do the trick, but it'd be nice to get something more modern to replace it with as soon as we can. That way, we can keep the other one as a spare, for whenever the next rear axle decides to snap.
By Sundance:
On our last night (Friday night) with John and Debbie, we hoped to get a sound night's sleep, and awake bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to attack the ride through the Davis mountains. What actually happened was something like this;
We contacted Kevin, a mechanic at the observatory (and John and Debbie's next-door-neighbour) to see if - with his skills and access to the observatory machine shop - he would be able to find a way to fit an old rear panier rack that John gave to us onto the front forks of Yana's bike. Later, I cooked up some Moroccan chicken with green olives for dinner, after Debbie prepared an apple pie. We had a very pleasant dinner, followed by pie for dessert. I ate a subtantial quantity of pie. Then we visited Kevin to see how things were going (quite well as it turned out), and turned in for the night. Then the cats decided to cause trouble.
Yana and I are cat lovers. But we very nearly threw all the kitties out the front door to "sleep with the javelinas" (or rather, in the javelinas bellies). They found their way into the pantry and started rustling paper bags of catfood. They tried sitting on our heads while we tried to sleep. They broke into the pantry again. We threw them out of the pantry and tied the pantry door shut with a handkerchief. The cats started meowing. Loudly. We chased them around the house and herded them into spare rooms and locked them in. Then we discovered that one cat had hidden out in the pantry and was crying to be let out. And on it went. Partway through the night I also discovered that my digestive system had taken a disliking to something in dinner - either the chicken was a little bit old, or all the fructose in the huge serving of apple pie I'd had sent my intestinal flora into paroxisms of delight. In any case, it was clear that I'd be making regular toilet stops over the next day or two.
We awoke (did we ever actually get to sleep?), had breakfast, collected the bikes from Kevin's workshop, and despite feeling rather zonked bid farewell to John and Debbie. On the way out the door I noticed that their daughters have a snakeboard which I decided to try riding - and discovered that it was a lot easier than I'd ever expected. After a little mucking around, we finally hit the road, stopping briefly at the visitor's centre to buy a couple of souvenirs, and then onto the open road.
By Yana:
Once again, it felt good to be back on the road, making some actual progress towards our eventual destination. Of course, we expected the whole thing to be rather gruelling and difficult, as we were right in the Davis Mountains. Still, it was a pretty cool feeling, knowing that we had started out in flat old Ontario, and were now riding through mountainous country right out in the middle of nowhere in far West Texas. John had predicted that we would probably see only about three cars until we hit the 90, so we made a bit of a game of counting just how many we encountered. Meanwhile, we rode through some gorgeous countryside, which was once again eerily reminiscent of the Adelaide Hills. If the road had been a freeway, I swear we might have expected to suddenly find ourselves riding around the old Devil's Elbow (which, for you non-Adelaideans out there, is a famous bend in what used to be the main route from the hills into Adelaide).
We made a little stop at a rather nice picnic area, reasonably pleased with the time we were making. It looked a little unlikely that we'd be making it into Valentine that night, but hey, we were kind of used to that kind of thing. The last stretch towards our first junction turned out to be a nice, long, downhill coast, which was bliss after all those climbs we'd had. We took our turn, and found ourselves on a somewhat flatter stretch, though we still had some hills to cover before the end of it.
We got to see some beautiful rock formations though, and had a bit of a snicker at the spy balloon in the distance. Apparently, the local government is sufficiently worried about illegal Mexican immigrants that they invested in a blimp with what is practically Star Wars technology in optics to patrol the border. Opinions are divided on just how effective and cost-efficient the thing is, to put it mildly.
Close to sunset, we came upon a ranch, and decided to see if they'd let us turf surf. The people at the door turned out to be extremely friendly, though they explained that there would be hunters on their ranch that night, so camping there would be a bad idea. They did refill our water for us though, which was nice of them, and informed us that the next picnic spot was only a quarter of a mile away, and was frequently used as a camping spot. So we took our leave, and found that it was all downhill to the picnic area, although it was a quarter of a country mile rather than a regular mile. Not that it matters when you're just coasting downhill.
We got ourselves set up, had ourselves some dinner, hung up our foodstuffs in a tree in a bid to not attract the javelinas, and turned in for the night. This time round, we certainly got the silence that the cats had deprived us of on the previous night - it was the kind of quiet that many city folk would probably describe as "eerie", as you could practically hear your own heart beat if you stood still for a moment. We slept very well, and didn't get pestered by any of the wildlife. We had also established that if you counted the two motorcycles we had seen, our total of car encounters for the day had been 25.
When we woke up in the morning, we discovered that the tent had kept us comfortably warm throughout an impressively cold night. Our tent had acquired a thick layer of frost, and our drinking water had frozen solid! Yow!
Still, it was a sunny morning, and as we had our breakfast, we managed to thaw and dry our tent quite effectively.
We managed to get going at a time that wasn't too embarrassingly late, and kept a blissful pace of about 25 km/h for a 30 km chunk of the day. We did make a few photo stops for the scenery, as well as a paddock full of strange critters which looked like some sort of antelope. Apparently, we're still in game ranch country.
Once we turned onto the 90, we found that the blissful mostly-tailwind was now a wretched headwind/crosswind. Of course, we had known this would happen, and made sure to enjoy the fair wind while it lasted. Still, our last 11km into the town of Valentine had us going at nearly half our previous speed. Lovely. Still, we managed to smile tiredly for the photo of ourselves with the sign telling us we were entering Valentine - it was after all very fitting, as it happened to be Valentine's Day. Not a holiday we really observe much, but good for a laugh in this case. Unfortunately, our hopes for a comfy bought lunch were dashed. While Valentine had a decent population of 217, we found out from a Spanish-speaking lady that there was absolutely nothing of the sort to be had before Van Horn, which was another 60 km away. Well, it was a nice irony, in a way. We sat ourselves down on the veranda of an apparently uninhabited house, and made ourselves some sandwiches and an impromptu bean and rice soup, which turned out to be quite satisfying.
By the time we got back on our bikes, it was well into the afternoon. The wind was still against us, and we had to accept that we were probably not going to make it to Van Horn that night. There was another town, Lobo, about 40 km from Valentine, but it was one of those many itsy-bitsy things that only barely qualify as a settlement.
A few kms out of Valentine, we were greeted by a very strange sight indeed: a Prada store in the middle of nowhere!
As we found out from a Dallas couple who pulled up in their car moments after we had stopped, it was actually an art piece of sorts. A pair of nordic artists had decided to build this little replica of a Prada boutique, complete with shoes and handbags from the 2005 collection on display, and then just leave it. Apparently the idea is to just let it decay as it will, although at the moment, it's still in pretty good nick. Might be interesting to come back in a few years' time, see how it's doing. I'm just mildly surprised that nobody has smashed the window to get at the merchandise - at least the handbags, as the shoes are all missing their counterparts. I suppose shoplifters with such expensive tastes wouldn't come all the way out there though, and I guess any fashionista would probably sneer at how out of style the 2005 collection is now.
We pushed into the wind for a bit longer, and stopped at the sight of a ranch on our left. Sundance suggested we try for a turf surf there, as it was still a reasonable distance to Lobo, and the sun was close to sinking behind the hills. It turned out to be a very good idea indeed, as the wind picked up like crazy once we reached the house, and we were in fact offered the use of a very comfortable little bunk house out the back. Brilliant! We even had a heater, stove, and shower at our disposal. So we had ourselves some stir fry for dinner, watched a movie on the laptop, and turned in for a reasonably comfortable night, though we ended up having to crank down that heater.
The next morning, we got ourselves going at a reasonably decent hour. The people who owned the place were nowhere to be seen, which was a pity, as it would have been nice to thank them again. Oh well. The wind was more in our favour now, and we headed towards Van Horn at a fairly reasonable pace. It was still a bit tiring though, as the road surface was in fact that strange knobbly glued-together gravel that tries to pass for tarmac. Still, can't really complain. We also got to see our very first substantial tumbleweed, sitting right in the middle of the road.
In fact, there was a whole lot of the stuff caught in the fence to our right, which was a bit of a sight to behold. We also encountered a new critter to add to our roadkill catalogue: an owl! Poor thing looked like it had died only quite recently, too. As there weren't a whole lot of trees around, we had to wonder if it was perhaps one of those burrowing owls which supposedly live in the area.
The last few kms into Van Horn proved to be quite taxing, but we got there without further incident, although Sundance's bike was making unhappy noises. After establishing that the closest thing to a bike shop in town was a motorbike shop, we stopped for some lunch at a Tex Mex place. I also took this opportunity to get a map of New Mexico, as we are getting very close to there indeed. Over lunch, we had a look at the new map, and had to wonder whether our original plan to head to New Mexico via Guadalupe Peak was such a good idea after all. Apart from it being a very desolate area, with water availability being quite questionable, it also meant that we would either have to go over some very steep mountains, or make some huge detours. As time is slowly becoming an issue again, we had to wonder whether it wouldn't be a better idea to head towards El Paso after all, and then just hire a car to look at the various sights of New Mexico for a few days which would otherwise be too much out of our way and possibly take up several extra weeks. We left this question up in the air while we got stuck into figuring out what to do about Sundance's unhappy bike.
We ended up asking the nice fellow who runs the motorbike place if we could hang out in there while making our repairs. He was nice enough to grant us some space and some tools to use, and Sundance established that his rear axle had in fact snapped. Wow. Thing is, that has happened once before - we had discovered a broken rear axle on his bike way back at the beginning of this trip, when we went into Recycled Cycles in Kitchener to get our bikes road-ready. It shows that not all our repair jobs are in sync.
This turned out to be a problem, due to limited availability of parts in this town. Sundance went for a walk along the main street looking for second-hand shops that might have bike parts, and incidentally got waylaid by a local fellwo who insisted on telling him in drawn-out, tedious detail about a mountain lion that attacked and killed a jogger back in 1986. Eventually he escaped and ascertained that the local hardware store had bike wheels, but only the old fashioned sort, rather than the whizz-bang quick-release types we are used to. As it was, we had to accept that we were going to have to stay the night in Van Horn, and as it was getting late, we decided to figure out what to do the next day. Fortunately, Russ the bikeshop owner consented to let us stay the night in his shop, which we were very grateful for.
This morning, we got stuck into finding some appropriate parts for the bike. There were a few people in town who might have the parts to help us out with. After some wild goose chases and the acceptance that there was only the old-fashioned sort of axle to be had in town, we established that we may be able to cannibalise one of the old rusty bikes owned by the lady who runs the hardware store. She was nice enough to drive us to her place and showed us a selection of bikes we could get stuck into taking parts from. Apparently, two of the three had been standing outside for ten years. Judging by the rusted-stiff chains, stuck-fast gear clusters, and thoroughly degraded rubber, I can believe that.
Still, we found some decent candidates, and the nice lady also drove us to the place of another fellow with scrappable bikes, just in case we could find the quick-release type. However, looking through a large box of old wheels yielded nothing useful. The guy actually offered to sell us one of his complete bikes for $40, though it was obvious that those bikes would have been a recreational mode of transport at best, and certainly not up for the rest of the journey to California. Still, the whole thing made us think of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman's adventures on their first huge motorbike trip, going through the desolate areas, and having to improvise. It actually explains why so many people have been commenting lately on how nice our bikes are, even though they are really quite comparatively cheap models. In the end, though, the brand-new wheels for sale at the hardware store proved to be the only viable option.
While Sundance got stuck into his repairs, I headed off to the grocery store. Foolishly, I didn't think that the mile it was said to be away was in fact a country mile. I guess even in a decent-sized place like Van Horn, these things still apply. Well, it made for a decent walk, and we have established that the repairs will keep us in town for another day and night, which has pretty much convinced us to head to El Paso rather than Guadalupe. The old-fashioned axle will do the trick, but it'd be nice to get something more modern to replace it with as soon as we can. That way, we can keep the other one as a spare, for whenever the next rear axle decides to snap.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Van Horn to be w-i-i-i-i-i-l-d!
Total distance: 5568.3 km
By Sundance:
Tuesday was productive, and that's about all there is to say about it. While Yana wandered off to get groceries, post blog updates, and be useful in such fashion, I took care of my axle problems. It took all day, but I wound up buying a whole new rear wheel from the local hardware store, extracted the axle, extracted the old broken axle, sorted through the collection of old and new parts I now had, cleaned and quality-checked them, and built a new rear axle from the bits. In the midst of it all, I managed to discover that the store nearby where we'd had pizza for dinner the previous night also sold non-dairy, non-chocolate, carob-coated oatmeal cookie rice-milk icecream organic frozen sandwich thingies. Yummy. That night we made the rice and bean soup we'd had for lunch in Valentine again, and slept in Russ' motorbike shop once more.
The following day the new axle got a real workout. We headed out of Van Horn (after I sold the remains of the wheel I'd bought to the local second-hand dealer), looking for a road that would take us towards El Paso without following the Interstate. A border patrol officer, a worker at the local Ramada hotel, and a group of roadworkers all told us there was an access road beside the interstate, but they didn't agree about how far the entrance to the access road was. After about 8 km of riding on the shoulder of the I-10 we found the access road we wanted and leapt upon it. It proved to be an easy, flat, straight run almost all the way. In fact, we didn't really need to make any turns and could probably have ridden with our eyes closed for about 40 km. This would have meant missing the beautiful wide open scenery, though. We rode past the settlement of Allamore, which is basically a talc mine with a few residential buildings, and eventually stopped for lunch at a service station in Sierra Blanca. After stuffing sandwiches in our faces we pushed onwards, guided by advice from a local and the instructions from the Adventure Cycling Maps which Dani and Greg had let us photograph back in Brackettville. We came to a teepee-themed roadside picnic area, crossed under the I-10, and continued along the access road. After an abrupt uphill climb, we hit an extended downhill glide, and didn't really need to pedal for several kilometers. By the time we turned off onto a smaller road and ran through the arid countryside near the US-Mexican border we had given the new axle a thorough initiation. In fact, by the time the Sun sank behind the mountains, we were only about 1.5 km short of 100km for the day.
We pushed on in the dark, feeling accomplished but gradually more hungry. The local deputy sheriff pulled up to talk to us at one stage and said that we could camp at the Ft Hancock civic centre, so we pushed on into Ft Hancock. By this time I was really getting the hunger-grumps, and Yana was passing muesli bars to me in a bid to keep me from going psychotic with hunger. We found a Mexican grocery store, and eventually had dinner at the only restaurant in town, Angie's, where the service was slow but the orange juice was tasty. We even got to watch some of the Winter Olympics on the TV in the restaurant. Then we bedded down for the night in our tent.
This morning we set out, with a light tailwind. The sun was shining, the road was flat, but I was in a strangely upset mood. We rode along for about 30km, and met another pair of cyclists heading the other way from us. They are an older couple, Bruce and Dana, and this is also their first big bike tour. They'd started out in California, and had been going for almost three weeks. We talked for about an hour about what we'd seen where we were going, and what to expect on the way. Then we parted ways, and continued on to Tornillo where we made lunch. It was remarkable that Bruce and Dana had only been on the road for 19 days, as we'd been realising ourselves that we're getting very close to reaching the west coast. Depending on how much we dawdle and sight-see, we could be dipping our front wheels in the Pacific in under a month!
By the time we finished lunch the wind had swung around to a headwind, and we struggled into it the rest of the way to the outskirts of El Paso. We were only a few blocks from our warmshowers hosts' house when they found us, having come out to see if we had run into trouble (Nope, just conversation and headwinds). It did make a nice change to arrive at our intended destination before nightfall though, and after showering we were treated to a yummy dinner of Aloo Gobi.
Over the next few days we intend to rent a car and check out a few sights on our list that are a bit too far out of the way to access readily by bicycle.
By Sundance:
Tuesday was productive, and that's about all there is to say about it. While Yana wandered off to get groceries, post blog updates, and be useful in such fashion, I took care of my axle problems. It took all day, but I wound up buying a whole new rear wheel from the local hardware store, extracted the axle, extracted the old broken axle, sorted through the collection of old and new parts I now had, cleaned and quality-checked them, and built a new rear axle from the bits. In the midst of it all, I managed to discover that the store nearby where we'd had pizza for dinner the previous night also sold non-dairy, non-chocolate, carob-coated oatmeal cookie rice-milk icecream organic frozen sandwich thingies. Yummy. That night we made the rice and bean soup we'd had for lunch in Valentine again, and slept in Russ' motorbike shop once more.
The following day the new axle got a real workout. We headed out of Van Horn (after I sold the remains of the wheel I'd bought to the local second-hand dealer), looking for a road that would take us towards El Paso without following the Interstate. A border patrol officer, a worker at the local Ramada hotel, and a group of roadworkers all told us there was an access road beside the interstate, but they didn't agree about how far the entrance to the access road was. After about 8 km of riding on the shoulder of the I-10 we found the access road we wanted and leapt upon it. It proved to be an easy, flat, straight run almost all the way. In fact, we didn't really need to make any turns and could probably have ridden with our eyes closed for about 40 km. This would have meant missing the beautiful wide open scenery, though. We rode past the settlement of Allamore, which is basically a talc mine with a few residential buildings, and eventually stopped for lunch at a service station in Sierra Blanca. After stuffing sandwiches in our faces we pushed onwards, guided by advice from a local and the instructions from the Adventure Cycling Maps which Dani and Greg had let us photograph back in Brackettville. We came to a teepee-themed roadside picnic area, crossed under the I-10, and continued along the access road. After an abrupt uphill climb, we hit an extended downhill glide, and didn't really need to pedal for several kilometers. By the time we turned off onto a smaller road and ran through the arid countryside near the US-Mexican border we had given the new axle a thorough initiation. In fact, by the time the Sun sank behind the mountains, we were only about 1.5 km short of 100km for the day.
We pushed on in the dark, feeling accomplished but gradually more hungry. The local deputy sheriff pulled up to talk to us at one stage and said that we could camp at the Ft Hancock civic centre, so we pushed on into Ft Hancock. By this time I was really getting the hunger-grumps, and Yana was passing muesli bars to me in a bid to keep me from going psychotic with hunger. We found a Mexican grocery store, and eventually had dinner at the only restaurant in town, Angie's, where the service was slow but the orange juice was tasty. We even got to watch some of the Winter Olympics on the TV in the restaurant. Then we bedded down for the night in our tent.
This morning we set out, with a light tailwind. The sun was shining, the road was flat, but I was in a strangely upset mood. We rode along for about 30km, and met another pair of cyclists heading the other way from us. They are an older couple, Bruce and Dana, and this is also their first big bike tour. They'd started out in California, and had been going for almost three weeks. We talked for about an hour about what we'd seen where we were going, and what to expect on the way. Then we parted ways, and continued on to Tornillo where we made lunch. It was remarkable that Bruce and Dana had only been on the road for 19 days, as we'd been realising ourselves that we're getting very close to reaching the west coast. Depending on how much we dawdle and sight-see, we could be dipping our front wheels in the Pacific in under a month!
By the time we finished lunch the wind had swung around to a headwind, and we struggled into it the rest of the way to the outskirts of El Paso. We were only a few blocks from our warmshowers hosts' house when they found us, having come out to see if we had run into trouble (Nope, just conversation and headwinds). It did make a nice change to arrive at our intended destination before nightfall though, and after showering we were treated to a yummy dinner of Aloo Gobi.
Over the next few days we intend to rent a car and check out a few sights on our list that are a bit too far out of the way to access readily by bicycle.
Friday, February 26, 2010
...Brought to you by the Eagle Hand laundry
Total distance: 5568.3 km (Unchanged since previous post)
We are back from our little motorised side trip loop throughout New Mexico, hooray!
Where to begin? Well, last Friday our hosts Charley and Kamala were heading out of town for an extended weekend, so they dropped us off at El Paso airport to rent a car, which turned out to be a nifty little red number. We hopped in, made our way out of El Paso and into New Mexico. Stopping for lunch in Las Cruces we eventually made it to Silver City and the road to the Gila cliff dwellings and hot springs. It was a slow drive through snowy but scenic hills to the park where the cliff dwellings were to be found. By the time we got there the park was closed, but we found a campsite a little further back on the road, and Yana made a fire while I cooked up some pasta. When we awoke the following morning the tent was covered in a substantial layer of frost, and we spent some time brushing it off before it had a chance to melt, in an effort to keep the tent reasonably dry before packing it up.
T or C actually turned out to be a really nice little town, where we found a little organic cafe, had a delicious Italian meal for dinner, and then stayed in a hotel with hot mineral spring baths. We also got to see some episodes of Man vs Wild on the TV in our room, which was highly entertaining, and since one of the episodes was about survival techniques in Copper Canyon, Mexico we now feel all enthused about finding a dry yucca flower stalk and making a fire by rubbing sticks together, just to see if we can! After a good soak on Sunday morning, we drove out north through Socorro to the Very Large Array radio telescope facility.
This is an array of 27 radio telescopes that are linked together to work as a single collector about 20 kilometres in diameter. The dishes can be repositioned to create a larger or smaller array, for greater resolution or sensitivity. It was also the site where significant parts of several movies including 2010 and Contact. Like most Hollywood stars, it looks smaller in real life... But I grew up watching Carl Sagan's wonderful TV series Cosmos, and seeing the VLA as a source of some incredible insights into the Universe we live in, and I thought it was pretty neat to see it with my own eyes, and see that it's not just a special effect, and it made me pretty proud of how clever humans can be that we can build such things.
"Look at me, I'm a radio telescope!"
Following our trip to the VLA we drove back through the evening, past the site where the world's first atomic bomb was detonated, to Alamagordo.
The following morning we headed out to the White Sands National Monument, with a short detour to the Museum of Space History. White Sands lived up to its name - an expanse of gypsum sand in a huge basin that used to be a lake bed during the last ice age, and now sand dunes stretching for miles in each direction, ringed by mountains.
We did a nature walk along the edge of the dunes, where there were various plants, then drove a bit further in and did a walk to the alkali flats, where the gypsum sand blows from to form the dunes themselves (and also a backup landing site for the Space Shuttle). It was scenic, but windy, but awe-inspiring.
As the weather was looking unpleasant, we decided to drive onwards towards Carlsbad and the Carlsbad Caverns. As we headed up through the mountains east of Alamogordo it began to snow, which made the town of Cloudcroft quite pretty, but also slowed us down. Contrary to my expectations it didn't stop snowing as we descended on the other side of the mountains, but snowed all the way to the next big town, Artesia. Yana did a fantastic job of driving on the slippery white fluffy stuff, although it did take us five hours to get to Artesia, whereupon we found a moderately-cheap hotel, and collapsed into bed. The next day we got up and chipped the pack-ice from the wheel hubs of the car, and drove to Carlsbad, and then to the caverns. The caverns turned out to be very spacious and impressive.
The various stalagtites and stalagmites and things are formed from limestone deposits created by a reef that existed in south-east New Mexico and western Texas when the whole area was the edge of a shallow inland sea during the Mesozoic era. Unfortunately, the limestone is dissolved (and hence redeposits itself into interesting shapes) by sulfuric acid that percolates through the rock, so the whole area from Artesia to the caverns smells of rotten eggs.
The caverns were nifty, and impressive for the size of both the caverns and formations in them, although we've both seen stalagtites and stalagmites before.
It would be great to see some more unusual formations like those in Lechugilla. And we didn't get to look around the whole cavern because they were closing off part of the walk, since it was getting close to closing time.
Afterwards we decided to find a place to camp, but the local campground charged $22.25 just to put up a tent, which we considered absurd, and the public land off the side of the backroads was a bit too rocky and rough to comfortably put up our tent. We also encountered a longhorn in the public land, and decided we didn't feel like having our tent potentially stepped on.
So we headed back to Carlsbad. We ducked into a Mexican-Chinese restaurant (which we initially thought was two restaurants side-by-side) for dinner. We dubbed this style of food con-fusion cuisine. After a bit of chatting with the staff about our journey the owners offered to let us pitch our tent behind their restaurant, so we got to turf-surf even without the bicycles!
Come Wednesday morning we awoke, got a free Mexican breakfast at the restaurant, and then drove to Guadalupe peak, the highest point in Texas. We considered going for a bushwalk, but decided we'd be doing this amazing place short shrift if we didn't stay overnight, so instead we headed onwards, through the outskirts of El Paso, and back to White Sands to view the sunset Sunsets at White Sands are supposed to be very beautiful, and since it had been overcast (with impending snow) the first day we went there, we took the chance to see a better sunset as the weather had improved. It didn't disappoint.
Afterwards we headed back to Charley and Kamala's place for a scrumptious dinner, and a good night's sleep.
Then on Thursday morning we returned the rental car, and our hosts drove us around to get a new quick-release axle for my bike, and some groceries so that we could cook dinner for them. Plus Charley provided me with a front panier rack for my bike, so Yana and I are both equipped to get some more of the weight out of our backpacks when next we travel by pedal power.
By Sundance:
We are back from our little motorised side trip loop throughout New Mexico, hooray!
Where to begin? Well, last Friday our hosts Charley and Kamala were heading out of town for an extended weekend, so they dropped us off at El Paso airport to rent a car, which turned out to be a nifty little red number. We hopped in, made our way out of El Paso and into New Mexico. Stopping for lunch in Las Cruces we eventually made it to Silver City and the road to the Gila cliff dwellings and hot springs. It was a slow drive through snowy but scenic hills to the park where the cliff dwellings were to be found. By the time we got there the park was closed, but we found a campsite a little further back on the road, and Yana made a fire while I cooked up some pasta. When we awoke the following morning the tent was covered in a substantial layer of frost, and we spent some time brushing it off before it had a chance to melt, in an effort to keep the tent reasonably dry before packing it up.
The Gila cliff dwellings are a series of stone structures built into a cliff side by the Mogollon people who migrated down through this area around 1276. The dwellings were only occupied for about 24 years, but it's believed they were used during a drought that made it difficult to sustain a farming lifestyle further north. We got to the visitor's centre, looked at some exhibits, then drove up to the start of the walk to the cliffs. There was a bridge that was out, and was only open to pedestrians an bicycles (the one time we have a car! Oh, the irony!), and a short walk beyond that got us to the cliffs which were spectacular. We met up with a ranger who was giving a guided walk through the dwellings so we got to hear all about what they think the various rooms were used for.
We also met another pair of cross-country cyclists, Adam and Dwight, who are heading east along the Southern Tier bicycle route. Their adventures are being blogged here. After looking at the cliff dwellings we walked back to our car, drove out past Adam and Dwight pedalling eagerly up a hill, and eventually stopped for lunch in Hillsboro. And then onwards, to a place I've wanted to visit for ages, on account of its totally messed-up name. Truth or Consequences.
T or C actually turned out to be a really nice little town, where we found a little organic cafe, had a delicious Italian meal for dinner, and then stayed in a hotel with hot mineral spring baths. We also got to see some episodes of Man vs Wild on the TV in our room, which was highly entertaining, and since one of the episodes was about survival techniques in Copper Canyon, Mexico we now feel all enthused about finding a dry yucca flower stalk and making a fire by rubbing sticks together, just to see if we can! After a good soak on Sunday morning, we drove out north through Socorro to the Very Large Array radio telescope facility.
This is an array of 27 radio telescopes that are linked together to work as a single collector about 20 kilometres in diameter. The dishes can be repositioned to create a larger or smaller array, for greater resolution or sensitivity. It was also the site where significant parts of several movies including 2010 and Contact. Like most Hollywood stars, it looks smaller in real life... But I grew up watching Carl Sagan's wonderful TV series Cosmos, and seeing the VLA as a source of some incredible insights into the Universe we live in, and I thought it was pretty neat to see it with my own eyes, and see that it's not just a special effect, and it made me pretty proud of how clever humans can be that we can build such things.
"Look at me, I'm a radio telescope!"
Following our trip to the VLA we drove back through the evening, past the site where the world's first atomic bomb was detonated, to Alamagordo.
The following morning we headed out to the White Sands National Monument, with a short detour to the Museum of Space History. White Sands lived up to its name - an expanse of gypsum sand in a huge basin that used to be a lake bed during the last ice age, and now sand dunes stretching for miles in each direction, ringed by mountains.
We did a nature walk along the edge of the dunes, where there were various plants, then drove a bit further in and did a walk to the alkali flats, where the gypsum sand blows from to form the dunes themselves (and also a backup landing site for the Space Shuttle). It was scenic, but windy, but awe-inspiring.
As the weather was looking unpleasant, we decided to drive onwards towards Carlsbad and the Carlsbad Caverns. As we headed up through the mountains east of Alamogordo it began to snow, which made the town of Cloudcroft quite pretty, but also slowed us down. Contrary to my expectations it didn't stop snowing as we descended on the other side of the mountains, but snowed all the way to the next big town, Artesia. Yana did a fantastic job of driving on the slippery white fluffy stuff, although it did take us five hours to get to Artesia, whereupon we found a moderately-cheap hotel, and collapsed into bed. The next day we got up and chipped the pack-ice from the wheel hubs of the car, and drove to Carlsbad, and then to the caverns. The caverns turned out to be very spacious and impressive.
The various stalagtites and stalagmites and things are formed from limestone deposits created by a reef that existed in south-east New Mexico and western Texas when the whole area was the edge of a shallow inland sea during the Mesozoic era. Unfortunately, the limestone is dissolved (and hence redeposits itself into interesting shapes) by sulfuric acid that percolates through the rock, so the whole area from Artesia to the caverns smells of rotten eggs.
The caverns were nifty, and impressive for the size of both the caverns and formations in them, although we've both seen stalagtites and stalagmites before.
It would be great to see some more unusual formations like those in Lechugilla. And we didn't get to look around the whole cavern because they were closing off part of the walk, since it was getting close to closing time.
Afterwards we decided to find a place to camp, but the local campground charged $22.25 just to put up a tent, which we considered absurd, and the public land off the side of the backroads was a bit too rocky and rough to comfortably put up our tent. We also encountered a longhorn in the public land, and decided we didn't feel like having our tent potentially stepped on.
So we headed back to Carlsbad. We ducked into a Mexican-Chinese restaurant (which we initially thought was two restaurants side-by-side) for dinner. We dubbed this style of food con-fusion cuisine. After a bit of chatting with the staff about our journey the owners offered to let us pitch our tent behind their restaurant, so we got to turf-surf even without the bicycles!
Come Wednesday morning we awoke, got a free Mexican breakfast at the restaurant, and then drove to Guadalupe peak, the highest point in Texas. We considered going for a bushwalk, but decided we'd be doing this amazing place short shrift if we didn't stay overnight, so instead we headed onwards, through the outskirts of El Paso, and back to White Sands to view the sunset Sunsets at White Sands are supposed to be very beautiful, and since it had been overcast (with impending snow) the first day we went there, we took the chance to see a better sunset as the weather had improved. It didn't disappoint.
Afterwards we headed back to Charley and Kamala's place for a scrumptious dinner, and a good night's sleep.
Then on Thursday morning we returned the rental car, and our hosts drove us around to get a new quick-release axle for my bike, and some groceries so that we could cook dinner for them. Plus Charley provided me with a front panier rack for my bike, so Yana and I are both equipped to get some more of the weight out of our backpacks when next we travel by pedal power.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Shedding the Southern Tier
By Sundance:
Since approximately Kerrville, TX we've been inadvertently following something called the Southern Tier bicycle route - not because we wanted to but because the roads out here are a bit sparse, so we inevitably wound up on a course recommended by the American Adventure Cycling Association. When we left El Paso, departing from Charley and Kamala's place, we finally left it behind and started blazing our own path again.
Saturday saw us powering through the outskirts of El Paso. With a decent tailwind and Charley and Kamala's advice about what roads to take, we made it through in three hours. Much better than the hellish five hour ordeals some folks had warned us about. We toodled past the Mexican border, adjacent to Ciudad Juarez (the most dangerous city on Earth. Officially) and crossed into New Mexico in the town of Sunland Park, pausing to call my mum and wish her happy birthday (paying careful attention to timezone differences) as the evening encroached. Shortly after that we met an Italian fellow called Luca coming the other way. He was carrying very little gear and was clearly a fast-and-light style cyclist, heading from California across to New York. We turned into the locality (a name on a map, not an actual town) of Mastodon, and refilled our water bottles at a Border Patrol station. We also informed them that we'd be camping out by the roadside that night so please don't come checking to see if we're illegal Mexicans, then headed on another 16km west before setting up camp.
The following morning a rainstorm blew in just as we were about to head off. Fortunately, a fellow who'd been stopped mistakenly by the Border Patrol let us sit in his SUV to eat breakfast and wait out the bad weather. After thanking him we set off into a preposterous headwind, and another 20km later decided to give up, set up camp, and wait out the weather. We found a nice sheltered spot on an embankment by the road, between some mesquite bushes which wee prickly but did block the wind, set up the tent, gathered rocks and wood for a fireplace, and made a campfire while cooking dinner. I also got to do something I've been intending to for several months - it's no secret that I disliked living in Waterloo, Ontario, and all this time I've been carrying a map of Waterloo with me. That night, I had the pleasure of using it to start the campfire, and watching the town I despise symbolically burn to ashes. That made me feel better.
The next day we bumped into another couple, Dan and Mary, riding their bikes in the opposite direction to us, stopped to chat for a while and exchange estaurant recommendations, then pushed through to the town of Columbus, famous for being raided by Pancho Villa in 1916. We met a delightful couple called Chris and Larry, who let us turf-surf at their house, and were probably the last people we'd have expected to be fans of Japanese animation and manga. We really enjoyed chatting with them about our travels and shared a fine breakfast with them the following morning. We spent the whole day riding, paused to recharge our batteries at Hachita, where the owner of the grocery store apologised for not having anything in stock (he's just opening and doesn't have the water connected yet), but gave us some canned juice in any case, then pushed on to Animas. It as dark by the time we got there, but along the way we crossed the Continental Divide, the point where rivers start to flow to the west, so hopefully we'll have a more downhill run from now on. Animas proved to be a hard place to find somewhere to stay - nobody we spoke to owned their home, so they weren't willing to let us turf-surf in case the landlord got angry, ad the back of the Community Center was covered in hard gravel and broken glass - not ideal for a tent. Eventually we ran into the sheriff who recommended a disused paddock to the east of town.
>From Animas, we headed through some pretty countryside towards the Arizona border. In the town of Rodeo we found a reptile-themed museum (which was mostly giftshop and art gallery) which had some snakes and lizards in glass cages, and a lot fof good stuff to look at. We pushed onwards, grabbed a delicious pizza for lunch (and while eating met a fellow called Armonda who poffered us a place to stay in Douglas, Arizona), then crossed into Arizona. Around nightfall we approached a house to try for a turf-surf. The owner, Bill, was amazed that we were Aussies, declaring that he'd never expected Mick Dundee to show up at his house on a bicycle! He and his wife Michelle were wonderfully welcoming, shared their dinner with us (while Yana contributed bean and rice stew with avocado), and told us a bit about the history of the area (quite close to where Geronimo surrendered to the US army.
On Thursday we pushed off from Bill and Michelle's place (which was adorned with many cool sculptures they'd acquired in Mexico) into a fierce headwind. A really fierce headwind. One of our worst ever. We had to make 67 km to reach Douglas that night, so we just stuck with it. We went past the monument erected where Geronimo didn't surrender (he actually surrendered in a canyon several kilometres from where the monument stands), and made it to Douglas before sunset. We found a bike shop, got anew chain for my bike (the old one was getting squeaky), rang Armondo, and the bike shop owner let me use his workshop to change the chain while we waited for Armondo to arrive, and take us to our accommodations (a house owned by his father).
Today has been a bit of a lazy day, eating big breakfasts to recover from our exertions, writing blog posts, and planning our next move towards Tucson.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
We just smiled and gave him a vegemite sandwich.
Total distance: 6202.6km
By Yana:
We sailed out of Douglas on Saturday morning, enjoying a fine tailwind. After about 24 km, we hit the 6000 km point of our journey. We stopped to enjoy the sense of achievement, and of course took the obligatory photo that came with it.
That done, we headed uphill towards the town of Bisbee. Despite the tailwind, we were going a bit slower, mostly due to the altitude messing with my performance levels like crazy - I still haven't really adapted to anything higher than 4000 feet, it seems. We did find ourselves cruising past a gum tree though, which made the place even more reminiscent of South Australia. It would have been nice to go over and give the tree a hug, but it was on private property.
We got into Bisbee a little after midday, and really intended to just shoot through. Admittedly, the newer version of Bisbee wasn't necessarily that interesting, although the surrounding rock and earth was an absolutely brilliant shade of red. Turns out it's a big copper mining area.
Once past those spectacularly colourful cliffs, we made it into Old Bisbee, which turned out to be an incredibly cute and charming little town - this eclectic little community nestled in the mountains.
While I got stuck into making lunch, Sundance hit the library for internet access, so that we could contact our Warm Showers hosts in Tucson. There were also some phone calls to make, and as we were low on options, we had to go in search of phone cards, and deeper into Bisbee. This proved to be our undoing - as it turns out, Bisbee is one of those towns that people get stuck in, because it's just so nice. We got talking with various local folk, including a lady who runs a honey shop, specialising in unpasteurised honey derived from Africanised bees, which are the prevalent bee population in Arizona. The honey we sampled was absolutely delicious, and we actually ended up buying one of the more interesting varieties. We also walked away confused about the bees, as we had always heard that the Africanised bees, the lab-grown hybrid of European and African honeybees, are a particularly aggressive and ferocious kind. However, according to the honey lady, is is actually the pure-bred African honeybees which are nasty, and hybrids are just fine. Looks like we'll have to do some research.
We also came across a wonderful little cafe, and stopped for a smoothie and some tasty baked goods.
By then, we were already incredibly tempted to spend the night in Bisbee, even though we had only come a little over 40km that day. Quite a few people were curious about us and our heavily loaded bikes, and one friendly couple who lived a little further off, Jeff and Annette, offered us a place to stay sometime in the coming days, if we felt like it. They were a little off our path, but it was an interesting possibility, so we exchanged addresses.
We completed our mission for a phone card, and by then decided to search for a turf surf in Bisbee, as this was one of those towns which made this whole trip memorable. We headed back to the honey lady to ask her for turf surf advice.
As it turned out, not a whole lot of people in Bisbee seem to have a backyard for vagabond cyclists to put a tent up in - not that surprising, I guess, considering how mountainous the area is. There were some other options, but we were a little leery about them, for fear of having someone filch our stuff while we were off exploring. We were actually just about to give up on the idea of staying in Bisbee, and just going to visit Jeff and Annette instead, but we found we couldn't reach them on the phone. Undaunted, we decided to ask some locals for some directions, and they ended up offering us a place to stay the night instead, so we stayed in Bisbee after all. The trio we met consisted of Margaret, who lives in Bisbee, Margaret from Ireland, and Lynn from San Diego. We followed Bisbee Margaret to her place, dropped off our gear, met her progeny, and went to explore the town some more on our unloaded bikes.
Something about Bisbee reminds me of my childhood, so I wonder if it is somehow the town that time forgot a decade or two ago, or if it perhaps reminds me a bit of something European. It's hard to say. There is certainly some very eclectic stuff around which I'm pretty sure I hadn't seen before hitting my 20s:
In any case, our exploration of Bisbee encountered a little hiccup: while we were riding up and down the hills, I suddenly found that I was no longer able to change gears, and quickly established that my gear cable had snapped!
Luckily, we were reasonably prepared for such an eventuality. We had been carrying a spare gear cable and a spare brake cable right from the beginning of the trip. Unfortunately, we didn't happen to have them on us just then, which was a small problem, as the lack of gear cable tension meant that the derailleur kept the chain in seventh gear. That was not going to work, as we had to ride uphill 2km to get back to Margaret's place, so we wheeled my bike to somewhere safe, and Sundance came up with an ingenious little temporary fix by clamping the loose end of the cable in the quick release of my seat, thus keeping the bike in fourth gear, which was quite workable.
We did a little bit more exploring of the town, sticking our heads in the various little art gallery type places. We actually bumped into Jeff and Annette again, and made vague plans to visit them the following evening. We caught sight of various strange things, including a life-size donkey statue made up of all sorts of rusty junk, with large sinister-looking red marbles for eyes, and a car covered in all sorts of colourful sparkly paraphernalia. Crazy. We then had to head back to Margaret's place, as dinner was going to be happening soon - turns out Margaret has a reputation as an excellent cook, and for liking to entertain large groups of people. As she was making enchiladas, and some fajitas for Sundance, we decided to contribute something ourselves, as we had just sort of dropped in so randomly. Sundance made his sopa de lima, which went down very well, and it seems that my guacamole was quite well received as well. It was a very successful evening, and Margaret's neighbour Bill busted out his guitar and sang a few songs in payment for his supper. We had also brought some raspberry cabernet sorbet we had acquired at the cafe we had briefly stopped at, which turned out to be very nice as well.
As Margaret already had a house full of guests, we all came to the conclusion that it made more sense for us to stay with Bill next door, as he had a little guest house for such purposes. Perfect! Not only that, but we were greeted with an absolutely amazing spread for breakfast. Margaret presented us a mountain of thick slices of French toast, crisp bacon, sausages, cinnamon-laced proper whipped cream, and bowls of fresh fruit. After that, it might have been more efficient for us to just roll our way towards our next destination, rather than riding our bikes! Still, we opted for the bikes, and spent a little time replacing my broken gear cable before getting all packed up again.
We said our thank yous and farewells, and got stuck into running a few more little errands before actually leaving Bisbee for good. Among various web-access-requiring tasks, we also had to drop past the local bicycle shop in order to get a replacement gear cable, so we'll be prepared for when the next one snaps. Unsurprisingly, the local bike shop is just as memorable as the rest of Bisbee.
After some internet monkeying and a slice of apple pie, we were finally ready to make our way to the next town, Tombstone. We had a reasonably steep uphill climb to contend with, which meant that it was a bit slow going for a while.
Still, once we reached the top of the hill, we were rewarded with a long descent, albeit with some nasty crosswinds which could sometimes blow us right into the middle of the road. Yikes! Luckily, the drivers in the area seem pretty aware of cyclists, which we certainly appreciated. Sundance actually hit 53km/h going down that hill, and couldn't go any faster, as he had hit terminal velocity! Impressive. I, on the other hand, don't have the courage and co-ordination to go speeding down a curvy windy hill like that, so I kept at a more sedate maximum of 30-odd km/h.
Once at the bottom of the hill though, we found ourselves with the sweetest tailwind we had ever had on this trip. Cruising along the flat, with a straight smooth road ahead, I found myself going at 52km/h, pushed by that wonderful tailwind. Who knows how fast Sundance went - he sped right past me shortly after I hit 52. It really seemed like Arizona was apologising to us for some of the nasty weather it had thrown at us.
We got to Tombstone as the temperatures dropped and some ominous-looking fronts approached. We ducked into one of the little shops in the touristy "original" part of town, which is all decked out in western-style stuff.
Sundance cajoled the owner into letting him use the phone so we could call Jeff and Annette to give them our status while I eyed the selection of lollipops with horror and fascination: they were actually tequila worms and scorpions set in a sugary matrix! Oh, the tourist attractions.
As we were really a bit too far to make it to Jeff and Annette's that night, Jeff agreed to pick us up from a certain junction along the way. As the rain started to prattle and the shop owner ushered us out, we put on our wet weather gear and got back on our bikes, which seemed to impress the locals who saw us. Our sweet tail wind had turned into a crosswind which blew icy rain onto the exposed parts of our faces, but we rode on in reasonably high spirits, especially amazed at the progress we were making once we had to turn into the wind. The rolling hilly landscape gave us some wonderful momentum. Unfortunately, half-way there, we found ourselves presented with a constant climb. About 8 miles from the junction we had agreed to meet at, Jeff found as pedalling through the wind and rain. We rode to the next mile marker, so we'd have a landmark to come back to, and then packed our gear into Jeff's truck.
After a rocky drive, punctuated by a mild dispute Jeff had with a tailgating Border Patrol vehicle, we made it to Jeff and Annette's abode, and Annette greeted us with a wonderful African soup, rice, delicious corn bread, and apple pie. We also had a stimulating conversation over dinner about politics, Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and other things in a similar vein. It was quite late by the time we got to bed, but we got to sleep very comfortably. With the daylight the next morning, we got to see some of the nice surroundings, including a pond full of koi in the backyard.
Apparently as long as the water is deep enough, there's not much the various fish-eating birds can do. Good to know. In any case, after a breakfast of cereal and scrambled eggs, we said our farewells to Annette, and Jeff bundled us back in the car, and took us back to the spot where he had picked us up. Just before parting ways, in order to satisfy Jeff's curiosity, we also fixed him a vegemite sandwich. He had wanted to know what precisely vegemite was, so we educated him. The jury seems to be out on whether he likes the stuff or not.
As we had known we would, we got smacked in the face with another revolting headwind as we headed towards our next destination. We were reasonably determined to get to Tucson that day, so we pushed like the fools we are. We stopped for a very late lunch in the town of Sonoita, where we bumped into Brad, a friend of Jeff's, who as it turns out has a friend in San Diego who owns a bunch of boats, and who might be a good contact when it comes to finding a boat across the Pacific. Yes, the connections one makes can come in very useful indeed.
With not a whole lot of daylight left, we turned north, and climbed our way up the hills between Sonoita and Tucson. More slogging at high altitude, which was frustrating, but we were eventually rewarded with a long downhill run, pretty much all the way to Tucson. Bliss, though it was fully dark by then. Still, being a bit closer to sea level and getting adequate oxygen lifted my spirits, and we powered towards the abode of Cheryl and Chuck, our Warm Showers hosts. It was going to be another case of getting picked up part of the way, as they are a bit further north. Still, it ended up being a very long day, over 100km. We found a place where we could use a phone several kms north of the Interstate, and called Cheryl. We agreed that we'd keep powering along, and she'd sort of find us when she'd find us. When she did, we were apparently another 17 miles from their place, so we were certainly grateful for the lift. It was quite late by then, so after some reheated soup, we collapsed into bed.
This morning, we got to fully appreciate that we have now officially entered Saguaro cactus country.
They are really pretty ominous things, when you get right down to it - at least, they are to us, as we happened to find a postcard of a photo with a fallen Saguaro cactus which had completely crushed a car. Yikes! Of course, it should be no less scary than a normal tree, but I suppose it is the unknown that is more likely to make you a little uncomfortable. I guess we'll get used to the things as we ride on, but man, right now, they still look a bit alien.
Anyway, today will be a bit of a rest day, other than hopefully cooking some good dinner for our gracious hosts, and then we plan to rent a car again for a little side trip up to the Grand Canyon, which should be all sorts of nifty. Arizona is certainly still pretty cool, all-round.
By Yana:
We sailed out of Douglas on Saturday morning, enjoying a fine tailwind. After about 24 km, we hit the 6000 km point of our journey. We stopped to enjoy the sense of achievement, and of course took the obligatory photo that came with it.
That done, we headed uphill towards the town of Bisbee. Despite the tailwind, we were going a bit slower, mostly due to the altitude messing with my performance levels like crazy - I still haven't really adapted to anything higher than 4000 feet, it seems. We did find ourselves cruising past a gum tree though, which made the place even more reminiscent of South Australia. It would have been nice to go over and give the tree a hug, but it was on private property.
We got into Bisbee a little after midday, and really intended to just shoot through. Admittedly, the newer version of Bisbee wasn't necessarily that interesting, although the surrounding rock and earth was an absolutely brilliant shade of red. Turns out it's a big copper mining area.
While I got stuck into making lunch, Sundance hit the library for internet access, so that we could contact our Warm Showers hosts in Tucson. There were also some phone calls to make, and as we were low on options, we had to go in search of phone cards, and deeper into Bisbee. This proved to be our undoing - as it turns out, Bisbee is one of those towns that people get stuck in, because it's just so nice. We got talking with various local folk, including a lady who runs a honey shop, specialising in unpasteurised honey derived from Africanised bees, which are the prevalent bee population in Arizona. The honey we sampled was absolutely delicious, and we actually ended up buying one of the more interesting varieties. We also walked away confused about the bees, as we had always heard that the Africanised bees, the lab-grown hybrid of European and African honeybees, are a particularly aggressive and ferocious kind. However, according to the honey lady, is is actually the pure-bred African honeybees which are nasty, and hybrids are just fine. Looks like we'll have to do some research.
We also came across a wonderful little cafe, and stopped for a smoothie and some tasty baked goods.
By then, we were already incredibly tempted to spend the night in Bisbee, even though we had only come a little over 40km that day. Quite a few people were curious about us and our heavily loaded bikes, and one friendly couple who lived a little further off, Jeff and Annette, offered us a place to stay sometime in the coming days, if we felt like it. They were a little off our path, but it was an interesting possibility, so we exchanged addresses.
We completed our mission for a phone card, and by then decided to search for a turf surf in Bisbee, as this was one of those towns which made this whole trip memorable. We headed back to the honey lady to ask her for turf surf advice.
Something about Bisbee reminds me of my childhood, so I wonder if it is somehow the town that time forgot a decade or two ago, or if it perhaps reminds me a bit of something European. It's hard to say. There is certainly some very eclectic stuff around which I'm pretty sure I hadn't seen before hitting my 20s:
Luckily, we were reasonably prepared for such an eventuality. We had been carrying a spare gear cable and a spare brake cable right from the beginning of the trip. Unfortunately, we didn't happen to have them on us just then, which was a small problem, as the lack of gear cable tension meant that the derailleur kept the chain in seventh gear. That was not going to work, as we had to ride uphill 2km to get back to Margaret's place, so we wheeled my bike to somewhere safe, and Sundance came up with an ingenious little temporary fix by clamping the loose end of the cable in the quick release of my seat, thus keeping the bike in fourth gear, which was quite workable.
We did a little bit more exploring of the town, sticking our heads in the various little art gallery type places. We actually bumped into Jeff and Annette again, and made vague plans to visit them the following evening. We caught sight of various strange things, including a life-size donkey statue made up of all sorts of rusty junk, with large sinister-looking red marbles for eyes, and a car covered in all sorts of colourful sparkly paraphernalia. Crazy. We then had to head back to Margaret's place, as dinner was going to be happening soon - turns out Margaret has a reputation as an excellent cook, and for liking to entertain large groups of people. As she was making enchiladas, and some fajitas for Sundance, we decided to contribute something ourselves, as we had just sort of dropped in so randomly. Sundance made his sopa de lima, which went down very well, and it seems that my guacamole was quite well received as well. It was a very successful evening, and Margaret's neighbour Bill busted out his guitar and sang a few songs in payment for his supper. We had also brought some raspberry cabernet sorbet we had acquired at the cafe we had briefly stopped at, which turned out to be very nice as well.
As Margaret already had a house full of guests, we all came to the conclusion that it made more sense for us to stay with Bill next door, as he had a little guest house for such purposes. Perfect! Not only that, but we were greeted with an absolutely amazing spread for breakfast. Margaret presented us a mountain of thick slices of French toast, crisp bacon, sausages, cinnamon-laced proper whipped cream, and bowls of fresh fruit. After that, it might have been more efficient for us to just roll our way towards our next destination, rather than riding our bikes! Still, we opted for the bikes, and spent a little time replacing my broken gear cable before getting all packed up again.
Once at the bottom of the hill though, we found ourselves with the sweetest tailwind we had ever had on this trip. Cruising along the flat, with a straight smooth road ahead, I found myself going at 52km/h, pushed by that wonderful tailwind. Who knows how fast Sundance went - he sped right past me shortly after I hit 52. It really seemed like Arizona was apologising to us for some of the nasty weather it had thrown at us.
We got to Tombstone as the temperatures dropped and some ominous-looking fronts approached. We ducked into one of the little shops in the touristy "original" part of town, which is all decked out in western-style stuff.
As we were really a bit too far to make it to Jeff and Annette's that night, Jeff agreed to pick us up from a certain junction along the way. As the rain started to prattle and the shop owner ushered us out, we put on our wet weather gear and got back on our bikes, which seemed to impress the locals who saw us. Our sweet tail wind had turned into a crosswind which blew icy rain onto the exposed parts of our faces, but we rode on in reasonably high spirits, especially amazed at the progress we were making once we had to turn into the wind. The rolling hilly landscape gave us some wonderful momentum. Unfortunately, half-way there, we found ourselves presented with a constant climb. About 8 miles from the junction we had agreed to meet at, Jeff found as pedalling through the wind and rain. We rode to the next mile marker, so we'd have a landmark to come back to, and then packed our gear into Jeff's truck.
After a rocky drive, punctuated by a mild dispute Jeff had with a tailgating Border Patrol vehicle, we made it to Jeff and Annette's abode, and Annette greeted us with a wonderful African soup, rice, delicious corn bread, and apple pie. We also had a stimulating conversation over dinner about politics, Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and other things in a similar vein. It was quite late by the time we got to bed, but we got to sleep very comfortably. With the daylight the next morning, we got to see some of the nice surroundings, including a pond full of koi in the backyard.
Apparently as long as the water is deep enough, there's not much the various fish-eating birds can do. Good to know. In any case, after a breakfast of cereal and scrambled eggs, we said our farewells to Annette, and Jeff bundled us back in the car, and took us back to the spot where he had picked us up. Just before parting ways, in order to satisfy Jeff's curiosity, we also fixed him a vegemite sandwich. He had wanted to know what precisely vegemite was, so we educated him. The jury seems to be out on whether he likes the stuff or not.
As we had known we would, we got smacked in the face with another revolting headwind as we headed towards our next destination. We were reasonably determined to get to Tucson that day, so we pushed like the fools we are. We stopped for a very late lunch in the town of Sonoita, where we bumped into Brad, a friend of Jeff's, who as it turns out has a friend in San Diego who owns a bunch of boats, and who might be a good contact when it comes to finding a boat across the Pacific. Yes, the connections one makes can come in very useful indeed.
With not a whole lot of daylight left, we turned north, and climbed our way up the hills between Sonoita and Tucson. More slogging at high altitude, which was frustrating, but we were eventually rewarded with a long downhill run, pretty much all the way to Tucson. Bliss, though it was fully dark by then. Still, being a bit closer to sea level and getting adequate oxygen lifted my spirits, and we powered towards the abode of Cheryl and Chuck, our Warm Showers hosts. It was going to be another case of getting picked up part of the way, as they are a bit further north. Still, it ended up being a very long day, over 100km. We found a place where we could use a phone several kms north of the Interstate, and called Cheryl. We agreed that we'd keep powering along, and she'd sort of find us when she'd find us. When she did, we were apparently another 17 miles from their place, so we were certainly grateful for the lift. It was quite late by then, so after some reheated soup, we collapsed into bed.
This morning, we got to fully appreciate that we have now officially entered Saguaro cactus country.
Anyway, today will be a bit of a rest day, other than hopefully cooking some good dinner for our gracious hosts, and then we plan to rent a car again for a little side trip up to the Grand Canyon, which should be all sorts of nifty. Arizona is certainly still pretty cool, all-round.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Arizona Rocks!
Total Distance: unchanged.
By Yana:
After Sundance dropped his bike off on Tuesday at a bike shop to get the rear gears and bottom-bracket looked over, and some faffing around on Wednesday morning at Chuck and Cheryl's place, we managed to get ourselves a rental car with Enterprise. It's funny though, you can tell that they vary a little from state to state - we immediately found the customer service in El Paso way better than it was in Tucson. We did manage to arrange to get picked up though, and the fellow who picked us up in the little yellow beetle we were going to rent was very friendly indeed. In fact, Dave was the friendliest Hoosier we had ever met, and he very quickly earned himself a place on our list of people we at least mean to write postcards to along the way.
Once we were decked out with our fabulously cute little rental car, we headed north. The idea was to make it at least to Sedona, where our friends Jeff and Annette had some friends who might be able to put us up. Unfortunately, that didn't end up eventuating, as the people in question were in the midst of a frantically busy couple of days. By the time we had established this, it was reasonably late, and the hotels prices were inflated, what with us being in a tourist town. We ended up going for a drive in hopes of finding somewhere to park and and just sleep in the car. We did find such a spot, but it was basically on the outskirts of Flagstaff. Oh well, at least we were closer to the Grand Canyon that way. Our night in the car was reasonably comfy as well, as the seatbacks actually wind down quite far. We did wake up in the morning with a layer of ice on the inside of the windows - the frozen condensation of our breath! Eek! That took a little bit to clear up.
After a quick brekkie at Denny's (which was more for the sake of my long-standing curiosity than anything else), we headed through Flagstaff to the Canyon itself. It was, of course, breathtaking. The snow along the rim of it only enhanced the beauty of the place.
We did that first look into the canyon itself from the rim, like all tourists do, and then pondered what to do with the rest of our time there. It was early afternoon by then, and we decided we had time to do at least part of one of the little day walks into the Canyon itself. We decided on the Kaibab trail, which first took us through some thick snow and some steep slippery bits - but we managed just fine, even without the crampons which we had been recommended to attach to our shoes - we were glad we didn't bother with those, as we would have had to actually buy them, and we're already lugging enough gear with us as it is.
Once past the snow line, the beautiful vistas opened to us even more, now in more detail, as we were a little closer to it all. We watched several ravens sail past us quite close, as we were actually still pretty far from the bottom of the Canyon. Of course, we knew that we were doomed to only scratch the surface of the place that day, but we are already determined to come back for probably at least two trips: one hiking through, the other one kayaking.
Once out of the Canyon, we headed to the Desert View point, as we had been told the sunsets over the Canyon are just amazing. Honestly, that part was a bit of a disappointment, as it basically just got dark inside the canyon, and we just sort of watched the sun set over the darkness. It was also really cold by then, so we fled back to the car, and headed back to Flagstaff. We went in search of the Thai restaurant which Jeff had recommended to us, but ended up finding a different one instead, and opting for that, as it was getting late. We then drove back to Sedona, found ourselves a more convenient parking spot, and had a somewhat warmer night in the car, what with our elevation not being quite as high any more.
The next morning, we went for a drive through Sedona and the surrounding area, as we had only seen it in the dark on our previous run through. The trip back had definitely been worth it, the place is absolutely beautiful. A tourist trap, yes, but still very charming. There were some beautiful mountains and rock formations around the place, as well as a bunch of mountain bike trails - another thing we shall have to come back for, it seems. Yes, there was a certain irony in our not having our bikes with us on that part of the trip.
We also went on a brief jaunt through the town itself, admiring some of the cute shops and eclectic sights.
Once we had had our fill of Sedona, we headed back up to Flagstaff, stopping briefly to actually find the correct Thai place and have lunch there. Then it was off eastwards towards the Meteorite Crater. We arrived just in time for one of the guided tours, which was quite informative in terms of the history and geology of the place,
After the tour, we had a look around the museum, which boasted a video game in which you could manufacture a meteorite impact, as well as chunks of meteorite and other informative displays. The gift shop was a bit of a blast from the past for me, as it had several fossils for sale which my parents had bought versions of on their own trip through this neck of the woods 20-odd years ago.
By the time we were finished with that, it was too late to still check out the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, so we left that for the next day, headed onward to Holbrook, and found ourselves the cheapest motel room yet. Apparently stand-alone businesses owned by Indian (dots-not-feathers) folks are the way to go. We also rang Chuck and Cheryl to let them know when we'd be back, and were informed that they'd made plans to be out over part of the weekend, so we'd have to hurry back the next day to collect our stuff and find alternate accommodations. We rang another warmshowers host, Sally, who said she'd be glad to host us, then set about cooking dinner on the path in front of our hotel room. We also, conveniently, discovered that pretty much the most cost-efficient way of getting fuel for our camp stove is to go for the kerosene pump at petrol stations - 67 cents for the bottle.
The next day, we extended our car rental over the phone, and found that because the place is closed on Sundays, we had to rent the thing for one day more than we wanted it. Annoying and money-sapping, but there wasn't much we could do about it. We headed on to our next sight-seeing destinations. Conveniently enough, the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest are part of the same National Park, and right next to each other. We checked out the Painted Desert first, and discovered a ranger showing off some flint-knapping skills.
Unfortunately, he was about to pack up, so we couldn't give it a shot ourselves. Crying shame, although we did learn a little bit about it, as he was nice enough to explain some of the theory behind it to us. We then headed into the desert itself, which admittedly wasn't as colourful as I had expected, but very spiffy nonetheless.
The nifty thing about that place is that there aren't actually any paths per se, and you can meander pretty much any way you like. Pretty unusual for a wilderness area, as people just wandering all over the place tends to be a problem when it comes to preserving a bit of untouched nature.
There were all sorts of pretty rocks which we found, and that's aside from the chunks of petrified wood which littered even this part of the park.
We headed into the Petrified Forest itself, making stops along various points of interest, and then taking walks through the actual "forest" parts.
It's really quite amazing what a variety of minerals can seep into an old log of wood. We found ourselves thinking that a slice of one of the larger logs would probably make a beautiful coffee table, if you have that kind of money to fritter away.
Once finished with the Petrified Forest, we headed back to Holbrook, and let our hosts in Tucson know our status. It was late afternoon by then, and we would be able to make it back to Tucson somewhat, but not too ridiculously, late. Unfortunately, a wrong turn tacked two extra hours onto our itinerary, which Cheryl and Chuck were not going to put up with, so we collected our gear and opted for the sleep in car option again, this time very late, as it took us a while to find a spot where nobody was going to run us off. It was a pretty embarrassing incident, as it's not fun to realise that you're the chump. But that's how it goes sometimes.
Luckily, we had already contacted our next host, Sally, as we knew Cheryl and Chuck had other places to be anyway. Sally was quite accommodating, and had left the gate to the backyard open for us so we could dump our gear, and then explore a little bit of Tucson. We ended up checking out the Saguaro National park, which is just on the outskirts. Yep, more cacti than you can shake a stick at.
I must admit that I still haven't really warmed to those Saguaro cacti. While I admit that they are kind of cool, I find them somehow aesthetically unpleasing. Still, their vaguely anthromorphic appearance makes for some amusing photo opportunities, which we of course took:
Hiiiiiiiii-yah!
Oh-way-oh?
After the park, we decided to go for a drive along the way through the mountains we had taken to Tucson, as we had gone through there in the dark, and thus missed the scenery. We got to appreciate just how far we had come that day, but also realised that we hadn't really missed that much scenery-wise. It was getting reasonably late in the afternoon by then, so we just stopped at a grocery store for some melon slices, and then headed back to Sally's. On the way there, we stopped to examine the ghost bike I had spotted there earlier that day:
For those of you not in the know, there has been a worldwide Ghost Bike project going on for several years now. Whenever a cyclist is killed, their bike is painted white and left as a sort of tombstone on the side of the road where they were killed. I saw my first one in Melbourne, actually, though it was removed after a few weeks, probably because it had been chained to a piece of public art. Since then, I hadn't seen any more of them, until this little one. It's chilling as it is, the thought of having one's own bike painted white and left as a monument, but it's also especially saddening to see this particular one, as it is obviously a child's bike.
Sally wasn't home yet from her errands when we got to her place, so we plonked ourselves down in her lovely eclectic backyard, and had a look at the various magazines she had left for us to pass the time with. Sally arrived not too long after us, so we finally go to meet her in person. She turned out to be absolutely lovely, and sort of reminds me of some of my great-aunts, but more so. The kind of lady I hope to be somewhat like when I hit my grey-haired years. We all cooked dinner together and had a very nice chat. I also found out from Sally that the ghost bike we had spotted had belonged to a ten-year-old boy who had been hit a year ago by a drunk driver, who was now in jail. I guess some manner of justice had been served, though it won't bring the kid back. According to Sally, there are several ghost bikes dotted throughout Tucson - not too surprising, I suppose, as Tucson is a pretty bike-aware community.
We spent the next day picking up Sundance's bike from the repair shop, returning some maps to Chuck and Cheryl, returning the car, and doing general getting-ready-to-leave things. That night, we made some of our home-made pizza to have with Sally, which she enjoyed immensely, and Sundance also baked some more bread.
And today is the day to leave, with still a little more packing up to do. It's not so much further to go now, and that west coast is really looking quite attainable now.
Just as a side-note of trivia, we've passed through a couple of places I'd only heard about in songs during this jaunt. One of them is Benson, Arizona which pops up in a song on the soundtrack of the extra-low budget science fiction movie Darkstar. The other is Winslow, Arizona from the Eagles song "Take it easy", as in;
Well I'm a-standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona
such a fine sight to see.
It's a girl, my lord, in a flat-bed Ford,
slowin' down to take a look at me...
It's kinda interesting to experience these places as real locations, not just abstract names, and know that people really do grow up, live, work, and love in these places.
By Yana:
After Sundance dropped his bike off on Tuesday at a bike shop to get the rear gears and bottom-bracket looked over, and some faffing around on Wednesday morning at Chuck and Cheryl's place, we managed to get ourselves a rental car with Enterprise. It's funny though, you can tell that they vary a little from state to state - we immediately found the customer service in El Paso way better than it was in Tucson. We did manage to arrange to get picked up though, and the fellow who picked us up in the little yellow beetle we were going to rent was very friendly indeed. In fact, Dave was the friendliest Hoosier we had ever met, and he very quickly earned himself a place on our list of people we at least mean to write postcards to along the way.
Once we were decked out with our fabulously cute little rental car, we headed north. The idea was to make it at least to Sedona, where our friends Jeff and Annette had some friends who might be able to put us up. Unfortunately, that didn't end up eventuating, as the people in question were in the midst of a frantically busy couple of days. By the time we had established this, it was reasonably late, and the hotels prices were inflated, what with us being in a tourist town. We ended up going for a drive in hopes of finding somewhere to park and and just sleep in the car. We did find such a spot, but it was basically on the outskirts of Flagstaff. Oh well, at least we were closer to the Grand Canyon that way. Our night in the car was reasonably comfy as well, as the seatbacks actually wind down quite far. We did wake up in the morning with a layer of ice on the inside of the windows - the frozen condensation of our breath! Eek! That took a little bit to clear up.
After a quick brekkie at Denny's (which was more for the sake of my long-standing curiosity than anything else), we headed through Flagstaff to the Canyon itself. It was, of course, breathtaking. The snow along the rim of it only enhanced the beauty of the place.
We did that first look into the canyon itself from the rim, like all tourists do, and then pondered what to do with the rest of our time there. It was early afternoon by then, and we decided we had time to do at least part of one of the little day walks into the Canyon itself. We decided on the Kaibab trail, which first took us through some thick snow and some steep slippery bits - but we managed just fine, even without the crampons which we had been recommended to attach to our shoes - we were glad we didn't bother with those, as we would have had to actually buy them, and we're already lugging enough gear with us as it is.
Once out of the Canyon, we headed to the Desert View point, as we had been told the sunsets over the Canyon are just amazing. Honestly, that part was a bit of a disappointment, as it basically just got dark inside the canyon, and we just sort of watched the sun set over the darkness. It was also really cold by then, so we fled back to the car, and headed back to Flagstaff. We went in search of the Thai restaurant which Jeff had recommended to us, but ended up finding a different one instead, and opting for that, as it was getting late. We then drove back to Sedona, found ourselves a more convenient parking spot, and had a somewhat warmer night in the car, what with our elevation not being quite as high any more.
The next morning, we went for a drive through Sedona and the surrounding area, as we had only seen it in the dark on our previous run through. The trip back had definitely been worth it, the place is absolutely beautiful. A tourist trap, yes, but still very charming. There were some beautiful mountains and rock formations around the place, as well as a bunch of mountain bike trails - another thing we shall have to come back for, it seems. Yes, there was a certain irony in our not having our bikes with us on that part of the trip.
We also went on a brief jaunt through the town itself, admiring some of the cute shops and eclectic sights.
Once we had had our fill of Sedona, we headed back up to Flagstaff, stopping briefly to actually find the correct Thai place and have lunch there. Then it was off eastwards towards the Meteorite Crater. We arrived just in time for one of the guided tours, which was quite informative in terms of the history and geology of the place,
After the tour, we had a look around the museum, which boasted a video game in which you could manufacture a meteorite impact, as well as chunks of meteorite and other informative displays. The gift shop was a bit of a blast from the past for me, as it had several fossils for sale which my parents had bought versions of on their own trip through this neck of the woods 20-odd years ago.
By the time we were finished with that, it was too late to still check out the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, so we left that for the next day, headed onward to Holbrook, and found ourselves the cheapest motel room yet. Apparently stand-alone businesses owned by Indian (dots-not-feathers) folks are the way to go. We also rang Chuck and Cheryl to let them know when we'd be back, and were informed that they'd made plans to be out over part of the weekend, so we'd have to hurry back the next day to collect our stuff and find alternate accommodations. We rang another warmshowers host, Sally, who said she'd be glad to host us, then set about cooking dinner on the path in front of our hotel room. We also, conveniently, discovered that pretty much the most cost-efficient way of getting fuel for our camp stove is to go for the kerosene pump at petrol stations - 67 cents for the bottle.
The next day, we extended our car rental over the phone, and found that because the place is closed on Sundays, we had to rent the thing for one day more than we wanted it. Annoying and money-sapping, but there wasn't much we could do about it. We headed on to our next sight-seeing destinations. Conveniently enough, the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest are part of the same National Park, and right next to each other. We checked out the Painted Desert first, and discovered a ranger showing off some flint-knapping skills.
Unfortunately, he was about to pack up, so we couldn't give it a shot ourselves. Crying shame, although we did learn a little bit about it, as he was nice enough to explain some of the theory behind it to us. We then headed into the desert itself, which admittedly wasn't as colourful as I had expected, but very spiffy nonetheless.
The nifty thing about that place is that there aren't actually any paths per se, and you can meander pretty much any way you like. Pretty unusual for a wilderness area, as people just wandering all over the place tends to be a problem when it comes to preserving a bit of untouched nature.
We headed into the Petrified Forest itself, making stops along various points of interest, and then taking walks through the actual "forest" parts.
It's really quite amazing what a variety of minerals can seep into an old log of wood. We found ourselves thinking that a slice of one of the larger logs would probably make a beautiful coffee table, if you have that kind of money to fritter away.
Once finished with the Petrified Forest, we headed back to Holbrook, and let our hosts in Tucson know our status. It was late afternoon by then, and we would be able to make it back to Tucson somewhat, but not too ridiculously, late. Unfortunately, a wrong turn tacked two extra hours onto our itinerary, which Cheryl and Chuck were not going to put up with, so we collected our gear and opted for the sleep in car option again, this time very late, as it took us a while to find a spot where nobody was going to run us off. It was a pretty embarrassing incident, as it's not fun to realise that you're the chump. But that's how it goes sometimes.
Luckily, we had already contacted our next host, Sally, as we knew Cheryl and Chuck had other places to be anyway. Sally was quite accommodating, and had left the gate to the backyard open for us so we could dump our gear, and then explore a little bit of Tucson. We ended up checking out the Saguaro National park, which is just on the outskirts. Yep, more cacti than you can shake a stick at.
I must admit that I still haven't really warmed to those Saguaro cacti. While I admit that they are kind of cool, I find them somehow aesthetically unpleasing. Still, their vaguely anthromorphic appearance makes for some amusing photo opportunities, which we of course took:
Hiiiiiiiii-yah!
After the park, we decided to go for a drive along the way through the mountains we had taken to Tucson, as we had gone through there in the dark, and thus missed the scenery. We got to appreciate just how far we had come that day, but also realised that we hadn't really missed that much scenery-wise. It was getting reasonably late in the afternoon by then, so we just stopped at a grocery store for some melon slices, and then headed back to Sally's. On the way there, we stopped to examine the ghost bike I had spotted there earlier that day:
Sally wasn't home yet from her errands when we got to her place, so we plonked ourselves down in her lovely eclectic backyard, and had a look at the various magazines she had left for us to pass the time with. Sally arrived not too long after us, so we finally go to meet her in person. She turned out to be absolutely lovely, and sort of reminds me of some of my great-aunts, but more so. The kind of lady I hope to be somewhat like when I hit my grey-haired years. We all cooked dinner together and had a very nice chat. I also found out from Sally that the ghost bike we had spotted had belonged to a ten-year-old boy who had been hit a year ago by a drunk driver, who was now in jail. I guess some manner of justice had been served, though it won't bring the kid back. According to Sally, there are several ghost bikes dotted throughout Tucson - not too surprising, I suppose, as Tucson is a pretty bike-aware community.
We spent the next day picking up Sundance's bike from the repair shop, returning some maps to Chuck and Cheryl, returning the car, and doing general getting-ready-to-leave things. That night, we made some of our home-made pizza to have with Sally, which she enjoyed immensely, and Sundance also baked some more bread.
And today is the day to leave, with still a little more packing up to do. It's not so much further to go now, and that west coast is really looking quite attainable now.
Addendum by Sundance:
Just as a side-note of trivia, we've passed through a couple of places I'd only heard about in songs during this jaunt. One of them is Benson, Arizona which pops up in a song on the soundtrack of the extra-low budget science fiction movie Darkstar. The other is Winslow, Arizona from the Eagles song "Take it easy", as in;
Well I'm a-standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona
such a fine sight to see.
It's a girl, my lord, in a flat-bed Ford,
slowin' down to take a look at me...
It's kinda interesting to experience these places as real locations, not just abstract names, and know that people really do grow up, live, work, and love in these places.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
On a dark desert highway...
Total Distance: 6796.2 km
It's been surprisingly long since we last had the opportunity to post a blog entry. Still, we are getting so very close to the end now that we kind of want to post one more before we actually hit that west coast.
Leaving Sally's place in Tucson turned out to be one of those convoluted departures, where all our gear has exploded out of our bags, and it takes hours and hours to repack. It's a crazy phenomenon, really. But finally, we did get going. It was early afternoon by then, but we had a sweet tailwind, and the weather was otherwise glorious, as well.
Conveniently, Sally lives quite close to the spot where we had been picked up the last time, so it was a fairly minor matter to ride back there, and then continue our journey from there. With the wind at our backs, we coasted through Tucson, realising that it really is quite nice for cyclists. Plenty of bikelanes, and they're quite wide to boot! Nice! You can quite comfortably cycle along the main roads there. The town also has a slightly Adelaide-ish feel to it, though Sundance reckons it's more like a scaled-up version of Alice Springs.
Once through Tucson itself, we made our way towards the interstate, as we had established that the I-10 has a cushy frontage road which leads all the way up to Casa Grande. However, when we headed towards the spot where we planned to get onto the road, we found signs telling us the frontage road was closed, due to roadworks. Bother! We resolved the matter reasonably quickly though by asking the advice of a cop who was standing by a pair of crashed cars. The cop was nice enough to take a moment for us, and tell us where the next point of intersection with the interstate was. We headed off, and I briefly noted that one of the two crashed cars had managed to snap off one of its front wheels! Yikes!
It took a little bit of weaving around some slightly hilly bits, but we made it to our intersection. The sun was starting to sink a little bit, and the saguaro-covered hills were bathed in that pretty golden light - at that point, I actually felt like I might be able to warm to those saguaros, after all. At one point, we almost went off in the wrong direction, but Sundance flagged down a young lady in an SUV, and she pointed us in the right direction. Once on that coveted frontage road, we only had maybe another hour of daylight, and discovered that we hadn't come anywhere near as far as we'd thought we had, to boot. Still, we weren't going to let that get us down, as it felt good to just get out of Tucson and be moving again. Just as the sun was setting, we took note of our surroundings, and decided that right by the side of the road would be a fine place to put up the tent, as the strip of land between the interstate and the frontage road had widened into a fully fledged paddock. We got ourselves set up in the fading light, and had a very nice comfortable night indeed, as the temperature remained pleasant and balmy. Amusingly, hearing the coyotes howling in the distance was also somewhat comforting, as we've become so used to it.
The next morning, we got up pretty much as early as we ever do, and got ourselves packed and breakfasted very efficiently. It was a good feeling to be on the road within an hour and fifteen minutes, and we found ourselves with another glorious tailwind, as well! Arizona really was working out very nicely for us. We also found that the scenery on either side was bursting with colourful wildflowers, which gave us that wonderful feeling that spring is on its way. In fact, it was shaping up to be quite a warm day, as well. As we drew level with the little town of Red Rock, we decided to find a petrol station and use the toilet. However, what we found was one of those new developments, which we think of as ghost towns that have not yet been populated. Still, we managed to find the older, inhabited parts of town, and a nice lady talking over the fence with her neighbour let us use her toilet, once she had locked away her overly excitable dog. Once we had used the facilities, we found ourselves presented with bowls of yoghurt and berries, which we gleefully devoured. We ended up sitting at the dining room table with our host, Josefina, and another girl name Christie (Kristy? I didn't establish the spelling), and we spent well over an hour chatting. It was one of those wonderful gregarious moments which this trip is all about.
Before we left, we also got to meet Josefina's son, Clancy, who has spent some time in Wagga Wagga. This kind of tickled us, especially as Clancy had apparently discovered that yep, Wagga is not so different from southern Arizona. We all exchanged contact details, and Josefina stuffed our pockets with toaster pastries, fresh fruit, and a bag of absolutely delicious candied pecans. We said our goodbyes, and headed back onto our frontage road. It really turned out to be a pretty good travelling day all round, as least for the first half of it. We stopped for lunch in Eloy, and then got moving again pretty quickly.
It was just before we reached Casa Grande that disaster struck: Sundance rode over a screw which promptly embedded itself in his rear tyre, and resulted in our first puncture since Fort Davis, Texas. Not even the extra-thick uber tubes could withstand that screw, and it did quite a number on the tube. We found ourselves a nice shady spot to sit, and Sundane set to patching the tube, which had been run right through on one side, and punctured in multiple spots on the other side. I had a reasonably hard job getting the thing out of the actual tyre as well. It was definitely one of those doozies which chew up insane amounts of time.
We headed on into Casa Grande, and during a quick grocery run, discovered that the tube had gone down again. Upon closer investigation, Sundance found that the patch hadn't held, and we ended up going for one of the normal tubes we still had floating around in our packs. By then, the sun had started to set, but we were determined to at least leave Casa Grande. We got pretty close to doing that, as in the end, we found ourselves a turf surf at a house which was pretty much right on the city limits. We got ourselves set up and fed, and ended up doing a bit of socialising with the family. Ken and Katie turned out to be a friendly and helpful pair, and quite adept at keeping their little tribe of kidlets from completely swamping us with attention, which was cute in many ways. We got to top up our water supply, and they ended up slipping us some extra money for the road, which gave us that very humbled feeling which you get from great hospitality. It was also interesting to note that the whole money thing had not happened since Louisiana. Actually, we have decided that Arizona is probably the first place to truly give Kentucky a run for its money in terms of hospitality. In fact, Arizona might well win in those stakes.
We got ourselves going at a reasonable time, despite having spent part of the morning chatting with Ken and Katie. We had a reasonably smooth run into Maricopa, which turned out to be a much larger town than expected. We stopped by a Wal-Mart to make some peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and purchase extravagances like Clif bars and the like. We got going again quite swiftly after that, and also crossed paths with a large ute containing a driver who honked and waved - I'm pretty sure it was Ken, as the baseball cap and goatee looked familiar, but I couldn't be completely certain at so quick a glance.
Once turned out of Maricopa, we found ourselves smacked with a headwind. As it had been a while since we had encountered one of those, it made us a little grumpy, especially as the little road we were on turned out to be a popular route for ridiculously large trucks and semis. At least most of them were polite drivers and gave us a wide berth, though a few of them buzzed by us rather closer than necessary.
Due to the wind, we were definitely not going to make it to Gila Bend that day, we figured. We stopped in the tiny little town of Mobile for lunch, at a Primary School, of all things. When we asked for permission to do so, we generated some interest, and ended up having a bit of a chat with one of the teachers, Kara. It was a nice little lunch break, made all the better by the fact that we were in some nice solid shade and got to fill up our water bottles, as that sun was nothing to be sneezed at. Spring in southern Arizona already has a bit of force to it, I can believe the stories of how stinking hot summer gets there!
After we had ridden on into that stupid wind for another decent stretch, Sundance found himself afflicted with yet another flat tyre - the normal thickness tube we had put in to replace the uber tube had not held up for very long. As Sundance had made a point of cutting up an old normal tube to make a super-patch for the uber tube, we got stuck into putting that one back in. However, when Sundance started to pump up the tube, we discovered that the makeshift super patch wasn't super enough, and had to admit that the tube was unfixable. Frustrating. I got out another spare tube and patched the freshly punctured one, and we took a few moments to wallow in the sheer craptasticness of it all.
We actually ended up getting within eight miles of Gila Bend that night before pulling off and finding a nice sheltered spot between some trees to camp. The railroad was a little bit closer than we would have liked, but that had been the situation for a while, so it didn't really bother us. It was still a balmy, comfortable night, and we shot into Gila Bend relatively promtly the next morning, especially as we had decided to defer breakfast until we were actually there.
Luckily, we found ourselves a shelter to make breakfast under, as there was a bit of a squall of rain in the middle of it, though not enough to be worth worrying about in the long run - it was really just enough rain to make the hot bitumen smell kind of feral. Funnily enough, I had kind of missed that smell. I guess it speaks of hot places.
It took us a bit of time to get out of Gila Bend, partly because the grocery options were rather woeful. We also filled our water to full capacity for the first time, as we were supposedly about to head into the desert, and we were told that the stretch between Gila Bend and Yuma was kind of desolate, with the towns in between being little more than signs with names. Sundance had plotted out an alternate route which would keep us off the interstate the whole way - no mean feat, as this was one of those stretches which was very interstate-oriented.
We got stuck into going along the course Sundance had plotted, once again battling a wind which was against us. A decent distance along our chosen road, we found ourselves at a confusing intersection, and eventually established that the most direct route to where we wanted to go was for a 15km stretch along a reasonably gnarly dirt road. We decided that it was preferable to heading back, and after all, we had done dirt road stretches before. For a while, it was just fine, and even the first puddle was okay to ride through. It was when we hit a big succession of road-spanning puddles that things became problematic. We soon found ourselves having to get off our bikes and drag them through ankle-thick viscous mud. Desert indeed! After the puddly stretch, we had to take some time out to wash shoes, socks, and brake pads, as all sorts of crud had gotten caught in there. A passing driver also told us that the Gila river was currently running, which meant that our chosen route to Yuma was most likely cut off.
We made it to the end of the dirt road, which luckily became much better after the puddly stretch. We ended up deciding to turn towards the interstate, as that was the direction the wind was pushing us into, and we didn't feel like struggling another 15 km into a headwind for the uncertain possibility that we'd be able to cross the dam which was supposedly blocking off our route. We found a house by the interstate, where a friendly Latino fellow let us use his phone and topped up our water. Sundance calle the Highway Patrol to check bikes were allowed on this stretch of the insterstate, and got no useful answer, because the people didn't know themselves. In the end, judging by the fact that the Cycle Arizona map described the riding conditions along the interstate, and also finding a sign asking cyclists to keep to the shoulder, we came to the conclusion that it had to be allowed. As our escapade through the mud had taken up a lot of time, we didn't have much daylight left, so we ended up pushing on in the dark a little bit until we hit Sentinel. There we stopped at some tables outside the local petrol station, made ourselves some dinner, and then found ourselves a camp spot about 1km outside of town, in the so-called desert.
The next morning we packed up and breakfasted, and then headed into Sentinel in hopes of using the toilets as the petrol station. This turned out to be a no-go, as the owner quite rudely advised us that the water wasn't working. Once she was gone, the owner's daughter suggested we just use their own toilet rather than the public one, but we didn't want to get her in trouble, plus we knew there to be a rest stop only two miles further down the interstate. We set off with another one of those wonderful tailwinds, and reached the rest area very quickly. The drinking fountains weren't working, but the toilets certainly were, which was all we really needed. Back on our bikes, we cruised along at an easy 30+ km/h, and very soon came to the town of Dateland, named not for people going on dates there, but for growing dates, much to Sundance's pleasant surprise, as he loves eating dates. We shared an absolutely delicious date shake, and also got a slice of date pecan pie to serve as Sundance's birthday cake, as that was coming up very soon indeed. Sundance had been in a bit of a low mood all morning, despite the headwind, and he took the time to do some handstands, cartwheels, and even a handspring on the grass, which made him feel a bit better. He'd been missing doing gymnastics and is looking forward to getting back to it when we return to Adelaide.
We headed onwards to Mohawk, and headed into a closed rest area, where we sat on the tables and made our lunch. Good thing we hadn't counted on anything being in Mohawk, because there really was nothing to speak of. I'm not even sure I saw a sign, let alone any buildings telling us what spot exactly was supposed to be Mohawk. We made a quick stop in Tacna to refill our water and share some orange ice cream/sorbet stuff, and then headed onwards to Wellton, where we found out that there was a public library, so we stopped for some Wi-Fi access to see if there were any warmshowers hosts in Yuma, as it looked like we'd be able to still make it there that day. We found nothing useful though, and ended up spending quite a bit of time at the library. Still, we managed to make 100km before sunset that day, and ended up finding a turf surf a few km out of Wellton. The people we stayed with, Gary and Nancy, certainly went above and beyond our request for a spot to put up our tent: we found ourselves presented with a plate each of delicious chicken curry, followed by dessert. One more point for Arizona! Gary actually mentioned that he'd seen us in Sentinel that morning, and was impressed at the distane we'd covered. We did cook ourselves a second dinner though, simply because we needed the extra carbohydrate for our crazy energy output. We spent that time chatting with Gary and Nancy, before eventually turning in for the night.
The next morning, Gary and Nancy spirited us off to one of the restaurants in Wellton, where they treated us to breakfast. Nice of them. Once again, it's a reminder of how many good deeds we have to pay forward when we get home. It was also a nice treat since it was tehnically Sundance's birthday, as by then, the date had at least clocked over to the 22nd in Australia.
It ended up being a slightly slower morning than it had been lately, probably partly because we had the chance to have a shower, and Sundance wanted to just relax and have a calm, happy day. It was pushing noon when we got going, and we said our goodbyes. We ended up going on a bit of a zig zag trail on our way to Yuma, in order to avoid the mountain pass. There were quite a few different fields on either side of us as we rode along, and we could smell all the fresh produce. We stopped for lunch at the intersection of our zig zag road and the road which would actually lead us into Yuma itself. It was getting late into the afternoon as we approached the town, at which point I could hear a curious rhythmic fapping coming from my bike. A moment of inspection revealed that my rear tyre had developed a small bulge in the side, which smacked against the brake pads with each wheel revolution. Not good. Sundance let out a little bit of the tyre pressure and we rode a little further, in hopes of finding a servo where we could look at fixing it. However, the problem got worse quite rapidly, and just before we hit a sports bar on the outskirts of town, the whole arrangement gave a loud pop as the tyre gave out and the tube burst. That's two of the uber tubes down.
Luckily, Sundance managed to get a lift from a nice lady who had just dropped off her husband at the sports bar, and she drove him to Wal-Mart to get a quick fix el cheapo replacement tyre while I removed the old one. I found to my surprise that in this case, the tube looked fixable, so I patched it while I waited. Sundance returned with the new tyre, and we decided to put in the new uber tube we had received from Gary, as a sort of birthday present for Sundance. I twiddled my thumbs for a bit while Sundance fiddled with the new tyre, and we got talking briefly with one of the fellows hanging out at the bar. I eventually went in and asked him for various local advice involving where we'd be able to set up a tent in town, as the tyre incident had completely blown our schedule. The fellow, Bob, ended up offering to put us up for the night and give us a lift in his truck, bikes and all. We accepted, and I packed the gear into the truck while Sundance continued to wrestle the tyre - as we had established before, the narrow rims of my Canadian bike, combined with those Wal-Mart tyres are just horrible when it comes to working the things on and off, and the uber tube was making it all the worse. Poor Sundance ended up getting badly frustrated by the whole thing - the tyre was such a tight fit that he actually snapped two tyre levers! - and we decided that we'd just have to find a bikeshop the following day to take care of the problem.
We dropped off our gear at Bob's place, and Sundance took a bit of time for himself to defuse all that negativity from the tyre wrestling - not a good way to spend part of his birthday. I spent that time socialising with Bob, and when Sundance re-emerged, Bob took us out to dinner, which was really nice of him. We discovered that IHOP is so much more than just a pancake joint, and actually serves quite reasonable quality food. They also let Sundance use their phone, so he could call both his parents and say hi for his birthday. It was a little bit of a process, but we got back eventually, and fell into bed.
The next day, once we had breakfasted and showered, Bob packed us back into his truck and drove us to the local bicycle shop. There I took my rear wheel into the shop, explaining the way the valve stem of the tube wasn't protruding far enough for the pump to grab onto it properly, and the way we now couldn't get the tyre off because it was too tight. One of the bike shop guys got the thing sorted out quickly enough, and pumped it up. We had intended to get a different tyre, as Wal-Mart is really far from ideal, but then, we have less than a week to go before we hit the coast. Bob came in briefly to say his goodbyes, we exchanged contact details, and he headed off. After having a quick chat about it, Sundance and I agreed to stick with the Wal-Mart tyre, and learn a few tricks about getting the stubborn thing off, should there be another puncture. I'm reasonably confident that we are in a better place to handle it now.
Once that was done, we headed back to the sports bar, as that had been the point where we had left off. We then went in search of the nearest decent supermarket, and I did a quick grocery run while Sundance was on bike guard duty. We made ourselves some lunch there, and I had a random encounter with a drink vending machine, where leaning against it and inching down it to sit on the ground resulted in me accidentally pushing a button and getting a free orange-flavoured soda for my efforts. It was an amusing moment of startlement, but still, kind of cool. Hooray for free soft drink, in all its High Fructose Corn Syrupy goodness!
We did have a brief chat with a postal delivery lady who thought our adventure was the coolest thing, and a passer by had also handed Sundance some money, which was another one of those nice things. It makes us feel a little bit like bums when people do that, but it's still appreciated. With lunch done, we headed to the banks of the Colorado River, dangled our feet in so Sundance could feel like his birthday hadn't been entirely swallowed up with the effort to get back on the road, and then checked the Yuma tourist info for California maps. There weren't any complimentary ones, so we shrugged and just headed across the state border, making state border crossings a thing of the past for this trip! California, hooray! We have now also crossed two entire time zones by bicycle.
That being said, California wasn't being so great. The road surfaces we found ourselves on were absolutely terrible, to the point of giving Louisiana a run for its money in that department, and Louisiana is supposed to have the worst roads in the USA! How California, which has a larger economy than most countries, can have such lousy roads is just beyond me. The frontage road along the interstate was just shocking, which we proceeded to rant about with another cyclist we met, Phil, who was coming from the other direction. Phil is heading for Austin, Texas, as it turned out, and he was happy to give us some advice on the roads ahead.
We rode on to the next intersection of note, and found ourselves a nice sheltered desolate spot to put up our tent. We had our dinner and looked up at the darkening sky, and also stuck four burning matches into Sundance's slice of date pecan pie, as the four corners of the square, as this is a square number birthday for Sundance - 36! Sure, it was a tiny little birthday party, but kind of nice in its own right.
The next morning, we decided to opt for the direction which would take us away from the interstate, even though it would be a decent-sized detour. To our chagrin, about 15km along the way, the very slight tailwind we had started out with turned into an absolute demon of a headwind. Lovely. But there was nothing much we could do but push on, as our dwindling water supply was not going to make it an extra day. At least there was a little cut-off road which would shrink our detour somewhat, although our suspicions of it being a dirt road turned out to be extremely well-founded. As we had gone around 35km by then, and it was early afternoon, we stopped under a tree for lunch before tackling that road in ernest. Honestly, it wasn't even a road at all, but a few tyre tracks through a cross-country landscape. Good fun, but also quite tricky and at times frustrating. I'd still say it was worth it though, especially as we encountered a decent-sized tortoise lumbering its way across the road. Nifty! It did retreat into its shell when it noticed us, though it ended up sticking its head and front feet out far enough again for us to get a decent picture.
Back on the bitumen, we found ourselves dealing with all sorts of winds, mostly cross. We rode through the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, noting a bunch of people hooning over the dunes on quad bikes to our left. It was a bit hilly, but still a pretty landscape. Not a huge area, but still worthwhile. We rode on between wheat fields, date and orange orchards, and sheep paddocks before finding a house to ask for a turf surf at, about 15km shy of Brawley. The people in question offered us their caravan to stay in, which certainly goes above and beyond the need for a spot of earth to stick up a tent on. So we spent the night safely tucked away and got to cook dinner on a double-burner gas stove, and have a shower this morning. Afterwards we headed into the town of Brawley and had a huge Chinese meal for lunch, so big that we couldn't finish it all. And that's saying something! Still, the leftovers will make a good dinner tonight. Then we found a Wi-Fi hotspot at a supermarket to post this blog entry, before hitting the road again. We have another big day ahead of us today, and one more set of mountains to cross before we get to the Pacific!
By Yana:
It's been surprisingly long since we last had the opportunity to post a blog entry. Still, we are getting so very close to the end now that we kind of want to post one more before we actually hit that west coast.
Leaving Sally's place in Tucson turned out to be one of those convoluted departures, where all our gear has exploded out of our bags, and it takes hours and hours to repack. It's a crazy phenomenon, really. But finally, we did get going. It was early afternoon by then, but we had a sweet tailwind, and the weather was otherwise glorious, as well.
Conveniently, Sally lives quite close to the spot where we had been picked up the last time, so it was a fairly minor matter to ride back there, and then continue our journey from there. With the wind at our backs, we coasted through Tucson, realising that it really is quite nice for cyclists. Plenty of bikelanes, and they're quite wide to boot! Nice! You can quite comfortably cycle along the main roads there. The town also has a slightly Adelaide-ish feel to it, though Sundance reckons it's more like a scaled-up version of Alice Springs.
Once through Tucson itself, we made our way towards the interstate, as we had established that the I-10 has a cushy frontage road which leads all the way up to Casa Grande. However, when we headed towards the spot where we planned to get onto the road, we found signs telling us the frontage road was closed, due to roadworks. Bother! We resolved the matter reasonably quickly though by asking the advice of a cop who was standing by a pair of crashed cars. The cop was nice enough to take a moment for us, and tell us where the next point of intersection with the interstate was. We headed off, and I briefly noted that one of the two crashed cars had managed to snap off one of its front wheels! Yikes!
It took a little bit of weaving around some slightly hilly bits, but we made it to our intersection. The sun was starting to sink a little bit, and the saguaro-covered hills were bathed in that pretty golden light - at that point, I actually felt like I might be able to warm to those saguaros, after all. At one point, we almost went off in the wrong direction, but Sundance flagged down a young lady in an SUV, and she pointed us in the right direction. Once on that coveted frontage road, we only had maybe another hour of daylight, and discovered that we hadn't come anywhere near as far as we'd thought we had, to boot. Still, we weren't going to let that get us down, as it felt good to just get out of Tucson and be moving again. Just as the sun was setting, we took note of our surroundings, and decided that right by the side of the road would be a fine place to put up the tent, as the strip of land between the interstate and the frontage road had widened into a fully fledged paddock. We got ourselves set up in the fading light, and had a very nice comfortable night indeed, as the temperature remained pleasant and balmy. Amusingly, hearing the coyotes howling in the distance was also somewhat comforting, as we've become so used to it.
The next morning, we got up pretty much as early as we ever do, and got ourselves packed and breakfasted very efficiently. It was a good feeling to be on the road within an hour and fifteen minutes, and we found ourselves with another glorious tailwind, as well! Arizona really was working out very nicely for us. We also found that the scenery on either side was bursting with colourful wildflowers, which gave us that wonderful feeling that spring is on its way. In fact, it was shaping up to be quite a warm day, as well. As we drew level with the little town of Red Rock, we decided to find a petrol station and use the toilet. However, what we found was one of those new developments, which we think of as ghost towns that have not yet been populated. Still, we managed to find the older, inhabited parts of town, and a nice lady talking over the fence with her neighbour let us use her toilet, once she had locked away her overly excitable dog. Once we had used the facilities, we found ourselves presented with bowls of yoghurt and berries, which we gleefully devoured. We ended up sitting at the dining room table with our host, Josefina, and another girl name Christie (Kristy? I didn't establish the spelling), and we spent well over an hour chatting. It was one of those wonderful gregarious moments which this trip is all about.
Before we left, we also got to meet Josefina's son, Clancy, who has spent some time in Wagga Wagga. This kind of tickled us, especially as Clancy had apparently discovered that yep, Wagga is not so different from southern Arizona. We all exchanged contact details, and Josefina stuffed our pockets with toaster pastries, fresh fruit, and a bag of absolutely delicious candied pecans. We said our goodbyes, and headed back onto our frontage road. It really turned out to be a pretty good travelling day all round, as least for the first half of it. We stopped for lunch in Eloy, and then got moving again pretty quickly.
It was just before we reached Casa Grande that disaster struck: Sundance rode over a screw which promptly embedded itself in his rear tyre, and resulted in our first puncture since Fort Davis, Texas. Not even the extra-thick uber tubes could withstand that screw, and it did quite a number on the tube. We found ourselves a nice shady spot to sit, and Sundane set to patching the tube, which had been run right through on one side, and punctured in multiple spots on the other side. I had a reasonably hard job getting the thing out of the actual tyre as well. It was definitely one of those doozies which chew up insane amounts of time.
We headed on into Casa Grande, and during a quick grocery run, discovered that the tube had gone down again. Upon closer investigation, Sundance found that the patch hadn't held, and we ended up going for one of the normal tubes we still had floating around in our packs. By then, the sun had started to set, but we were determined to at least leave Casa Grande. We got pretty close to doing that, as in the end, we found ourselves a turf surf at a house which was pretty much right on the city limits. We got ourselves set up and fed, and ended up doing a bit of socialising with the family. Ken and Katie turned out to be a friendly and helpful pair, and quite adept at keeping their little tribe of kidlets from completely swamping us with attention, which was cute in many ways. We got to top up our water supply, and they ended up slipping us some extra money for the road, which gave us that very humbled feeling which you get from great hospitality. It was also interesting to note that the whole money thing had not happened since Louisiana. Actually, we have decided that Arizona is probably the first place to truly give Kentucky a run for its money in terms of hospitality. In fact, Arizona might well win in those stakes.
We got ourselves going at a reasonable time, despite having spent part of the morning chatting with Ken and Katie. We had a reasonably smooth run into Maricopa, which turned out to be a much larger town than expected. We stopped by a Wal-Mart to make some peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and purchase extravagances like Clif bars and the like. We got going again quite swiftly after that, and also crossed paths with a large ute containing a driver who honked and waved - I'm pretty sure it was Ken, as the baseball cap and goatee looked familiar, but I couldn't be completely certain at so quick a glance.
Once turned out of Maricopa, we found ourselves smacked with a headwind. As it had been a while since we had encountered one of those, it made us a little grumpy, especially as the little road we were on turned out to be a popular route for ridiculously large trucks and semis. At least most of them were polite drivers and gave us a wide berth, though a few of them buzzed by us rather closer than necessary.
Due to the wind, we were definitely not going to make it to Gila Bend that day, we figured. We stopped in the tiny little town of Mobile for lunch, at a Primary School, of all things. When we asked for permission to do so, we generated some interest, and ended up having a bit of a chat with one of the teachers, Kara. It was a nice little lunch break, made all the better by the fact that we were in some nice solid shade and got to fill up our water bottles, as that sun was nothing to be sneezed at. Spring in southern Arizona already has a bit of force to it, I can believe the stories of how stinking hot summer gets there!
After we had ridden on into that stupid wind for another decent stretch, Sundance found himself afflicted with yet another flat tyre - the normal thickness tube we had put in to replace the uber tube had not held up for very long. As Sundance had made a point of cutting up an old normal tube to make a super-patch for the uber tube, we got stuck into putting that one back in. However, when Sundance started to pump up the tube, we discovered that the makeshift super patch wasn't super enough, and had to admit that the tube was unfixable. Frustrating. I got out another spare tube and patched the freshly punctured one, and we took a few moments to wallow in the sheer craptasticness of it all.
We actually ended up getting within eight miles of Gila Bend that night before pulling off and finding a nice sheltered spot between some trees to camp. The railroad was a little bit closer than we would have liked, but that had been the situation for a while, so it didn't really bother us. It was still a balmy, comfortable night, and we shot into Gila Bend relatively promtly the next morning, especially as we had decided to defer breakfast until we were actually there.
Luckily, we found ourselves a shelter to make breakfast under, as there was a bit of a squall of rain in the middle of it, though not enough to be worth worrying about in the long run - it was really just enough rain to make the hot bitumen smell kind of feral. Funnily enough, I had kind of missed that smell. I guess it speaks of hot places.
It took us a bit of time to get out of Gila Bend, partly because the grocery options were rather woeful. We also filled our water to full capacity for the first time, as we were supposedly about to head into the desert, and we were told that the stretch between Gila Bend and Yuma was kind of desolate, with the towns in between being little more than signs with names. Sundance had plotted out an alternate route which would keep us off the interstate the whole way - no mean feat, as this was one of those stretches which was very interstate-oriented.
We got stuck into going along the course Sundance had plotted, once again battling a wind which was against us. A decent distance along our chosen road, we found ourselves at a confusing intersection, and eventually established that the most direct route to where we wanted to go was for a 15km stretch along a reasonably gnarly dirt road. We decided that it was preferable to heading back, and after all, we had done dirt road stretches before. For a while, it was just fine, and even the first puddle was okay to ride through. It was when we hit a big succession of road-spanning puddles that things became problematic. We soon found ourselves having to get off our bikes and drag them through ankle-thick viscous mud. Desert indeed! After the puddly stretch, we had to take some time out to wash shoes, socks, and brake pads, as all sorts of crud had gotten caught in there. A passing driver also told us that the Gila river was currently running, which meant that our chosen route to Yuma was most likely cut off.
We made it to the end of the dirt road, which luckily became much better after the puddly stretch. We ended up deciding to turn towards the interstate, as that was the direction the wind was pushing us into, and we didn't feel like struggling another 15 km into a headwind for the uncertain possibility that we'd be able to cross the dam which was supposedly blocking off our route. We found a house by the interstate, where a friendly Latino fellow let us use his phone and topped up our water. Sundance calle the Highway Patrol to check bikes were allowed on this stretch of the insterstate, and got no useful answer, because the people didn't know themselves. In the end, judging by the fact that the Cycle Arizona map described the riding conditions along the interstate, and also finding a sign asking cyclists to keep to the shoulder, we came to the conclusion that it had to be allowed. As our escapade through the mud had taken up a lot of time, we didn't have much daylight left, so we ended up pushing on in the dark a little bit until we hit Sentinel. There we stopped at some tables outside the local petrol station, made ourselves some dinner, and then found ourselves a camp spot about 1km outside of town, in the so-called desert.
The next morning we packed up and breakfasted, and then headed into Sentinel in hopes of using the toilets as the petrol station. This turned out to be a no-go, as the owner quite rudely advised us that the water wasn't working. Once she was gone, the owner's daughter suggested we just use their own toilet rather than the public one, but we didn't want to get her in trouble, plus we knew there to be a rest stop only two miles further down the interstate. We set off with another one of those wonderful tailwinds, and reached the rest area very quickly. The drinking fountains weren't working, but the toilets certainly were, which was all we really needed. Back on our bikes, we cruised along at an easy 30+ km/h, and very soon came to the town of Dateland, named not for people going on dates there, but for growing dates, much to Sundance's pleasant surprise, as he loves eating dates. We shared an absolutely delicious date shake, and also got a slice of date pecan pie to serve as Sundance's birthday cake, as that was coming up very soon indeed. Sundance had been in a bit of a low mood all morning, despite the headwind, and he took the time to do some handstands, cartwheels, and even a handspring on the grass, which made him feel a bit better. He'd been missing doing gymnastics and is looking forward to getting back to it when we return to Adelaide.
We headed onwards to Mohawk, and headed into a closed rest area, where we sat on the tables and made our lunch. Good thing we hadn't counted on anything being in Mohawk, because there really was nothing to speak of. I'm not even sure I saw a sign, let alone any buildings telling us what spot exactly was supposed to be Mohawk. We made a quick stop in Tacna to refill our water and share some orange ice cream/sorbet stuff, and then headed onwards to Wellton, where we found out that there was a public library, so we stopped for some Wi-Fi access to see if there were any warmshowers hosts in Yuma, as it looked like we'd be able to still make it there that day. We found nothing useful though, and ended up spending quite a bit of time at the library. Still, we managed to make 100km before sunset that day, and ended up finding a turf surf a few km out of Wellton. The people we stayed with, Gary and Nancy, certainly went above and beyond our request for a spot to put up our tent: we found ourselves presented with a plate each of delicious chicken curry, followed by dessert. One more point for Arizona! Gary actually mentioned that he'd seen us in Sentinel that morning, and was impressed at the distane we'd covered. We did cook ourselves a second dinner though, simply because we needed the extra carbohydrate for our crazy energy output. We spent that time chatting with Gary and Nancy, before eventually turning in for the night.
The next morning, Gary and Nancy spirited us off to one of the restaurants in Wellton, where they treated us to breakfast. Nice of them. Once again, it's a reminder of how many good deeds we have to pay forward when we get home. It was also a nice treat since it was tehnically Sundance's birthday, as by then, the date had at least clocked over to the 22nd in Australia.
It ended up being a slightly slower morning than it had been lately, probably partly because we had the chance to have a shower, and Sundance wanted to just relax and have a calm, happy day. It was pushing noon when we got going, and we said our goodbyes. We ended up going on a bit of a zig zag trail on our way to Yuma, in order to avoid the mountain pass. There were quite a few different fields on either side of us as we rode along, and we could smell all the fresh produce. We stopped for lunch at the intersection of our zig zag road and the road which would actually lead us into Yuma itself. It was getting late into the afternoon as we approached the town, at which point I could hear a curious rhythmic fapping coming from my bike. A moment of inspection revealed that my rear tyre had developed a small bulge in the side, which smacked against the brake pads with each wheel revolution. Not good. Sundance let out a little bit of the tyre pressure and we rode a little further, in hopes of finding a servo where we could look at fixing it. However, the problem got worse quite rapidly, and just before we hit a sports bar on the outskirts of town, the whole arrangement gave a loud pop as the tyre gave out and the tube burst. That's two of the uber tubes down.
Luckily, Sundance managed to get a lift from a nice lady who had just dropped off her husband at the sports bar, and she drove him to Wal-Mart to get a quick fix el cheapo replacement tyre while I removed the old one. I found to my surprise that in this case, the tube looked fixable, so I patched it while I waited. Sundance returned with the new tyre, and we decided to put in the new uber tube we had received from Gary, as a sort of birthday present for Sundance. I twiddled my thumbs for a bit while Sundance fiddled with the new tyre, and we got talking briefly with one of the fellows hanging out at the bar. I eventually went in and asked him for various local advice involving where we'd be able to set up a tent in town, as the tyre incident had completely blown our schedule. The fellow, Bob, ended up offering to put us up for the night and give us a lift in his truck, bikes and all. We accepted, and I packed the gear into the truck while Sundance continued to wrestle the tyre - as we had established before, the narrow rims of my Canadian bike, combined with those Wal-Mart tyres are just horrible when it comes to working the things on and off, and the uber tube was making it all the worse. Poor Sundance ended up getting badly frustrated by the whole thing - the tyre was such a tight fit that he actually snapped two tyre levers! - and we decided that we'd just have to find a bikeshop the following day to take care of the problem.
We dropped off our gear at Bob's place, and Sundance took a bit of time for himself to defuse all that negativity from the tyre wrestling - not a good way to spend part of his birthday. I spent that time socialising with Bob, and when Sundance re-emerged, Bob took us out to dinner, which was really nice of him. We discovered that IHOP is so much more than just a pancake joint, and actually serves quite reasonable quality food. They also let Sundance use their phone, so he could call both his parents and say hi for his birthday. It was a little bit of a process, but we got back eventually, and fell into bed.
The next day, once we had breakfasted and showered, Bob packed us back into his truck and drove us to the local bicycle shop. There I took my rear wheel into the shop, explaining the way the valve stem of the tube wasn't protruding far enough for the pump to grab onto it properly, and the way we now couldn't get the tyre off because it was too tight. One of the bike shop guys got the thing sorted out quickly enough, and pumped it up. We had intended to get a different tyre, as Wal-Mart is really far from ideal, but then, we have less than a week to go before we hit the coast. Bob came in briefly to say his goodbyes, we exchanged contact details, and he headed off. After having a quick chat about it, Sundance and I agreed to stick with the Wal-Mart tyre, and learn a few tricks about getting the stubborn thing off, should there be another puncture. I'm reasonably confident that we are in a better place to handle it now.
Once that was done, we headed back to the sports bar, as that had been the point where we had left off. We then went in search of the nearest decent supermarket, and I did a quick grocery run while Sundance was on bike guard duty. We made ourselves some lunch there, and I had a random encounter with a drink vending machine, where leaning against it and inching down it to sit on the ground resulted in me accidentally pushing a button and getting a free orange-flavoured soda for my efforts. It was an amusing moment of startlement, but still, kind of cool. Hooray for free soft drink, in all its High Fructose Corn Syrupy goodness!
We did have a brief chat with a postal delivery lady who thought our adventure was the coolest thing, and a passer by had also handed Sundance some money, which was another one of those nice things. It makes us feel a little bit like bums when people do that, but it's still appreciated. With lunch done, we headed to the banks of the Colorado River, dangled our feet in so Sundance could feel like his birthday hadn't been entirely swallowed up with the effort to get back on the road, and then checked the Yuma tourist info for California maps. There weren't any complimentary ones, so we shrugged and just headed across the state border, making state border crossings a thing of the past for this trip! California, hooray! We have now also crossed two entire time zones by bicycle.
That being said, California wasn't being so great. The road surfaces we found ourselves on were absolutely terrible, to the point of giving Louisiana a run for its money in that department, and Louisiana is supposed to have the worst roads in the USA! How California, which has a larger economy than most countries, can have such lousy roads is just beyond me. The frontage road along the interstate was just shocking, which we proceeded to rant about with another cyclist we met, Phil, who was coming from the other direction. Phil is heading for Austin, Texas, as it turned out, and he was happy to give us some advice on the roads ahead.
We rode on to the next intersection of note, and found ourselves a nice sheltered desolate spot to put up our tent. We had our dinner and looked up at the darkening sky, and also stuck four burning matches into Sundance's slice of date pecan pie, as the four corners of the square, as this is a square number birthday for Sundance - 36! Sure, it was a tiny little birthday party, but kind of nice in its own right.
The next morning, we decided to opt for the direction which would take us away from the interstate, even though it would be a decent-sized detour. To our chagrin, about 15km along the way, the very slight tailwind we had started out with turned into an absolute demon of a headwind. Lovely. But there was nothing much we could do but push on, as our dwindling water supply was not going to make it an extra day. At least there was a little cut-off road which would shrink our detour somewhat, although our suspicions of it being a dirt road turned out to be extremely well-founded. As we had gone around 35km by then, and it was early afternoon, we stopped under a tree for lunch before tackling that road in ernest. Honestly, it wasn't even a road at all, but a few tyre tracks through a cross-country landscape. Good fun, but also quite tricky and at times frustrating. I'd still say it was worth it though, especially as we encountered a decent-sized tortoise lumbering its way across the road. Nifty! It did retreat into its shell when it noticed us, though it ended up sticking its head and front feet out far enough again for us to get a decent picture.
Back on the bitumen, we found ourselves dealing with all sorts of winds, mostly cross. We rode through the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, noting a bunch of people hooning over the dunes on quad bikes to our left. It was a bit hilly, but still a pretty landscape. Not a huge area, but still worthwhile. We rode on between wheat fields, date and orange orchards, and sheep paddocks before finding a house to ask for a turf surf at, about 15km shy of Brawley. The people in question offered us their caravan to stay in, which certainly goes above and beyond the need for a spot of earth to stick up a tent on. So we spent the night safely tucked away and got to cook dinner on a double-burner gas stove, and have a shower this morning. Afterwards we headed into the town of Brawley and had a huge Chinese meal for lunch, so big that we couldn't finish it all. And that's saying something! Still, the leftovers will make a good dinner tonight. Then we found a Wi-Fi hotspot at a supermarket to post this blog entry, before hitting the road again. We have another big day ahead of us today, and one more set of mountains to cross before we get to the Pacific!
Saturday, March 27, 2010
The ocean is a desert with its life underground...
Total distance: 7060.3 km
HOLY SHIT! We've run out of land!
Okay, we owe a few more details, and photos from the past few days, but for now, let's just say that we have reached San Diego, and our bikes have dipped their front wheels in The Pacific!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
By Sundance:
HOLY SHIT! We've run out of land!
Okay, we owe a few more details, and photos from the past few days, but for now, let's just say that we have reached San Diego, and our bikes have dipped their front wheels in The Pacific!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Salt water, oh how I miss your misty kisses
Total distance: 7073.2 km
By Sundance:
At last, we have arrived.
Right up until we glimpsed the Pacific it was hard to believe that we wouldn't simply keep riding, onwards, eternally, that we had actually crossed an entire continent. As we left Brawley on Wednesday, we could see mountains ahead of us, and we knew that the ocean was just on the far side of those mountains, but it still seemed unbelievable. We pressed on, as we have for the past six months, simply focussing on dodging traffic, looking at the scenery rolling past, keeping hydrated and fed, getting to the next place to pitch our tent... We headed along the road around the southern shore of the Salton Sea, and made a few attempts to find a side road down to the shore (an accidentally created artificial inland sea isn't something you see every day) but were thwarted by private property signs enough times that we decided we couldn't be bothered. We passed unimpeded through a Border Patrol checkpoint (I guess we didn't look like drug-smugglers or illegal Mexicans) and turned our trusty steeds west towards Ocotillo Wells. The Sun began to sink towards the mountains, and just short of town we encountered a Border Patrol officer who told us there was a campground just off the road. He also told us it was full of people in RVs, and people hooning around on quad-bikes, which didn't really appeal to us, so we rolled back to the east about a kilometer and pulled off the road into the deserty scrub to camp. At first we aimed for a large tree, but upon discovering that someone had dumped a heap of garbage under it (what is wrong with people!?) we found a flat patch further from the road, put up the tent, and enjoyed a meal of pasta before turning in for the night.
Ordinarily we have found that the wind drops overnight and gets stronger in the afternoon, so we try to get up and get moving early. But that night, the wind picked up and started blowing through the wee small hours of the morning. We arose, packed up the tent and had brekkie, and rolled into town where we grabbed a fruit juice from the local store, then pushed on into Anza-Borrega State Park. Something was slowing Yana down, and we stopped for a while to fiddle with the disk brake on her bike's front wheel. By the time we got moving again, our worst headwind of the whole trip had picked up and pounded us for the whole 30 km stretch through the park, and the climb into the hills beyond. The hills did little to afford protection from the wind, instead acting as a wind tunnel that just seemed to unsure that no matter which way the road curved, we always had a headwind. Poor Yana had to stop at one point and let out a primal scream of frustration at the suckiness of the riding conditions, and I can't say I felt much happier. The scenery was beautiful, and we were lucky enough to see the cacti starting to flower for spring, but we were far more focussed on making it past the stupid wind and closer to San Diego. We had been aiming for the town of Julian, but instead made it to Banner just before sunset, by which time I had to stop, sit down by the side of the road for five minutes, eat a cereal bar, and just tell myself that my leg muscles weren't really going into meltdown. A little further up the hill we found a store/office in front of an RV park where we were able to buy some cans of food for dinner and the owner said we could pitch our tent beside the building. As we were about to set the tent up, a fellow wandered up and asked if we were German, on the basis that only Germans would be crazy enough to do what we were doing. We quickly informed him that while Yana speaks German and was born there, we're both definitely Aussies. Volker (for that was his name) invited us to sleep on the floor in his RV, and provided us with dinner, drinks, and conversation, and even insisted that we watch the start of the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix in Melbourne on TV. He was a talkative fellow, with somewhat different political views from our own, but we enjoyed his hospitality and the chance once again to meet someone who lives in this wide, surprisingly windy country that we've grown so fond of.
On Friday morning we resumed our assault on the mountain pass. Yuma lay well behind us at 43 metres above sea level. Julian lay ahead, at 1288 metres. We did more than half the climb to that altitude in the last nine kilometres, slowly, with plenty of breaks to catch our breath and enjoy the scenery. At one such stop, we met another pair of cyclists just heading off on their own trans-continental adventure, Luke and Jeremy, and took the opportunity to exchange road maps and advice about what lay ahead.
Julian was a welcome port of call, not just because it was the highest point of the road to San Diego, but because it used to be the hub of a gold mining area, and when the gold ran out the locals decided to sustain the local economy by making and selling apple pies. Nom, nom, nom! Just the thing for a couple of hungry cyclists. We tucked into lunch with apple pie for dessert, logged into a local Wi-Fi network and grabbed directions to our accommodations in San Diego from google maps, and then pressed onwards, sure that we would see the sea soon.
Boy, were we wrong. The coast was insanely misty. The visibility sucked. Since before we left Canada I'd been looking forward to the moment we crested the mountains and saw the world's greatest ocean spread out before us. Instead what we got was a bright blue sky above a grey murk from which more and more and more foothills emerged, as if to mock all our efforts. We enjoyed the descent, the fact that gravity was working for us, for once, but we saw no sign of the Pacific. We passed through the town of Santa Ysabel, past paddocks of cows and horses and even dromedaries. We began to climb again! We descended again. And on it went, again and again and again. We stopped at one point in Ramona to grab some food from a health food store, then pushed on further wondering if we would actually reach the sea that day.
And then disaster struck. Descending a hill, I heard something on my bike give way. At first I though a brake cable had snapped, but as I stopped to examine the problem I realised what had really happened. Just 1.2 km short of the 7000 km mark of our journey, after no spoke trouble at all, one of the spoke nipples had finally failed, splitting clean in half. The spoke itself was fine, but with uneven tension on the rear wheel rim, the wheel had buckled sideways, and now refused to turn cleanly between the rear forks.
It could have been a lot worse. Fortunately all we had to do was take off the tyre and tube, replace the spoke nipple, and tension it properly to get the warping out of the wheel rim, at least enough to be rideable. But that took time. Yana and I worked pretty well as a team, as you'd expect after six months on the road together, but we only just managed to get to the bottom of the hill and commemorate covering 7000 km with a photo before it was too dark to see anything. Plus the tube in my rear tyre had managed to loosen one of its patches and now had a slow leak, so we started looking for a turf-surf in a rather hilly, somewhat industrial area. We pushed our bikes up an insanely steep driveway to two houses where the lights were on but no-one was home. We found another house where the owner refused to open her front door, and spoke to us from behind a window in the door - a far cry from the friendly folks we'd become accustomed to from Ohio to Arizona. Talk about the land of the home, free of the brave! But the fourth house we tried was a luckier choice. The owner, Jeremy, was in the midst of whipper-snipping his lawn when we found him, and let us tweak spoke tension and change tyres in his garage, as well as cook food, while we told him about our journey, then let us put our tent up in his front yard.
We woke up, ate breakfast, and hit the road before Jeremy awoke on Saturday, packing the tent down together somewhat reverentially. It's been our home for six months, and we knew that that was the last time, before the psychological end of our journey, that we would be sleeping in it. As we rode through the northern reaches of San Diego we enjoyed the warm weather, and the knowledge that we had almost achieved our goal of crossing all the way from Ontario to the west coast. We wound our way along unfamiliar streets, cursed at the hills we struggled up, joked that there was just an empty hole in reality where the Pacific was supposed to be, as if The Nothing from The Never-Ending Story had swallowed it, and laughed with disbelief whenever we passed yet another patch of imported Australian plants - eucalypts, pigface, even golden wattles in bloom. Eventually we found ourselves rolling downhill, past buildings painted with aquatic scenes. The road signs advising us that "Bridge Ices Before Road" had disappeared now, at last, and instead we were warned that we were "Entering Tsunami Danger Zone". And yet we couldn't actually see the Pacific until we were a couple of hundred metres from the beach. We rolled past a statue of a guy with a surfboard, and onto the sand. And there we were.
A friendly black fellow named Aaron almost immediately asked about our bikes, bags, and journey. We told him a bit about ourselves, and then asked him to take some video of us arriving at the sea. And so he kindly took our camera and videoed us riding our bikes the last few metres across the sand and into the waves, as we stopped, shouted with triumph, and let the salt water wash around our feet and our wheels.
After that, we chatted with Aaron some more, got changed into our togs, and I went for a rather brief swim/body-surf (it may be California, but it's also early spring and the water is still chilly), and then headed down the waterfront in search of gelati. We found ice cream and frozen yoghurt instead, and ate that as the sun set over the water. Then we pedalled back inland and found the apartment of Chrystina, a friend of Yana's who said we could stay with her. And that was the end of part one of our excellent adventure.
For our next trick, we shall attempt to find passage on a boat or boats back to Australia. But I think we can be pretty happy with what we've achieved so far. Last night, out of curiosity, we tried to figure out some distances equivalent to how far we've come. It turns out that we've ridden the equivalent of the straight-line "as the crow flies" distance between Paris, France and Ulan Bator, Mongolia! That of course includes a lot of wiggliness in our path, and the occasional back-track. But I think we've earned a few days rest at least after an effort like that, and maybe having the wind push us along on a sailing boat would be a nice change from all those damn headwinds we pedalled into.
By Sundance:
At last, we have arrived.
Right up until we glimpsed the Pacific it was hard to believe that we wouldn't simply keep riding, onwards, eternally, that we had actually crossed an entire continent. As we left Brawley on Wednesday, we could see mountains ahead of us, and we knew that the ocean was just on the far side of those mountains, but it still seemed unbelievable. We pressed on, as we have for the past six months, simply focussing on dodging traffic, looking at the scenery rolling past, keeping hydrated and fed, getting to the next place to pitch our tent... We headed along the road around the southern shore of the Salton Sea, and made a few attempts to find a side road down to the shore (an accidentally created artificial inland sea isn't something you see every day) but were thwarted by private property signs enough times that we decided we couldn't be bothered. We passed unimpeded through a Border Patrol checkpoint (I guess we didn't look like drug-smugglers or illegal Mexicans) and turned our trusty steeds west towards Ocotillo Wells. The Sun began to sink towards the mountains, and just short of town we encountered a Border Patrol officer who told us there was a campground just off the road. He also told us it was full of people in RVs, and people hooning around on quad-bikes, which didn't really appeal to us, so we rolled back to the east about a kilometer and pulled off the road into the deserty scrub to camp. At first we aimed for a large tree, but upon discovering that someone had dumped a heap of garbage under it (what is wrong with people!?) we found a flat patch further from the road, put up the tent, and enjoyed a meal of pasta before turning in for the night.
Ordinarily we have found that the wind drops overnight and gets stronger in the afternoon, so we try to get up and get moving early. But that night, the wind picked up and started blowing through the wee small hours of the morning. We arose, packed up the tent and had brekkie, and rolled into town where we grabbed a fruit juice from the local store, then pushed on into Anza-Borrega State Park. Something was slowing Yana down, and we stopped for a while to fiddle with the disk brake on her bike's front wheel. By the time we got moving again, our worst headwind of the whole trip had picked up and pounded us for the whole 30 km stretch through the park, and the climb into the hills beyond. The hills did little to afford protection from the wind, instead acting as a wind tunnel that just seemed to unsure that no matter which way the road curved, we always had a headwind. Poor Yana had to stop at one point and let out a primal scream of frustration at the suckiness of the riding conditions, and I can't say I felt much happier. The scenery was beautiful, and we were lucky enough to see the cacti starting to flower for spring, but we were far more focussed on making it past the stupid wind and closer to San Diego. We had been aiming for the town of Julian, but instead made it to Banner just before sunset, by which time I had to stop, sit down by the side of the road for five minutes, eat a cereal bar, and just tell myself that my leg muscles weren't really going into meltdown. A little further up the hill we found a store/office in front of an RV park where we were able to buy some cans of food for dinner and the owner said we could pitch our tent beside the building. As we were about to set the tent up, a fellow wandered up and asked if we were German, on the basis that only Germans would be crazy enough to do what we were doing. We quickly informed him that while Yana speaks German and was born there, we're both definitely Aussies. Volker (for that was his name) invited us to sleep on the floor in his RV, and provided us with dinner, drinks, and conversation, and even insisted that we watch the start of the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix in Melbourne on TV. He was a talkative fellow, with somewhat different political views from our own, but we enjoyed his hospitality and the chance once again to meet someone who lives in this wide, surprisingly windy country that we've grown so fond of.
On Friday morning we resumed our assault on the mountain pass. Yuma lay well behind us at 43 metres above sea level. Julian lay ahead, at 1288 metres. We did more than half the climb to that altitude in the last nine kilometres, slowly, with plenty of breaks to catch our breath and enjoy the scenery. At one such stop, we met another pair of cyclists just heading off on their own trans-continental adventure, Luke and Jeremy, and took the opportunity to exchange road maps and advice about what lay ahead.
Julian was a welcome port of call, not just because it was the highest point of the road to San Diego, but because it used to be the hub of a gold mining area, and when the gold ran out the locals decided to sustain the local economy by making and selling apple pies. Nom, nom, nom! Just the thing for a couple of hungry cyclists. We tucked into lunch with apple pie for dessert, logged into a local Wi-Fi network and grabbed directions to our accommodations in San Diego from google maps, and then pressed onwards, sure that we would see the sea soon.
Boy, were we wrong. The coast was insanely misty. The visibility sucked. Since before we left Canada I'd been looking forward to the moment we crested the mountains and saw the world's greatest ocean spread out before us. Instead what we got was a bright blue sky above a grey murk from which more and more and more foothills emerged, as if to mock all our efforts. We enjoyed the descent, the fact that gravity was working for us, for once, but we saw no sign of the Pacific. We passed through the town of Santa Ysabel, past paddocks of cows and horses and even dromedaries. We began to climb again! We descended again. And on it went, again and again and again. We stopped at one point in Ramona to grab some food from a health food store, then pushed on further wondering if we would actually reach the sea that day.
And then disaster struck. Descending a hill, I heard something on my bike give way. At first I though a brake cable had snapped, but as I stopped to examine the problem I realised what had really happened. Just 1.2 km short of the 7000 km mark of our journey, after no spoke trouble at all, one of the spoke nipples had finally failed, splitting clean in half. The spoke itself was fine, but with uneven tension on the rear wheel rim, the wheel had buckled sideways, and now refused to turn cleanly between the rear forks.
It could have been a lot worse. Fortunately all we had to do was take off the tyre and tube, replace the spoke nipple, and tension it properly to get the warping out of the wheel rim, at least enough to be rideable. But that took time. Yana and I worked pretty well as a team, as you'd expect after six months on the road together, but we only just managed to get to the bottom of the hill and commemorate covering 7000 km with a photo before it was too dark to see anything. Plus the tube in my rear tyre had managed to loosen one of its patches and now had a slow leak, so we started looking for a turf-surf in a rather hilly, somewhat industrial area. We pushed our bikes up an insanely steep driveway to two houses where the lights were on but no-one was home. We found another house where the owner refused to open her front door, and spoke to us from behind a window in the door - a far cry from the friendly folks we'd become accustomed to from Ohio to Arizona. Talk about the land of the home, free of the brave! But the fourth house we tried was a luckier choice. The owner, Jeremy, was in the midst of whipper-snipping his lawn when we found him, and let us tweak spoke tension and change tyres in his garage, as well as cook food, while we told him about our journey, then let us put our tent up in his front yard.
We woke up, ate breakfast, and hit the road before Jeremy awoke on Saturday, packing the tent down together somewhat reverentially. It's been our home for six months, and we knew that that was the last time, before the psychological end of our journey, that we would be sleeping in it. As we rode through the northern reaches of San Diego we enjoyed the warm weather, and the knowledge that we had almost achieved our goal of crossing all the way from Ontario to the west coast. We wound our way along unfamiliar streets, cursed at the hills we struggled up, joked that there was just an empty hole in reality where the Pacific was supposed to be, as if The Nothing from The Never-Ending Story had swallowed it, and laughed with disbelief whenever we passed yet another patch of imported Australian plants - eucalypts, pigface, even golden wattles in bloom. Eventually we found ourselves rolling downhill, past buildings painted with aquatic scenes. The road signs advising us that "Bridge Ices Before Road" had disappeared now, at last, and instead we were warned that we were "Entering Tsunami Danger Zone". And yet we couldn't actually see the Pacific until we were a couple of hundred metres from the beach. We rolled past a statue of a guy with a surfboard, and onto the sand. And there we were.
A friendly black fellow named Aaron almost immediately asked about our bikes, bags, and journey. We told him a bit about ourselves, and then asked him to take some video of us arriving at the sea. And so he kindly took our camera and videoed us riding our bikes the last few metres across the sand and into the waves, as we stopped, shouted with triumph, and let the salt water wash around our feet and our wheels.
After that, we chatted with Aaron some more, got changed into our togs, and I went for a rather brief swim/body-surf (it may be California, but it's also early spring and the water is still chilly), and then headed down the waterfront in search of gelati. We found ice cream and frozen yoghurt instead, and ate that as the sun set over the water. Then we pedalled back inland and found the apartment of Chrystina, a friend of Yana's who said we could stay with her. And that was the end of part one of our excellent adventure.
For our next trick, we shall attempt to find passage on a boat or boats back to Australia. But I think we can be pretty happy with what we've achieved so far. Last night, out of curiosity, we tried to figure out some distances equivalent to how far we've come. It turns out that we've ridden the equivalent of the straight-line "as the crow flies" distance between Paris, France and Ulan Bator, Mongolia! That of course includes a lot of wiggliness in our path, and the occasional back-track. But I think we've earned a few days rest at least after an effort like that, and maybe having the wind push us along on a sailing boat would be a nice change from all those damn headwinds we pedalled into.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Baja hahaha!
Total Distance: 7147.4km
By Yana:
Well, the Pacific coast of North America has been fun so far. We've been doing various fun things, hanging around San Diego and the surrounding area. On our second day in the bustling metropolis, our host, Chrystina, spirited us off to a very pretty beach indeed, where we spent a bit of quality time frolicking, although the water was still a bit too cold for a swim. Later that day, we found ourselves at a mansion full of stimulating New Age types who twirled poi and staffs and other similar performance implements, and met all sorts of great people. Some nice conversations were had.
The next day we sought out a bike shop in the vicinity and rode out to it, as we had some repairs to take care of. Sundance's wheel was still warped from that spoke malfunction we'd had just before the 7000km mark, and I had a buckled disc brake which was rubbing and making a nuisance of itself. It took a little bit of time, but we got everything fixed at a very reasonable price. Sundance's bike was still making odd noises, but we were reassured that those would go away once the water in the works from when the mechanic had so thoughtfully washed the Arizona mud off the wheel dried out.
The following day, we took our first stab at trying to find a boat which might take us across the big blue. As we found out, asking at the front office of boat clubs is not the best way of doing it, as they just tell you you're not allowed near the boats without a membership, thus we couldn't stroll up and ask people. We spent most of the daylight hours that day trying to find crew network type things to sign up with, which all didn't seem terribly promising. By the time 6pm rolled around, we decided to call it a day and went back to hang out at the mansion for some yoga.
On our second boat-hunting day, we decided to take a different approach, instead just riding our bikes along the harbour, and striking up conversations with pretty much every person on a boat we could find. To start with, the effectiveness of that method seemed doubtful as well, as the first few people we found weren't actually locals and had little knowledge of the area. However, we eventually bumped into a fellow who is heading for Hawaii soon, and is keeping an eye out for potential inexperienced crew just in case his current people flake on him. A start, at least. After that, it seemed like we weren't going to find much more, and we decided to call it a day again. It was at that point that a random person on the marina saw our bikes, noticed the panier racks, and asked us about our journey. Obviously, the racks don't even need the bags on them. We got into an animated conversation, and it turned out he has a friend heading for NZ. During this conversation, we were joined by another lady, who happened to have an Aussie friend who apparently goes back and forth a reasonable amount. We exchanged phone numbers with both of them, and rode away feeling much more optimistic.
The next day, we hitched a ride with Chrystina and took a jaunt up to LA, to spend some time with Sundance's cousin Jamie. Getting to LA turned out to be a reasonably involved process, and it was starting to get a little bit late by the time we got there. We met Jamie and his other half, Kim, at a cafe close to where they live, and had a very tasty dinner. I leapt at the option of a grass-fed burger, as we've been very careful with beef here, what with the feed regulations not being as reassuringly anal retentive as they are in Oz. We all had a very nice chat over dinner, and then headed back to Jamie and Kim's place, where we were shown to our sleeping quarters and collapsed pretty quickly.
We woke up fairly late, and after a laid back sort of breakfast, Jamie and Kim took us to Venice Beach. It was okay, as far as beaches go, though I think the conversations we had as we walked were much more worthwhile than the beach itself. It was also kind of fun walking back along the stretch with the shops - it vaguely reminded me of Malaysia, actually, for a reason I can't quite put my finger on. We stopped for a bite to eat, took a few photos, stopped to take in the more interesting sights (like a fellow spinning a bola in fun and interesting ways), and other such fun things. At one point, Sundance and I got trapped by a young rapper whom Jamie and Kim had managed to evade: the fellow pulled us in with two sets of headphones connected to an iPhone, and a handful of CDs to sell. He actually had a pretty good sales pitch going, but we broke his routine by telling him we were somewhat impoverished, and explaining our bike journey to him. The rapper was impressed, and let us go with apparently no hard feelings.
As we had jointly decided on fish tacos for dinner, Jamie and Kim took us to Trader Joe's to get some groceries, which was an experience in itself. I think I still prefer the huge halls of food, like WholeFoods and Central Market, but at the same time, I appreciate the way smaller places truck on despite the presence of those huge chain monsters. We got back and consumed our tasty tacos, after which Sundance and I introduced Jamie and Kim to The Middleman. Interestingly, despite their relevant professions, they had never heard of the series, which says just how obscure it is.
We got up a little earlier the next morning, and Sundance made the final contact with some people we had found on craigslist to car pool with in a bid to get back to San Diego. That done, we all took a trip to the La Brea tar pits. We spent some time looking at an oily lake which would occasionally boil in some places as bubbles of gas released the sweet aroma of tar. Perhaps not the top thing on my list of favourite smells, but it was still pretty interesting, especially considering all the prehistoric critters which have gotten stuck there over time. When we checked out the museum on the grounds, aside from all sorts of oversized extinct mammals, we also got to see a wall sporting no less than 404 skulls of dire wolves. Yow! Yep, quite a rich source of well-preserved fossils.
After wandering past various pieces of modern art and tar-slicked earth, we headed back to the house. Our ride showed up not long afterwards, and we said our goodbyes. I'm really glad we at least made it to LA - both Jamie and Kim were very interesting to talk to, and LA reinforces my feeling that I really could happily live on the USA's Pacific coast, theoretically. Sundance found it to be much less crowded a high-paced than he'd expected.
Back in San Diego, we got stuck into getting all our gear packed. We had one day left to chill out before our visa waivers expired. We spent most of that day packing, pausing for lunch on the balcony. The reason this detail is worth mentioning is because while we were eating, the doors started to rattle. After a moment, it became clear that the building was shivering and swaying. It took us a few moments to realise that we were having an earthquake. It only lasted for maybe a minute or two, and it stayed pretty gentle, but it was enough to be an experience.
After some more packing, we decided to call our friends from the harbour. Gayani, the lady who had joined the conversation after we had already been accosted that day, actually invited us onto her boat for dinner, which we gladly accepted. We got a lift to the marina from Brian, one of Chrystina's housemates, and got to meet the rest of Gayani's family, consisting of her hubby, Rob, and their kids, Mike and Eddie. We weren't the only guests, and it was a merry little dinner party, crammed into a fairly small space with all sorts of delicious food. It was a very nice way to spend our last evening in San Diego. It's always nice to randomly make friends with people, and come away thinking that yeah, they were really cool, and really our kind of folk.
We fell into bed, mostly packed. It took a little doing to get going in the morning, as Sundance still ended up spending some time plotting our way to La Mision, as there were plenty of wiggly roads and city mazes to navigate through. We ended up leaving around noon or so.
Just before we crossed the border into Mexico, the skies opened on us, and it actually rained heavily enough that we had to dig out our wet weather gear. After a bit of uncertainty, we managed to get our bikes through the revolving doors which the pedestrians are supposed to take, and entered Tijuana. Once again, our border crossing into Mexico went unacknowledged, and it actually took a reasonable detour to find some US border officials we could hand our green immigration cards in to, as we found out last time that the onus is on us to do that. They don't exactly make that clear, or make it easy to do, but there you have it. We broke a few rules getting where we needed to get to and back, but it worked out all right.
That done, we got stuck into getting out of Tijuana before dark. The place seemed perfectly pleasant, and Sundance noted that his sketchiness radar wasn't pinging at all, but we weren't about to test that. We did have people strike up conversations with us though, which reminded us of just how friendly your average Mexican seems to be. I found myself wondering if perhaps many Americans treat that friendliness with suspicion, or interpret it as some sort of creepiness. Don't know.
There was one cute moment in all of this though. As we were making our way up some ramps to take us up to a foot bridge, we found a little boy of maybe five years goggling at us from a higher level. Sundance greeted the kid, and we headed further up, where another random fellow struck up a conversation with us. While I was paying attention to the conversation, I was startled by someone touching my hand. I looked down to find the same little boy looking up at me. Now that he had my attention, he walked to the back of my bike, and rested his hand on the Barbie I had strapped to it. I'm not sure we mentioned this when it happened, but during our stay in Piedras Negras, one of the gifts we received was that Barbie, and I had strapped her to the paniers as a sort of travel mascot, figuring I'd give her to a random little girl along the way. I was mildly surprised that the boy was interested in her, but I detached the Barbie from my pack, and offered her to the kid. He almost snatched it, maybe a little worried I might change my mind, and ran out of sight, which I had to chuckle at. Through a gap in the various stalls, I could see him standing with his mother, pointing at me. I waved to both of them, and got back to the conversation, reflecting that it was fitting that Barbie would return to Mexico.
When we finished our chat and wheeled our way past the proud new Barbie owner, we found the mother holding out a tray of chewing gum to us, apparently offering us a freebie. We declined, and went on our way. We briefly stopped to get some lunch at a taco joint, which was extremely tasty, and then laboured our way up one of the hills we needed to get past to leave Tijuana. It was well into the afternoon by then. Luckily, after a few treacherous bits, we got to some nice broad flat bits, going vaguely downhill, so we finally were making some decent progress. Quite a few people cheered, waved, or just grinned at the sight of us. I also received no less than three wolf whistles, which was kind of funny, especially as they were of a decidedly good natured sort. We could also see the sea to our right, which was nice. Eventually though, the sun went down, and we had to keep going through the dark. Irritatingly, we were having trouble with the public phones, which made it all the more difficult to contact our couch surfing host, Arthur. Eventually though, we made it to the La Fonda Hotel, which was close to where we wanted to be, and they let us use the phone. We got in contact with Arthur, and from then on, it was all pretty easy. We arrived shortly afterwards, were shown into the casita, where we would sleep, and were presented with some Ezekiel pizza for dinner. We actually spent quite a bit of time chatting to Arthur before bed.
The last couple of days have mostly consisted of chilling out. We had some delicious pancakes for breakfast with Arthur, his wife Molly, another couchsurfer, Lucana, and a fellow who was doing some work around the place and whose name escapes me. Arthur told us about a film he is making about one Garry Davis, who was the first World Citizen, having given up his USA citizenship after World War II. The idea behind it is to encourage the world to unify more. We might write about this in more detail in a later post.
Arthur took us for a walk along the beach, and we headed towards the La Fonda Hotel again, where it was Taco night. As the tide was quite high, we had to clamber over a lot of rocks, and Arthur actually had to go back, as one of the dogs was having trouble with the terrain. Sundance and I continued on our way though, and made it to the hotel, where we partook in some very tasty tacos, and I accepted the offer of a margarita. Powerful stuff, Ｉhate to think what effect it might have had on an empty stomach. We did get to have a nice chat with all sorts of folk who were at the same table, friends of Arthur and Molly. I am mostly glad to have gotten to talk more with Lucana, who is a very talented photographer.
We headed back to the house after a small grocery run consisting mostly of avocados, as we have grand plans of making some key lime ice cream at some point. Yum! Today we met up with the local couchsurfing ambassador, Rob, who led us on a taxi ride out to a local waterfall which was nestled in some very pretty countryside a way back from the coast. In the next few days, we plan to head for Ensenada, to see about finding a boat there.
By Yana:
Well, the Pacific coast of North America has been fun so far. We've been doing various fun things, hanging around San Diego and the surrounding area. On our second day in the bustling metropolis, our host, Chrystina, spirited us off to a very pretty beach indeed, where we spent a bit of quality time frolicking, although the water was still a bit too cold for a swim. Later that day, we found ourselves at a mansion full of stimulating New Age types who twirled poi and staffs and other similar performance implements, and met all sorts of great people. Some nice conversations were had.
The next day we sought out a bike shop in the vicinity and rode out to it, as we had some repairs to take care of. Sundance's wheel was still warped from that spoke malfunction we'd had just before the 7000km mark, and I had a buckled disc brake which was rubbing and making a nuisance of itself. It took a little bit of time, but we got everything fixed at a very reasonable price. Sundance's bike was still making odd noises, but we were reassured that those would go away once the water in the works from when the mechanic had so thoughtfully washed the Arizona mud off the wheel dried out.
The following day, we took our first stab at trying to find a boat which might take us across the big blue. As we found out, asking at the front office of boat clubs is not the best way of doing it, as they just tell you you're not allowed near the boats without a membership, thus we couldn't stroll up and ask people. We spent most of the daylight hours that day trying to find crew network type things to sign up with, which all didn't seem terribly promising. By the time 6pm rolled around, we decided to call it a day and went back to hang out at the mansion for some yoga.
On our second boat-hunting day, we decided to take a different approach, instead just riding our bikes along the harbour, and striking up conversations with pretty much every person on a boat we could find. To start with, the effectiveness of that method seemed doubtful as well, as the first few people we found weren't actually locals and had little knowledge of the area. However, we eventually bumped into a fellow who is heading for Hawaii soon, and is keeping an eye out for potential inexperienced crew just in case his current people flake on him. A start, at least. After that, it seemed like we weren't going to find much more, and we decided to call it a day again. It was at that point that a random person on the marina saw our bikes, noticed the panier racks, and asked us about our journey. Obviously, the racks don't even need the bags on them. We got into an animated conversation, and it turned out he has a friend heading for NZ. During this conversation, we were joined by another lady, who happened to have an Aussie friend who apparently goes back and forth a reasonable amount. We exchanged phone numbers with both of them, and rode away feeling much more optimistic.
The next day, we hitched a ride with Chrystina and took a jaunt up to LA, to spend some time with Sundance's cousin Jamie. Getting to LA turned out to be a reasonably involved process, and it was starting to get a little bit late by the time we got there. We met Jamie and his other half, Kim, at a cafe close to where they live, and had a very tasty dinner. I leapt at the option of a grass-fed burger, as we've been very careful with beef here, what with the feed regulations not being as reassuringly anal retentive as they are in Oz. We all had a very nice chat over dinner, and then headed back to Jamie and Kim's place, where we were shown to our sleeping quarters and collapsed pretty quickly.
We woke up fairly late, and after a laid back sort of breakfast, Jamie and Kim took us to Venice Beach. It was okay, as far as beaches go, though I think the conversations we had as we walked were much more worthwhile than the beach itself. It was also kind of fun walking back along the stretch with the shops - it vaguely reminded me of Malaysia, actually, for a reason I can't quite put my finger on. We stopped for a bite to eat, took a few photos, stopped to take in the more interesting sights (like a fellow spinning a bola in fun and interesting ways), and other such fun things. At one point, Sundance and I got trapped by a young rapper whom Jamie and Kim had managed to evade: the fellow pulled us in with two sets of headphones connected to an iPhone, and a handful of CDs to sell. He actually had a pretty good sales pitch going, but we broke his routine by telling him we were somewhat impoverished, and explaining our bike journey to him. The rapper was impressed, and let us go with apparently no hard feelings.
As we had jointly decided on fish tacos for dinner, Jamie and Kim took us to Trader Joe's to get some groceries, which was an experience in itself. I think I still prefer the huge halls of food, like WholeFoods and Central Market, but at the same time, I appreciate the way smaller places truck on despite the presence of those huge chain monsters. We got back and consumed our tasty tacos, after which Sundance and I introduced Jamie and Kim to The Middleman. Interestingly, despite their relevant professions, they had never heard of the series, which says just how obscure it is.
We got up a little earlier the next morning, and Sundance made the final contact with some people we had found on craigslist to car pool with in a bid to get back to San Diego. That done, we all took a trip to the La Brea tar pits. We spent some time looking at an oily lake which would occasionally boil in some places as bubbles of gas released the sweet aroma of tar. Perhaps not the top thing on my list of favourite smells, but it was still pretty interesting, especially considering all the prehistoric critters which have gotten stuck there over time. When we checked out the museum on the grounds, aside from all sorts of oversized extinct mammals, we also got to see a wall sporting no less than 404 skulls of dire wolves. Yow! Yep, quite a rich source of well-preserved fossils.
After wandering past various pieces of modern art and tar-slicked earth, we headed back to the house. Our ride showed up not long afterwards, and we said our goodbyes. I'm really glad we at least made it to LA - both Jamie and Kim were very interesting to talk to, and LA reinforces my feeling that I really could happily live on the USA's Pacific coast, theoretically. Sundance found it to be much less crowded a high-paced than he'd expected.
Back in San Diego, we got stuck into getting all our gear packed. We had one day left to chill out before our visa waivers expired. We spent most of that day packing, pausing for lunch on the balcony. The reason this detail is worth mentioning is because while we were eating, the doors started to rattle. After a moment, it became clear that the building was shivering and swaying. It took us a few moments to realise that we were having an earthquake. It only lasted for maybe a minute or two, and it stayed pretty gentle, but it was enough to be an experience.
After some more packing, we decided to call our friends from the harbour. Gayani, the lady who had joined the conversation after we had already been accosted that day, actually invited us onto her boat for dinner, which we gladly accepted. We got a lift to the marina from Brian, one of Chrystina's housemates, and got to meet the rest of Gayani's family, consisting of her hubby, Rob, and their kids, Mike and Eddie. We weren't the only guests, and it was a merry little dinner party, crammed into a fairly small space with all sorts of delicious food. It was a very nice way to spend our last evening in San Diego. It's always nice to randomly make friends with people, and come away thinking that yeah, they were really cool, and really our kind of folk.
We fell into bed, mostly packed. It took a little doing to get going in the morning, as Sundance still ended up spending some time plotting our way to La Mision, as there were plenty of wiggly roads and city mazes to navigate through. We ended up leaving around noon or so.
Just before we crossed the border into Mexico, the skies opened on us, and it actually rained heavily enough that we had to dig out our wet weather gear. After a bit of uncertainty, we managed to get our bikes through the revolving doors which the pedestrians are supposed to take, and entered Tijuana. Once again, our border crossing into Mexico went unacknowledged, and it actually took a reasonable detour to find some US border officials we could hand our green immigration cards in to, as we found out last time that the onus is on us to do that. They don't exactly make that clear, or make it easy to do, but there you have it. We broke a few rules getting where we needed to get to and back, but it worked out all right.
That done, we got stuck into getting out of Tijuana before dark. The place seemed perfectly pleasant, and Sundance noted that his sketchiness radar wasn't pinging at all, but we weren't about to test that. We did have people strike up conversations with us though, which reminded us of just how friendly your average Mexican seems to be. I found myself wondering if perhaps many Americans treat that friendliness with suspicion, or interpret it as some sort of creepiness. Don't know.
There was one cute moment in all of this though. As we were making our way up some ramps to take us up to a foot bridge, we found a little boy of maybe five years goggling at us from a higher level. Sundance greeted the kid, and we headed further up, where another random fellow struck up a conversation with us. While I was paying attention to the conversation, I was startled by someone touching my hand. I looked down to find the same little boy looking up at me. Now that he had my attention, he walked to the back of my bike, and rested his hand on the Barbie I had strapped to it. I'm not sure we mentioned this when it happened, but during our stay in Piedras Negras, one of the gifts we received was that Barbie, and I had strapped her to the paniers as a sort of travel mascot, figuring I'd give her to a random little girl along the way. I was mildly surprised that the boy was interested in her, but I detached the Barbie from my pack, and offered her to the kid. He almost snatched it, maybe a little worried I might change my mind, and ran out of sight, which I had to chuckle at. Through a gap in the various stalls, I could see him standing with his mother, pointing at me. I waved to both of them, and got back to the conversation, reflecting that it was fitting that Barbie would return to Mexico.
When we finished our chat and wheeled our way past the proud new Barbie owner, we found the mother holding out a tray of chewing gum to us, apparently offering us a freebie. We declined, and went on our way. We briefly stopped to get some lunch at a taco joint, which was extremely tasty, and then laboured our way up one of the hills we needed to get past to leave Tijuana. It was well into the afternoon by then. Luckily, after a few treacherous bits, we got to some nice broad flat bits, going vaguely downhill, so we finally were making some decent progress. Quite a few people cheered, waved, or just grinned at the sight of us. I also received no less than three wolf whistles, which was kind of funny, especially as they were of a decidedly good natured sort. We could also see the sea to our right, which was nice. Eventually though, the sun went down, and we had to keep going through the dark. Irritatingly, we were having trouble with the public phones, which made it all the more difficult to contact our couch surfing host, Arthur. Eventually though, we made it to the La Fonda Hotel, which was close to where we wanted to be, and they let us use the phone. We got in contact with Arthur, and from then on, it was all pretty easy. We arrived shortly afterwards, were shown into the casita, where we would sleep, and were presented with some Ezekiel pizza for dinner. We actually spent quite a bit of time chatting to Arthur before bed.
The last couple of days have mostly consisted of chilling out. We had some delicious pancakes for breakfast with Arthur, his wife Molly, another couchsurfer, Lucana, and a fellow who was doing some work around the place and whose name escapes me. Arthur told us about a film he is making about one Garry Davis, who was the first World Citizen, having given up his USA citizenship after World War II. The idea behind it is to encourage the world to unify more. We might write about this in more detail in a later post.
Arthur took us for a walk along the beach, and we headed towards the La Fonda Hotel again, where it was Taco night. As the tide was quite high, we had to clamber over a lot of rocks, and Arthur actually had to go back, as one of the dogs was having trouble with the terrain. Sundance and I continued on our way though, and made it to the hotel, where we partook in some very tasty tacos, and I accepted the offer of a margarita. Powerful stuff, Ｉhate to think what effect it might have had on an empty stomach. We did get to have a nice chat with all sorts of folk who were at the same table, friends of Arthur and Molly. I am mostly glad to have gotten to talk more with Lucana, who is a very talented photographer.
We headed back to the house after a small grocery run consisting mostly of avocados, as we have grand plans of making some key lime ice cream at some point. Yum! Today we met up with the local couchsurfing ambassador, Rob, who led us on a taxi ride out to a local waterfall which was nestled in some very pretty countryside a way back from the coast. In the next few days, we plan to head for Ensenada, to see about finding a boat there.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Oooh, I'm looking for cruise...
Total distance: 7198.7 km
By Sundance:
The search for a boat to take us back to Australia continues. Last Thursday, after we bid farewell to Lucana who was setting out for the US-Mexico border, Molly drove us down to Ensenada for a few hours while she was running errands, and we started looking around and locating the harbours where we could seek boats to crew on.
The highway down to Ensenada is a toll road that bikes aren't allowed on, so this was our chance to see the coast, including many scenic views across cliffs, beaches, and Tuna fisheries. In Ensenada we spotted someone who looked like they spoke English, who turned out to be named Jurgen. He was a very enthusiastic fellow with a can-do attitude who directed us to find a Canadian called Tom at the harbour where the cruise ships came in. We bluffed our way past the guard at the front gate, and after a bit of asking around found Tom's boat, and his wife and kids although the man himself was in San Diego for the day. Tom's wife Kim was amazed that we'd managed to get through the security at the front gate, and that they'd even shown us "the all-hallowed list" of which boats were docked where.
The following day we rode out from La Mision through the hills along the free road to Ensenada. It would have made much more sense if bikes were allowed on the toll road, since it was flatter, had no blind corners, and actually had a shoulder to ride on, but alas common sense and bureaucracy are immiscible. Still, the countryside along the free road was quite pretty - reminiscent of parts of Gippsland in Australia. When we got to Ensenada we headed out to Tom and Kim's boat again, but Tom was once again not around, so we sat and chatted with his family instead. We started to joke that Tom doesn't really exist. Then we headed off to meet with Daniel, our couchsurfing host in Ensenada, and headed back to his apartment and met his mother and brother, Eric. The next day we finally found that Tom really did exist, so we chatted with him a bit. He suggested another couple we could talk to who we went and tracked down. Jim and Ann are an older couple whom we had a really nice time chatting with. They're heading to the Marquesas, although they were intending to do the trip just by themselves. They suggested a get-together at a local bar we could come along to to meet some more local sailors, which we did. Yesterday we again wandered down to the harbour and started randomly talking to anyone who had a big boat. We're basically just going to persist in meeting people, introducing ourselves and making sure people know we're out there looking until we find someone who's willing to take us, or we exhaust our options. Although we did take a bit of time to chill out with Daniel and Eric last night, by going to the cinema. Given the small choice of options that were screening in English at a convenient time, we wound up seeing Date Night, which was entertaining enough, and the first movie we'd seen in a cinema in about eight months.
By Sundance:
The search for a boat to take us back to Australia continues. Last Thursday, after we bid farewell to Lucana who was setting out for the US-Mexico border, Molly drove us down to Ensenada for a few hours while she was running errands, and we started looking around and locating the harbours where we could seek boats to crew on.
The highway down to Ensenada is a toll road that bikes aren't allowed on, so this was our chance to see the coast, including many scenic views across cliffs, beaches, and Tuna fisheries. In Ensenada we spotted someone who looked like they spoke English, who turned out to be named Jurgen. He was a very enthusiastic fellow with a can-do attitude who directed us to find a Canadian called Tom at the harbour where the cruise ships came in. We bluffed our way past the guard at the front gate, and after a bit of asking around found Tom's boat, and his wife and kids although the man himself was in San Diego for the day. Tom's wife Kim was amazed that we'd managed to get through the security at the front gate, and that they'd even shown us "the all-hallowed list" of which boats were docked where.
The following day we rode out from La Mision through the hills along the free road to Ensenada. It would have made much more sense if bikes were allowed on the toll road, since it was flatter, had no blind corners, and actually had a shoulder to ride on, but alas common sense and bureaucracy are immiscible. Still, the countryside along the free road was quite pretty - reminiscent of parts of Gippsland in Australia. When we got to Ensenada we headed out to Tom and Kim's boat again, but Tom was once again not around, so we sat and chatted with his family instead. We started to joke that Tom doesn't really exist. Then we headed off to meet with Daniel, our couchsurfing host in Ensenada, and headed back to his apartment and met his mother and brother, Eric. The next day we finally found that Tom really did exist, so we chatted with him a bit. He suggested another couple we could talk to who we went and tracked down. Jim and Ann are an older couple whom we had a really nice time chatting with. They're heading to the Marquesas, although they were intending to do the trip just by themselves. They suggested a get-together at a local bar we could come along to to meet some more local sailors, which we did. Yesterday we again wandered down to the harbour and started randomly talking to anyone who had a big boat. We're basically just going to persist in meeting people, introducing ourselves and making sure people know we're out there looking until we find someone who's willing to take us, or we exhaust our options. Although we did take a bit of time to chill out with Daniel and Eric last night, by going to the cinema. Given the small choice of options that were screening in English at a convenient time, we wound up seeing Date Night, which was entertaining enough, and the first movie we'd seen in a cinema in about eight months.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Not Tawawi!
By Sundance:
Okay it's been a while since we updated the blog, so we'd better get on with it or we'll be bogged down with months of stuff to remember and recount. Over the couple of days after we arrived in Ensenada we looked around and talked to various boaty people about the prospects of getting rides. Actually, a lot of this took place in the latter part of the day because we also registered on several online discussion groups and crewfinder lists, and checking email took up much of the morning. We did eventually visit all the marinas in town, including one a few kilometers north/west of town, attached to a hotel. On the Wednesday of that week Daniel's mother Jenny took us out to play tennis. Daniel's younger brother Eric (who I think looks like a very young Antonio Banderas) is learning and takes proper lessons, so Yana and I got to tag along. It was quite good fun - I haven't played in ages, and Yana hadn't ever played before. We also got quite a surprise when Jenny initiated a conversation about religious beliefs, and we found out that she, Daniel, and Eric are atheists. That really knocked out socks off because Latin America is a real stronghold of Catholicism. We don't really want to use this blog as a platform to advocate or trash one particular world-view or another, but Mexican atheists are rare and noteworthy critters indeed. Well, later that night we cooked up some green chicken curry and had a great chat with Daniel over dinner about not being religious.
On Thursday the Canadians (Tom and Kim and family) took us out for a shakedown cruise on their boat, the Tawawi. We can't fit on their boat, but it still seemed like a good idea to get some boating experience. We had quite a good time, felt a little iffy on some of the rolling waves but nothing serious, and got to throw our backs into it helping out with some of the lines and sails and hoisting the spinnaker and all that stuff. When we got back to the marina we were invited over to the Iron Barque, a boat owned by an Aussie couple, for dinner. More atheistic science-nerdy conversations ensued, and much roast chicken was had by all. As we rode home, we actually encountered Daniel who had been out looking for us. We felt a bit sheepish because we hadn't intended to be out so late and he'd gotten worried that something had happened to us.
Friday morning we decided to head back to the Baja Naval marina and talk to Jim and Ann again, about whether they were still saying "maybe" we could come to the Marquesas with them, or they had made a definite decision. They said yes, on the proviso that we ship our bikes back to Australia seperately, as their boat is a little too crowded for bikes as well. Well, that seemed like a fair compromise, although it means modifying our plan of hopping off a boat in Oz, reassembling the bikes, and riding from that very spot back to Adelaide. But still, we've got a boat to sail on!
By Yana:
Saturday, we got stuck into doing some of the things which need doing before we board the Cactus Wren. The morning got consumed by the usual inefficiency that afflicts us, but we spent the early afternoon talking to shipping companies about sending our bikes to Australia, which turned out to be a bit of a wild goose chase in broken Spanish, with little progress for that day. More productive was our quest to end our status as illegal immigrants. Yes, we have spent the better part of two weeks as illegal immigrants in Mexico, which just tickled us. The reason for this is that upon entering the country via the US, nobody even acknowledges your presence. You can just waltz in without a scrap of ID on your person, and nobody tells you what you need to know. We actually had to hunt down the information. The upshot of this was that we headed to the nearest immigration office, got our passports stamped, and paid for a six-month tourist visa. Luckily, us pointing out to the cranky immigration guy that it's not like anyone actually told us what we needed to do, and acting sufficiently benign about it, was enough to convince him not to fine us.
Saturday was also the day of an apparently rather famous bicycle race, wherein thousands of amateur cyclists of varying degrees of seriousness hop on their bikes in Rosarito, and ride the 80km to Ensenada, completely clogging the town's roads. Once we had finished our formalities for the day, we decided to merge in with the steady stream of cyclists, and rode across the finish line with them, which was fun. There were various fun costumes, including a medieval knight on a bike, and a guy with a Darth Vader helmet. We hung around the finish line for a bit, taking in the various stalls and noisy bastardised musical performances ("Achey Breaky Heart" in Spanish - it burns us, precious!), and then decided that we'd had enough for the day.
Sunday morning, Daniel headed off for LA to enjoy a well-earned holiday. We said our goodbyes, as we probably won't see him before we set off on the next leg of our trip. We then headed down to the Cactus Wren, where we did what we could to help out a little. Sundance helped out with getting the GPS wired up to the radio, which was turning out to be a rather convoluted task involving him wriggling into lots of confined spaces and attaching wires to other wires, and I ended up heading back to the apartment to make myself useful in more domestic ways. In the evening, we found out that sending our bikes with a shipping company would incur all sorts of crazy charges for the various customs processes they'd go through. Shell-shocked, we decided to figure out what to do the next day.
On Monday, upon establishing that the customs charges are specific to shipped items, rather than something sent in the mail, we decided to have a chat to the various relevant companies, only to find ourselves hit with quotes of well over $1000 per bike. Apparently, they don't do surface freight, so it's expensive express air freight or nothing. We spent the next several hours in alternating levels of shock, angst, and indecision. The bikes are worth only a fraction of how much it would cost to send them, so the logical thing is to leave them behind and just get new ones, of course. However, we have both grown incredibly attached to our steeds, as they have faithfully stood by us on one heck of an adventure. I'll admit to welling up at one point, imagining leaving my bike behind. We decided there had to be another way, and got stuck into all sorts of research, partially with the help of the awesome people at the Tourist Information Centre. Another inconvenience was the power button on our laptop breaking, so we were without internet access for a day while the thing was getting repaired.
We also went on a journey to various cheap grocery places with Jim and Ann, where we got the bulk of our provisions for the boat trip. It's kind of spooky to find that Costco in Ensenada has the exact same layout as Costco on Maui.
Tuesday, we spent some more time with Jim and Ann, who have started referring to us as "the kids". We also found some other possibilities for shipping the bikes. The tourist info people had found a local company who over the phone quoted us $280-something per bike, which was an insane improvement. Once we had picked up the laptop from the repairs, we headed to their office, to verify this quote. Unfortunately, they hadn't calculated in the volume of our bikes, which jacked up the price to $800 per bike. Still not as bad as the other companies, but we figured we'd still aim for a better price elsewhere. In the evening, after many phonecalls, we established that there are various cheaper options in LA. As the first little leg of the trip on the Cactus Wren will take us up to San Diego, this might turn out to be doable, as Jim and Ann have conceded that for that little while, we should be able to stash the bikes on the boat, although they would be in the way in the long term. It will involve some hoop-jumping, but hey, it'll save several hundred dollars to do it this way.
We've spent most of Wednesday packing, getting all fired up for the boat trip. We still have plenty to do before our departure, but things are slowly coming together. We still have to do some very thorough cleaning of our bikes though to get the mud off them, which would involve disassembling the things and cleaning each part individually. Fun. Still, Australian quarantine regulations are anal retentive for a reason, and I can live with that.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Back to square one
By Yana:
Quite a bit has happened since our last entry, but if I write one of our patented day-by-day descriptions, this entry is going to be another huge monster, so I'll skip that. We spent our last few days in Ensenada up to our ears in work dealing with our bicycles. We decided that our best option for getting them back to Australia was to ship them from LA, and Jim and Ann conceded to let us transport the bikes on the boat to San Diego, which would be our first stop.
Through a coincidental bit of luck, we ran into a fellow bearing a box which was pretty much the perfect size and shape for our purposes. As it turned out, he works for a company which sells flat screen TVs, and we ended up purchasing a box off him into which we could fit both bikes, actually saving quite a bit of space.
From then on, we spent almost the entire time until we left taking apart our bikes and cleaning the tiny fiddly bits very thoroughly. I suspect the entire process probably took 24 hours or so. By the time we had them packed, it was 4am on the morning we were going to leave. We got a little bit of shuteye, and then set about getting our big bad box to the Cactus Wren. Juergen, the guy who had first introduced us to the folks around the marinas, was nice enough to drive us, which made the whole thing infinitely easier. We also got to say goodbye to Daniel, as he had gotten back from LA a little early, so that was nice.
Once we had wrapped the box up in rubbish bags and a sailcover to protect it from the spray, we loaded it onto the boat and were pretty much ready to go. It was the afternoon by the time we set off, though. With the wind against us, we ended up motoring all the way to San Diego. Both Sundance and I got to spend some time at the wheel, and we went through the night.
Sometime after midnight, when Ann was at the wheel, the self-steering rudder broke off, and we had to fetch Sundance and Jim to haul the thing aboard. Good thing it had been tethered by the ropes, otherwise we almost certainly would have lost it. After that, Jim steered us the rest of the way to San Diego, where we arrived at about 4am on Monday.
Shortly after arriving at the Police Docks on Shelter Island, we were in for a rude surprise: the visa waiver program, under which we had been travelling in the US all this time, does not cover travellers on private boats! The reason for this is unclear, especially as it's just fine if you're in a car, on a bike, on foot, or on a plane. The upshot was that we had to pay a "fee" (a pretty way of saying "fine") of $540 each in order to be allowed into the US. Heading back was not an option, due to the broken rudder and a bad weather system coming in, and Ensenada being the nearest port at 13 hours away. All the options we tried to think of were against the rules, and we ended up just having to cough up the money, much as it hurt. It'd just be nice to actually be informed of expensive trivialities like that before you blunder into them, but it's unclear how we possibly could have known.
On the bright side though, we did end up having a nice chat on the phone with our friends from Kentucky, Clint and Valerie. For those of you who don't remember, Clint is the State Trooper with a fondness for harrassing possums in courageous ways. We had hoped that some of Clint's connections might be able to help us weasel out of our predicament with the $540 fine, but no dice. Still, we got to catch up a little, and found out that their daughter Taylor had recently won two academic awards, which was great to hear. Took our minds off it for a bit.
We got stuck into getting some of the mundane things, like laundry, done. In the midst of that, we started to make some local friends, at a smoothie bar called The Point. Sarah, one of the girls who works there, ended up taking us up to the Farmer's Market at Ocean Beach after her shift, which was a very fun afternoon. We spent the next day or so getting groceries and such.
On the Friday, Jim and Ann informed us that they'd had a talk amongst themselves and decided that we weren't "boat people", and probably wouldn't fit into the routine of living in the confined quarters of a boat for several weeks, so they'd decided to withdraw their offer to take us to the Marquesas. That was obviously a bummer, and put us into a bit of a spin trying to figure out our next course of action, and our other options for getting back to Australia. So we spent most of the rest of the day figuring out whether we could find another boat, how much it would cost to fly back, and so forth. Saturday was basically taken up by getting our stuff packed and off the boat, and Sarah was nice enough to let us crash at her place overnight. We now have a couple of other boat options to explore, and the next few days should determine how we make our way off the North American continent.
Quite a bit has happened since our last entry, but if I write one of our patented day-by-day descriptions, this entry is going to be another huge monster, so I'll skip that. We spent our last few days in Ensenada up to our ears in work dealing with our bicycles. We decided that our best option for getting them back to Australia was to ship them from LA, and Jim and Ann conceded to let us transport the bikes on the boat to San Diego, which would be our first stop.
Through a coincidental bit of luck, we ran into a fellow bearing a box which was pretty much the perfect size and shape for our purposes. As it turned out, he works for a company which sells flat screen TVs, and we ended up purchasing a box off him into which we could fit both bikes, actually saving quite a bit of space.
From then on, we spent almost the entire time until we left taking apart our bikes and cleaning the tiny fiddly bits very thoroughly. I suspect the entire process probably took 24 hours or so. By the time we had them packed, it was 4am on the morning we were going to leave. We got a little bit of shuteye, and then set about getting our big bad box to the Cactus Wren. Juergen, the guy who had first introduced us to the folks around the marinas, was nice enough to drive us, which made the whole thing infinitely easier. We also got to say goodbye to Daniel, as he had gotten back from LA a little early, so that was nice.
Once we had wrapped the box up in rubbish bags and a sailcover to protect it from the spray, we loaded it onto the boat and were pretty much ready to go. It was the afternoon by the time we set off, though. With the wind against us, we ended up motoring all the way to San Diego. Both Sundance and I got to spend some time at the wheel, and we went through the night.
Sometime after midnight, when Ann was at the wheel, the self-steering rudder broke off, and we had to fetch Sundance and Jim to haul the thing aboard. Good thing it had been tethered by the ropes, otherwise we almost certainly would have lost it. After that, Jim steered us the rest of the way to San Diego, where we arrived at about 4am on Monday.
Shortly after arriving at the Police Docks on Shelter Island, we were in for a rude surprise: the visa waiver program, under which we had been travelling in the US all this time, does not cover travellers on private boats! The reason for this is unclear, especially as it's just fine if you're in a car, on a bike, on foot, or on a plane. The upshot was that we had to pay a "fee" (a pretty way of saying "fine") of $540 each in order to be allowed into the US. Heading back was not an option, due to the broken rudder and a bad weather system coming in, and Ensenada being the nearest port at 13 hours away. All the options we tried to think of were against the rules, and we ended up just having to cough up the money, much as it hurt. It'd just be nice to actually be informed of expensive trivialities like that before you blunder into them, but it's unclear how we possibly could have known.
On the bright side though, we did end up having a nice chat on the phone with our friends from Kentucky, Clint and Valerie. For those of you who don't remember, Clint is the State Trooper with a fondness for harrassing possums in courageous ways. We had hoped that some of Clint's connections might be able to help us weasel out of our predicament with the $540 fine, but no dice. Still, we got to catch up a little, and found out that their daughter Taylor had recently won two academic awards, which was great to hear. Took our minds off it for a bit.
We got stuck into getting some of the mundane things, like laundry, done. In the midst of that, we started to make some local friends, at a smoothie bar called The Point. Sarah, one of the girls who works there, ended up taking us up to the Farmer's Market at Ocean Beach after her shift, which was a very fun afternoon. We spent the next day or so getting groceries and such.
On the Friday, Jim and Ann informed us that they'd had a talk amongst themselves and decided that we weren't "boat people", and probably wouldn't fit into the routine of living in the confined quarters of a boat for several weeks, so they'd decided to withdraw their offer to take us to the Marquesas. That was obviously a bummer, and put us into a bit of a spin trying to figure out our next course of action, and our other options for getting back to Australia. So we spent most of the rest of the day figuring out whether we could find another boat, how much it would cost to fly back, and so forth. Saturday was basically taken up by getting our stuff packed and off the boat, and Sarah was nice enough to let us crash at her place overnight. We now have a couple of other boat options to explore, and the next few days should determine how we make our way off the North American continent.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair
By Sundance:
Yes, we're still here! And still blogging (sporadically). So here's the very short version of the last couple of weeks...
After our boat ride to the Marquesas fell through, we did a little shopping around online on various crew-finding websites. We went and met a fellow who was heading from San Diego to Australia (which would have been perfect) but he eventually decided to take along a different person as crew, so we have found ourselves essentially boatless, and given the time, effort, expense and energy we have expended to find a boat ride - to no avail - we've decided to not bother. We spent our last few days in San Diego accommodated on the boat of Mike, the son of Gayani and Rob whom we'd met on our first trip to SD. We also found a fantastic Greek restaurant to have lunch at, and the owner was nice enough to drive us out to the Old Town section of SD to see the Drinko de Mayo festivities. We got a ride, via craigslist, up to San Francisco, and are now staying with my cousin Kate, whom I haven't seen in about 18 years, as well as her partner Jeff, and their son Shepard. We've been cruising around looking at stuff, including parks, the Golden Gate Bridge (of course), took a family car trip out of town to a beachside town north of San Fran, and saw Wicked. We also found out just how foggy SF can be, and Kate pointed out a nearby rockclimbing gym to us, so we went along there and got to do our first climbing in months. We've been walking along the waterfront between the Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge quite a bit, since that's the area where Kate lives, and recently ran into a couple of guys just heading off on a cross-USA bike journey, which stirred a bit of envy and nostalgia within both of us. You can catch their blog at lostgators.blogspot.com and follow their exploits in the reverse direction to ours. We also hung out in Palo Alto for Jeff's dad's birthday (and en route discovered a pizza restaurant called 'Pi' - actually spelled with the appropriate Greek letter, and open from 3.14pm every day!). We've also been past the Palace of Fine Arts, which is a gorgeous building, and dropped in on the LucasArts building to see various Star Wars related stuff.
Yes, we're still here! And still blogging (sporadically). So here's the very short version of the last couple of weeks...
After our boat ride to the Marquesas fell through, we did a little shopping around online on various crew-finding websites. We went and met a fellow who was heading from San Diego to Australia (which would have been perfect) but he eventually decided to take along a different person as crew, so we have found ourselves essentially boatless, and given the time, effort, expense and energy we have expended to find a boat ride - to no avail - we've decided to not bother. We spent our last few days in San Diego accommodated on the boat of Mike, the son of Gayani and Rob whom we'd met on our first trip to SD. We also found a fantastic Greek restaurant to have lunch at, and the owner was nice enough to drive us out to the Old Town section of SD to see the Drinko de Mayo festivities. We got a ride, via craigslist, up to San Francisco, and are now staying with my cousin Kate, whom I haven't seen in about 18 years, as well as her partner Jeff, and their son Shepard. We've been cruising around looking at stuff, including parks, the Golden Gate Bridge (of course), took a family car trip out of town to a beachside town north of San Fran, and saw Wicked. We also found out just how foggy SF can be, and Kate pointed out a nearby rockclimbing gym to us, so we went along there and got to do our first climbing in months. We've been walking along the waterfront between the Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge quite a bit, since that's the area where Kate lives, and recently ran into a couple of guys just heading off on a cross-USA bike journey, which stirred a bit of envy and nostalgia within both of us. You can catch their blog at lostgators.blogspot.com and follow their exploits in the reverse direction to ours. We also hung out in Palo Alto for Jeff's dad's birthday (and en route discovered a pizza restaurant called 'Pi' - actually spelled with the appropriate Greek letter, and open from 3.14pm every day!). We've also been past the Palace of Fine Arts, which is a gorgeous building, and dropped in on the LucasArts building to see various Star Wars related stuff.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Maui Wowie
By Yana:
Yes, it has once again been embarrassingly long since our last post. So let me fill you in on the last little while, in a large nutshell:
We spent a few more days in San Francisco, which included highlights such as riding some borrowed bicycles to and past the Golden Gate Bridge, and checking out the very nifty Musee Mecanique, which is crammed full of awesomely antique and totally functional coin slot machines. We also tried out the local "Japanese" bath house, which was fun, and went to see Iron Man 2 with Kate, which was gratuitously violent. The day before we left San Fran, we were also treated to the sight of a bunch of army helicopters landing on the lawns of Crissy Fields. As it turned out, Mr Obama himself was scheduled to visit a few days later, and this was a practice run with the copters. We looked up his schedule, to see if there was any possibility of actually seeing the man. Upon deciding it was unlikely, we stuck with the flights we had, and got up at sparrowfart the following morning to fly to Maui.
The flight and airport time was uneventful, though it was a very strange feeling after having been so in charge of our own transport for so long. Well, we whiled away the time by watching some episodes of Heroes, which did the trick.
We actually arrived a little early, and enjoyed the balmy weather while waiting for our friend Garrett to pick us up. As we were arriving a short time before the Mai Tai, a big kite surfing event here on Maui was to start, we knew we would be in for a crowded house soon enough, as Garrett is hosting some kite surfers. We did spend a bit of time at kite beach over the next few days, me only flying the trainer for a bit before opting to just hang out in the sand, and Sundance occasionally getting to body-drag through the water with the big kite, and then moving up to the actual board. As public transport on Maui sucks, we rented a car for a day and drove down to Little Beach, to see if any of the friends we made last time were still around - many of them weren't, though we did get to have a chat to Frank, a fellow who seems to be a permanent fixture there. We also spent a little time wandering along the Iao Valley before returning the car.
After two days, the other two Mai Tai folk (Erin and his friend Steve) came along, and Garrett took us to a few of the social events there. We also managed to slot in a game of Catan, which Garrett didn't win for a change. His lady, Crystal, is immune to his methods of winning.
As I had little to do with myself when everyone was kite surfing, we ended up renting a car again, this time for a few days. We made another trip to the Iao Valley, this time walking along one of the ridges, up to a little clearing where yummy thimbleberries grow. Ah, wet tropical forests.
Today has been a kite surfing day for Sundance, during which he discovered that he has a much easier time with the double-ended board rather than the uni-directional one. I went and did my own thing, doing the walk (and swim) up to the top of the Golden Emerald waterfall. It was every bit as beautiful as I remembered it, and then some, as the weather was nicer this time round, and the water wasn't so cold.
We are also going to hang out on Maui a little longer, mostly because we missed the window period in which we could get a cheap flight, so we booked the next one of the same price out of here, which is a few days later. We may decide to stick up our tent somewhere, in the name of not imposing on Garrett and Crystal beyond the time we said we would. Meanwhile, there is more kite surfing and walking through wet rainforests to be done. Hooray!
Yes, it has once again been embarrassingly long since our last post. So let me fill you in on the last little while, in a large nutshell:
We spent a few more days in San Francisco, which included highlights such as riding some borrowed bicycles to and past the Golden Gate Bridge, and checking out the very nifty Musee Mecanique, which is crammed full of awesomely antique and totally functional coin slot machines. We also tried out the local "Japanese" bath house, which was fun, and went to see Iron Man 2 with Kate, which was gratuitously violent. The day before we left San Fran, we were also treated to the sight of a bunch of army helicopters landing on the lawns of Crissy Fields. As it turned out, Mr Obama himself was scheduled to visit a few days later, and this was a practice run with the copters. We looked up his schedule, to see if there was any possibility of actually seeing the man. Upon deciding it was unlikely, we stuck with the flights we had, and got up at sparrowfart the following morning to fly to Maui.
The flight and airport time was uneventful, though it was a very strange feeling after having been so in charge of our own transport for so long. Well, we whiled away the time by watching some episodes of Heroes, which did the trick.
We actually arrived a little early, and enjoyed the balmy weather while waiting for our friend Garrett to pick us up. As we were arriving a short time before the Mai Tai, a big kite surfing event here on Maui was to start, we knew we would be in for a crowded house soon enough, as Garrett is hosting some kite surfers. We did spend a bit of time at kite beach over the next few days, me only flying the trainer for a bit before opting to just hang out in the sand, and Sundance occasionally getting to body-drag through the water with the big kite, and then moving up to the actual board. As public transport on Maui sucks, we rented a car for a day and drove down to Little Beach, to see if any of the friends we made last time were still around - many of them weren't, though we did get to have a chat to Frank, a fellow who seems to be a permanent fixture there. We also spent a little time wandering along the Iao Valley before returning the car.
After two days, the other two Mai Tai folk (Erin and his friend Steve) came along, and Garrett took us to a few of the social events there. We also managed to slot in a game of Catan, which Garrett didn't win for a change. His lady, Crystal, is immune to his methods of winning.
As I had little to do with myself when everyone was kite surfing, we ended up renting a car again, this time for a few days. We made another trip to the Iao Valley, this time walking along one of the ridges, up to a little clearing where yummy thimbleberries grow. Ah, wet tropical forests.
Today has been a kite surfing day for Sundance, during which he discovered that he has a much easier time with the double-ended board rather than the uni-directional one. I went and did my own thing, doing the walk (and swim) up to the top of the Golden Emerald waterfall. It was every bit as beautiful as I remembered it, and then some, as the weather was nicer this time round, and the water wasn't so cold.
We are also going to hang out on Maui a little longer, mostly because we missed the window period in which we could get a cheap flight, so we booked the next one of the same price out of here, which is a few days later. We may decide to stick up our tent somewhere, in the name of not imposing on Garrett and Crystal beyond the time we said we would. Meanwhile, there is more kite surfing and walking through wet rainforests to be done. Hooray!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
My Island Home
By Sundance:
Part 1: Yana in Hana
Total distance on Maui: 183.12 km
Total distance: 7381.8 km
What with our change of plans and flight schedules, we decided to unpack our bikes and take a tour around the south-east part of Maui, to get out of Garrett and Crystal's hair, and take advantage of the extra time we had up our sleeves.
But first, Yana's birthday. On the Monday, we headed out to the Emerald falls again in our rented car to wander through the bamboo groves and frolic in the water. After that we drove back through Paia and went to Mana foods in search of vegan key lime pie to serve as Yana's birthday cake. They were all out, but instead we got an amazing little ginger cake which went down extremely well.
On Tuesday the rental car had to be returned, so we headed to kite beach in the morning, and I got in some more kite surfing practice before returning the car, then wandered back to the beach for some more kiting. I actually managed to stand upright for about 25 seconds, which was a great feeling, and made me think that I might be getting the hang of it.
Wednesday and the early part of Thursday were taken up with unpacking and reassembling our bikes, and by Thursday afternoon we headed off from Makawao through Pukalani (to get some supplies), then uphill towards Kula. As it was a late start, we didn't go very far, and hunted around a little in Kula for a place to camp for the night. We settled on a local church, where we were given permission to set up our tent for the night. The next morning we set off again through pleasant bushland, to the south coast of the island. The road started off nicely but eventually deteriorated into broken pavement, coupled with a persistent headwind (which we expected, given the prevailing wind direction on Maui), dry terrain, and frequent hills. It wasn't fun, especially as the broken bitumen stopped us from building up speed on the downhill stretches to tackle the uphill stretches with. Eventually we made it to Kaupo and a general store where we made lunch and purchased a couple of frozen fruit icy-poles. We were even treated to a view across the sea to The Big Island, and a rainbow (visible below the horizon!) letting us know that we were entering the wet, lush side of the island. We rode on further and a dirt road (which we agreed was better than the broken pavement) and eventually found a place to turf-surf about 10 km south-west of Hana, on a property with a dog who's bark was worse than her bite, and a horse that didn't belong to the owner of the property, but just seemed to like hanging around there.
On Saturday morning we made our way into Hana, scouted around for more supplies at the two general stores in town, and hung out a bit drinking a smoothie to recharge our batteries before heading onwards. A little way past Hana we detoured to a local state park so that I could take a dip in the ocean at a black sand beach, as I felt we had better enjoy being by the beach, what with the weather being hot and tropical and all that. A bit further on we pulled into a roadside food stand, to discover that we'd been leapfrogging a pair of hitch-hikers who we'd noticed in Hana. We chatted a bit with them and then settled down to a plate of chicken, while they caught a ride further ahead. After riding onwards, we found ourselves more and more surrounded by beautiful rainforest and vistas overlooking the sea. At one point we stopped to look at a gorgeous waterfall cascading to the side of the road, and refill our water bottles from the water running off the nearby rock faces. As it was starting to get dark, we looked for another turf-surf a couple of kilometers further along the road. Selecting a friendly-looking house, Yana knocked on the door, and we were welcomed in by Charles, who told us that he and his wife, Linda, were avid travellers too (though they tend to go kayaking in South-East Asia), and would be glad to put us up for the night and share traveller's tales. We had a fantastic evening chatting with them, a comfy night sleeping on a futon in one of their numerous spare rooms, and after breakfast Linda showeed us around her studio where she does wonderful paintings of beach scenes.
The rest of the day we wound our way along the Hana highway, back into familiar territory. We stopped at Ho'okipa beach to watch the windsurfers playing, then made our way into Paia for a gelati (finally using the $5 I'd been given as a birthday gift for its intended purpose!) and dinner at the delightful Des Amis cafe. They have a limited menu, but their Greek platters are amazing! After dark we headed back up the side of Mt. Haleakala to Garrett and Crystal's place, and after making a start on disassembling the bikes, turned in for the night.
Monday was taken up pretty much completely with packing. We re-boxed the bikes, then fiddled with the remaining luggage, trying to make our carry-on and checked baggage fit within the size and weight allowances. By Monday evening we were ready, and headed to the airport to drop off our checked baggage before heading to the Whole Foods Market in Kahului to have an all-too-quick sit-down dinner with Garrett and Crystal. Then it was back off to the airport for our flight to Honolulu. We collected our bags upon arrival, loaded it on a trolley, and found ourselves a moderately comfy-looking couple of benches in the vicinity of the JetStar check-in counter to wait out the night. Our flight was fairly early Tuesday morning, so thankfully we didn't have to sleep too much (we couldn't have if we'd tried!) before it was farewell America.
Thanks America. We had a great time. Despite your often bad reputation in the rest of the world, we can honestly say that we found Americans to be among the kindest, friendliest, and most generous people we've ever met. It's been a delightful experience. But, by the same token, there's no place like home...
Part 2: No matter how far, or how wide I roam, I still call Australia home.
It's a ten-and-a-half hour flight from Honolulu to Sydney. A pretty uneventful one at that. We watched some videos on the inflight entertainment and our laptop. We crossed the International Date Line (and the equator) and Tuesday became Wednesday. And eventually we spotted a sliver of land that we knew to be the coast north of Sydney. There was a mixed feeling. It was nice to be so close to home, and yet, at the same time I'd hoped so much to be seeing that sliver of land from the deck of a sailing vessel, instead of a seat in a passenger jet, that I couldn't fight off a twinge of disappointment.
Land. Gather bags. Disembark. Present customs arrival cards. Collect baggage. Collect Bikes. Wait in line at customs/quarantine inspection (we even met a guy who worked there who is planning to ride from Vancouver to San Diego later this year). And then we were through, officially back on Terra Australis.
My favourite part of Sydney airport is the ramp into the public arrivals lounge. Over the ramp are a series of banners, half of which bear the slogan "G'day. Welcome Home". Those three words mean an awful lot.
It was 5:30pm and we were both ravenous. We threw ourselves at the nearest eatery, marvelling at the absence of Burger King and other now-familiar American brands, and the profusion of roasted vegetable foccacias, meat pies, and fruit salad with real yoghurt - and not a drop of high-fructose corn syrup in any of it! The food tasted glorious, and we decided that yes, everything really was as good as we remembered it. Eventually we had to get organised, and we got a taxi-van ride out to my uncle Tony's place where we're staying while we get under control for the ride back to Adelaide. We slept soundly. The following day we got a lift into town, and caught up with my mate Stewart (from my PhD days) for lunch, then wandered around Darling Harbour until sunset, and upon returning home were treated to a lamb roast that Tony whipped up which had to be tasted to be believed. On Friday morning we started reassembling our bikes, and Tony and family took off for weekend away (it being a long weekend). We have spent the rest of Friday and Today taking care of small necessities - getting a new Australian mobile phone number, dropping our bikes off at a bike shop to get some worn parts replaced, lunch with Yana's uni friend Ben, and wandering around soaking up the atmosphere of Sydney, with its slight sheen of pre-World Cup excitement. Tomorrow we may head out to the Blue Mountains and be tourists. But whatever we do, it's nice to be woken by the sound of kookaburras in the trees outside.
Part 1: Yana in Hana
Total distance on Maui: 183.12 km
Total distance: 7381.8 km
What with our change of plans and flight schedules, we decided to unpack our bikes and take a tour around the south-east part of Maui, to get out of Garrett and Crystal's hair, and take advantage of the extra time we had up our sleeves.
But first, Yana's birthday. On the Monday, we headed out to the Emerald falls again in our rented car to wander through the bamboo groves and frolic in the water. After that we drove back through Paia and went to Mana foods in search of vegan key lime pie to serve as Yana's birthday cake. They were all out, but instead we got an amazing little ginger cake which went down extremely well.
On Tuesday the rental car had to be returned, so we headed to kite beach in the morning, and I got in some more kite surfing practice before returning the car, then wandered back to the beach for some more kiting. I actually managed to stand upright for about 25 seconds, which was a great feeling, and made me think that I might be getting the hang of it.
Wednesday and the early part of Thursday were taken up with unpacking and reassembling our bikes, and by Thursday afternoon we headed off from Makawao through Pukalani (to get some supplies), then uphill towards Kula. As it was a late start, we didn't go very far, and hunted around a little in Kula for a place to camp for the night. We settled on a local church, where we were given permission to set up our tent for the night. The next morning we set off again through pleasant bushland, to the south coast of the island. The road started off nicely but eventually deteriorated into broken pavement, coupled with a persistent headwind (which we expected, given the prevailing wind direction on Maui), dry terrain, and frequent hills. It wasn't fun, especially as the broken bitumen stopped us from building up speed on the downhill stretches to tackle the uphill stretches with. Eventually we made it to Kaupo and a general store where we made lunch and purchased a couple of frozen fruit icy-poles. We were even treated to a view across the sea to The Big Island, and a rainbow (visible below the horizon!) letting us know that we were entering the wet, lush side of the island. We rode on further and a dirt road (which we agreed was better than the broken pavement) and eventually found a place to turf-surf about 10 km south-west of Hana, on a property with a dog who's bark was worse than her bite, and a horse that didn't belong to the owner of the property, but just seemed to like hanging around there.
On Saturday morning we made our way into Hana, scouted around for more supplies at the two general stores in town, and hung out a bit drinking a smoothie to recharge our batteries before heading onwards. A little way past Hana we detoured to a local state park so that I could take a dip in the ocean at a black sand beach, as I felt we had better enjoy being by the beach, what with the weather being hot and tropical and all that. A bit further on we pulled into a roadside food stand, to discover that we'd been leapfrogging a pair of hitch-hikers who we'd noticed in Hana. We chatted a bit with them and then settled down to a plate of chicken, while they caught a ride further ahead. After riding onwards, we found ourselves more and more surrounded by beautiful rainforest and vistas overlooking the sea. At one point we stopped to look at a gorgeous waterfall cascading to the side of the road, and refill our water bottles from the water running off the nearby rock faces. As it was starting to get dark, we looked for another turf-surf a couple of kilometers further along the road. Selecting a friendly-looking house, Yana knocked on the door, and we were welcomed in by Charles, who told us that he and his wife, Linda, were avid travellers too (though they tend to go kayaking in South-East Asia), and would be glad to put us up for the night and share traveller's tales. We had a fantastic evening chatting with them, a comfy night sleeping on a futon in one of their numerous spare rooms, and after breakfast Linda showeed us around her studio where she does wonderful paintings of beach scenes.
The rest of the day we wound our way along the Hana highway, back into familiar territory. We stopped at Ho'okipa beach to watch the windsurfers playing, then made our way into Paia for a gelati (finally using the $5 I'd been given as a birthday gift for its intended purpose!) and dinner at the delightful Des Amis cafe. They have a limited menu, but their Greek platters are amazing! After dark we headed back up the side of Mt. Haleakala to Garrett and Crystal's place, and after making a start on disassembling the bikes, turned in for the night.
Monday was taken up pretty much completely with packing. We re-boxed the bikes, then fiddled with the remaining luggage, trying to make our carry-on and checked baggage fit within the size and weight allowances. By Monday evening we were ready, and headed to the airport to drop off our checked baggage before heading to the Whole Foods Market in Kahului to have an all-too-quick sit-down dinner with Garrett and Crystal. Then it was back off to the airport for our flight to Honolulu. We collected our bags upon arrival, loaded it on a trolley, and found ourselves a moderately comfy-looking couple of benches in the vicinity of the JetStar check-in counter to wait out the night. Our flight was fairly early Tuesday morning, so thankfully we didn't have to sleep too much (we couldn't have if we'd tried!) before it was farewell America.
Thanks America. We had a great time. Despite your often bad reputation in the rest of the world, we can honestly say that we found Americans to be among the kindest, friendliest, and most generous people we've ever met. It's been a delightful experience. But, by the same token, there's no place like home...
Part 2: No matter how far, or how wide I roam, I still call Australia home.
It's a ten-and-a-half hour flight from Honolulu to Sydney. A pretty uneventful one at that. We watched some videos on the inflight entertainment and our laptop. We crossed the International Date Line (and the equator) and Tuesday became Wednesday. And eventually we spotted a sliver of land that we knew to be the coast north of Sydney. There was a mixed feeling. It was nice to be so close to home, and yet, at the same time I'd hoped so much to be seeing that sliver of land from the deck of a sailing vessel, instead of a seat in a passenger jet, that I couldn't fight off a twinge of disappointment.
Land. Gather bags. Disembark. Present customs arrival cards. Collect baggage. Collect Bikes. Wait in line at customs/quarantine inspection (we even met a guy who worked there who is planning to ride from Vancouver to San Diego later this year). And then we were through, officially back on Terra Australis.
My favourite part of Sydney airport is the ramp into the public arrivals lounge. Over the ramp are a series of banners, half of which bear the slogan "G'day. Welcome Home". Those three words mean an awful lot.
It was 5:30pm and we were both ravenous. We threw ourselves at the nearest eatery, marvelling at the absence of Burger King and other now-familiar American brands, and the profusion of roasted vegetable foccacias, meat pies, and fruit salad with real yoghurt - and not a drop of high-fructose corn syrup in any of it! The food tasted glorious, and we decided that yes, everything really was as good as we remembered it. Eventually we had to get organised, and we got a taxi-van ride out to my uncle Tony's place where we're staying while we get under control for the ride back to Adelaide. We slept soundly. The following day we got a lift into town, and caught up with my mate Stewart (from my PhD days) for lunch, then wandered around Darling Harbour until sunset, and upon returning home were treated to a lamb roast that Tony whipped up which had to be tasted to be believed. On Friday morning we started reassembling our bikes, and Tony and family took off for weekend away (it being a long weekend). We have spent the rest of Friday and Today taking care of small necessities - getting a new Australian mobile phone number, dropping our bikes off at a bike shop to get some worn parts replaced, lunch with Yana's uni friend Ben, and wandering around soaking up the atmosphere of Sydney, with its slight sheen of pre-World Cup excitement. Tomorrow we may head out to the Blue Mountains and be tourists. But whatever we do, it's nice to be woken by the sound of kookaburras in the trees outside.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Soaking up Sydney
By Yana:
We've spent the last week hanging out here in NSW, revelling in the joy of being back in Oz. On the Sunday of the long weekend, we went for a drive to the Blue Mountains, to be tourists in our own country. We got started a little late, so we didn't end up having the time for a walk, but it was still good fun. We stopped in one of the little towns at the edge of the national park, where we had hot chips with chicken salt for the first time in who knows how long. It's funny how those tiny little things really remind you that you're in Oz. When then drove on to the town of Katoomba, where we went and had a look at the Three Sisters. For those of you who haven't heard of them, the Three Sisters are one of the rock formations in the Blue Mountains, three pillars which are connected to an Aboriginal dreamtime story about how a sorcerer turned three sisters into these rock pillars to protect them while a war raged around them, with the intention of turning them back into their human selves when it was over, but he died before he could do so.
We spent the Monday partly in the city, which was when we discovered just how freakishly expensive parking is in Sydney. Yikes! Luckily, after a bit of driving around and having to deal with the horror of Sydney's abundance of one-way streets, dead ends, and forbidden right or left turns, we found a free parking spot, and went for a wander through Sydney's Botanical Gardens. The ones in Adelaide and Melbourne are much better, if you ask me, but it was still pleasant enough, and we got to see a couple of cockatoos, which was nice - we'd forgotten what cute faces they have! When we got back in the evening, we found that Tony, Amanda, and Eddy were back, and Tony had another magical meal happening. The man is a wizard in the kitchen.
On Tuesday, we decided to check out the Australian Museum. I think we spent easily four hours wandering through there - Good thing we'd at least had one of our sandwiches beforehand, because my stomach was growling quite insistently by the end of it. There were a few absolutely amazing photos of scientific phenomena and crazy insects, which, predictably, was probably my favourite part of the whole thing. There was an extensive collection on Aboriginal arts, crafts, and history. Honestly, I could only be so interested in the spiritual side of it, although I was riveted by the little videos of various indigenous folk walking through the bush, explaining various native foodplants and medicines. And to think it's probably only a tiny fraction of the original knowledge - who knows how much as been lost due to the Stolen Generation. Actually, there also was a framed print-out of Paul Keating's speech in Redfern, which was quite interesting to read, as you can see the bits of it that were incorporated into the song "Redfern" in the musical "Keating!".
Past the Aboriginal exhibits, we got onto the various fauna-related stuff, looking at various urchins and crabs, as well as some info about the insanely deadly critters Australia has to offer. I am glad to say that I now know what cone shells look like, so I can steer clear of the things - apparently there is no known antidote for that deadly venom of theirs. Eek! There was lots of interesting stuff on Aussie fauna, including on various extinct species. It really drives home what a shame it is about the thylacine - although I would have loved to see live versions of the various extinct megafauna Australia once had. Apart from the obligatory dinosaur skeletons, there was also a detailed catalogue of stuffed bird species and creepy crawlies.
Wednesday, we decided to enjoy the beautiful weather by going for an extended walk. We stopped for lunch at a cafe which had the most amazing chicken and leek pie ever - we have decided that we must learn to master pastry, simply so we can make our own pies. We wandered through various pretty suburban streets and parklands, until we hit Circular Quay, where we met up with my friend Ben and his lady, Alanna. We even managed to find some decent food under the price of $20, which is really saying something for that area. Once fed, we headed to the Opera House, where there is a night-time lightshow of crazy colours and motifs projected onto it. Honestly, I thought it was nowhere near as great as the Northern Lights display in Adelaide a few years back, but it was still nifty in parts. We wandered back to the train station, grabbed some gelati, and then headed home, saying our fairwells to Ben and Alanna when we had to get off the train.
We spent Thursday fairly productively, getting provisions for the next leg of our trip, that kind of thing. We also spent a bit of quality time window shopping, before we headed to the bike shop to collect our bikes and take them back to the apartment. By then, we had to hurry, as Tony had made us a reservation at Bilson's. Miraculously, we made it on time, and sat down for possibly the best meal of our lives to date. I'm not going to go into huge detail right now, as there were nine courses involved, each of them exquisitely detailed little works of culinary art, but let's just say that we went home in a daze. Wonderful stuff.
Today, we've been getting a few of those fiddly little bits of work before heading off done. If all goes well, we'll be getting to Wollongong tonight.
We've spent the last week hanging out here in NSW, revelling in the joy of being back in Oz. On the Sunday of the long weekend, we went for a drive to the Blue Mountains, to be tourists in our own country. We got started a little late, so we didn't end up having the time for a walk, but it was still good fun. We stopped in one of the little towns at the edge of the national park, where we had hot chips with chicken salt for the first time in who knows how long. It's funny how those tiny little things really remind you that you're in Oz. When then drove on to the town of Katoomba, where we went and had a look at the Three Sisters. For those of you who haven't heard of them, the Three Sisters are one of the rock formations in the Blue Mountains, three pillars which are connected to an Aboriginal dreamtime story about how a sorcerer turned three sisters into these rock pillars to protect them while a war raged around them, with the intention of turning them back into their human selves when it was over, but he died before he could do so.
We spent the Monday partly in the city, which was when we discovered just how freakishly expensive parking is in Sydney. Yikes! Luckily, after a bit of driving around and having to deal with the horror of Sydney's abundance of one-way streets, dead ends, and forbidden right or left turns, we found a free parking spot, and went for a wander through Sydney's Botanical Gardens. The ones in Adelaide and Melbourne are much better, if you ask me, but it was still pleasant enough, and we got to see a couple of cockatoos, which was nice - we'd forgotten what cute faces they have! When we got back in the evening, we found that Tony, Amanda, and Eddy were back, and Tony had another magical meal happening. The man is a wizard in the kitchen.
On Tuesday, we decided to check out the Australian Museum. I think we spent easily four hours wandering through there - Good thing we'd at least had one of our sandwiches beforehand, because my stomach was growling quite insistently by the end of it. There were a few absolutely amazing photos of scientific phenomena and crazy insects, which, predictably, was probably my favourite part of the whole thing. There was an extensive collection on Aboriginal arts, crafts, and history. Honestly, I could only be so interested in the spiritual side of it, although I was riveted by the little videos of various indigenous folk walking through the bush, explaining various native foodplants and medicines. And to think it's probably only a tiny fraction of the original knowledge - who knows how much as been lost due to the Stolen Generation. Actually, there also was a framed print-out of Paul Keating's speech in Redfern, which was quite interesting to read, as you can see the bits of it that were incorporated into the song "Redfern" in the musical "Keating!".
Past the Aboriginal exhibits, we got onto the various fauna-related stuff, looking at various urchins and crabs, as well as some info about the insanely deadly critters Australia has to offer. I am glad to say that I now know what cone shells look like, so I can steer clear of the things - apparently there is no known antidote for that deadly venom of theirs. Eek! There was lots of interesting stuff on Aussie fauna, including on various extinct species. It really drives home what a shame it is about the thylacine - although I would have loved to see live versions of the various extinct megafauna Australia once had. Apart from the obligatory dinosaur skeletons, there was also a detailed catalogue of stuffed bird species and creepy crawlies.
Wednesday, we decided to enjoy the beautiful weather by going for an extended walk. We stopped for lunch at a cafe which had the most amazing chicken and leek pie ever - we have decided that we must learn to master pastry, simply so we can make our own pies. We wandered through various pretty suburban streets and parklands, until we hit Circular Quay, where we met up with my friend Ben and his lady, Alanna. We even managed to find some decent food under the price of $20, which is really saying something for that area. Once fed, we headed to the Opera House, where there is a night-time lightshow of crazy colours and motifs projected onto it. Honestly, I thought it was nowhere near as great as the Northern Lights display in Adelaide a few years back, but it was still nifty in parts. We wandered back to the train station, grabbed some gelati, and then headed home, saying our fairwells to Ben and Alanna when we had to get off the train.
We spent Thursday fairly productively, getting provisions for the next leg of our trip, that kind of thing. We also spent a bit of quality time window shopping, before we headed to the bike shop to collect our bikes and take them back to the apartment. By then, we had to hurry, as Tony had made us a reservation at Bilson's. Miraculously, we made it on time, and sat down for possibly the best meal of our lives to date. I'm not going to go into huge detail right now, as there were nine courses involved, each of them exquisitely detailed little works of culinary art, but let's just say that we went home in a daze. Wonderful stuff.
Today, we've been getting a few of those fiddly little bits of work before heading off done. If all goes well, we'll be getting to Wollongong tonight.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Wheee! of the Never-Never
Distance in Australia: 396.7 km
Total distance: 7778.5 km
Picking up from last time, I felt like adding a few of my own thoughts to Yana's recollection of our last night in Sydney, and the fantastic meal we had. At one point I found myself staring out of the restaurant window at the street below, and feeling very impressed that Australia had such wonderful things to offer, from food to natural beauty. And it felt in many ways like the rest of the world doesn't really get it. I was grateful that I live here. After so much time on the other side of the world, coming home to a place that's so familiar and yet so different from my reality of the recent past made me feel like a native of a fictional land, like Neverland or Oz, coming back to reexperience all that magical stuff I grew up with and had missed so much.
On Friday morning we got stuck into reattaching the remaining paraphernalia to our bikes - front panier racks, bottle cages, speedometers and so on. It took a little doing, but we managed to remember how most of it attached and make up what we couldn't remember. This (naturally) took longer than we'd hoped, but a little after lunchtime we bid farewell to Amanda and Eddy, and set off through Sydney. But first we stopped off for a bite of Thai food. Then we set off through Sydney, making our way eventually to the southern edge of town. We had a quick chat with a fellow at a 7-eleven who assured us we could camp in the nearby National Park, and made our way in that direction. It was after dark when we arrived and the park office was closed, but we found a ranger's house and asked where we could put up a tent - well apparently we were supposed to have pre-registered to stay in the park, and he gave us a bit of a talking-to about that, and eventually said we could pop up a tent out of the way in one of the picnic areas. So we found a spot, Yana popped up the tent, and I discovered that the stove was being temperamental. I fiddled with cleaning it a bit and trying to get it to work, but eventually Yana just made us some peanut butter sandwiches. Quite a contrast from the previous night's dinner!
We awoke the following morning just before the Sun peered over the hills, and took great delight in the light creeping through the treetops and the birds wandering around our campsite. After breakfast we took off to ride through the rest of the park, struggling up the hills and realising that we're a bit out of shape, and zooming down the other sides. We passed through the mix of eucalypts and palms thinking that it really gave Maui a run for it's money in terms of beauty, and eventually emerged at teh southern edge of the park to overlook the Pacific. A bit further on we rode into the town of Stanwell Park and grabbed some groceries to make lunch. We wandered down to the beach chatting with a fellow named Jim - who looked a bit dishevelled. We weren't sure if he was homeless or just a little lonely, but he seemed to enjoy having someone to talk with, and it made us feel good to obviously brighten someone's day. Stanwell Park turned out to be where Lawrence Hargraves did his experiments in the 1890s, being lifted off the ground by large box kites. These experiemnts helped him figure out how to stabilise an aircraft, and although he didn't fly any powered aircraft, his ideas certainly helped the Wright brothers design their machines.
Since it's winter in Australia, and very close to the shortest day of the year we wandered briefly onto the beach to have a look around, and then headed back onto the road, southwards once more. We passed numerous pretty vistas, and eventually found a bike path that promised to run all the way into Wollongong. Just short of there we checked at a caravan park on how much they charged for a tent site ($27! No thank you!) and headed further along. Not too much furtehr along we came upon a fellow walking his dog for the evening and asked him if there was somewhere cheaper to camp for teh night, and he offered us his backyard. Milton was his name, and Tasha was his very friendly German Shepard. Milton turned out to be renovating his house to make it a nice beach house for his kids to stay in when they visit, and despite his numerous apologies about the mess we had a very pleasant evening chatting with him - he even put on a video for us so we got to watch The Men Who Stare at Goats. That was an amusing film, and it reminded us of the place we rode past in Indiana that was selling fainting goats.
The next morning we headed off along the bike path, and after only about 400 meters wound up having an extended chat with a guy who'd done a bit of bike touring himself, including a ride from Alice Springs to Canberra. The path wound its way along the beach, past downtown Wollongong (which seemed pretty nice actually - we stopped off in the main street to get some toiletries and thought it was a nice little place) and then continued along a slightly circuitous but verdant path down to Shellharbour where we had lunch, and Kiama. The whole coast is just brimming over with beautiful little towns, and we couldn't help noticing that everything seems very new and vital compared to the USA. It was clear when we were there that a lot of American infrastructure needs a fair bit of re-investment and repair, whereas everything looks pretty modern and well-maintained in Australia. Although it was starting to get dark, we pressed on through Gerringong, eventually finding a place to ask for directions to a nice cheap campground or a spot to turf-surf. The couple who lived there offered us the spare accmodations where there kids stay when visiting, which included a bed, bathroom, and stove to make our dinner on. So we got a hot meal and an episode of Dr Who before turning in for the night. In the morning we chatted with Malcolm about his dairy farming and then took off along the bike path beside the road. We took a brief detour to look at and wander along the beach at seven-mile beach national park.
We continued on our way to Nowra, where we made a quick stop at the tourist information centre, mostly for a few minutes using the internet, for some of our basic and necessary bits of communication. That done, we headed to the supermarket to top up our food supplies, then found a nearby park to have our lunch. Taking into account the rate at which we were going, we decided to aim to do 70km that day. We reached the town of Wandandian around sunset, at a little bit shy of 60km. The plan was to ride on to the other side of the Conjola National Park, and then find somewhere to pitch our tent, but that didn't eventuate. We had made a small stop at the local general store, and while we were making various phone calls, the guy running the place offered us the spot next to the shop to set ourselves up for the night. We ended up accepting. The guy, Mick, was actually very generous, and wouldn't take payment for a few items of canned fare we planned to use to supplement our dinner. Of course we always appreciate that kind of kindness, though it is also a slightly embarrassing thing when it happens, as there are times when you do want to pay. We got ourselves fed and bed ready fairly quickly, and turned in at a reasonable hour.
The following morning, we packed ourselves up only just before it started to rain lightly, which was a bit of luck. Mick arrived shortly before we were done, so we said our goodbyes, and left a few dollars and a note explaining that this was us buying him a beer - we didn't give it to him directly, as we suspected he wouldn't accept, but we wanted to give something.
We set off through the National Park, and found that as time went on, the rain slowly got heavier, until we were quite damp and cold when we reached Yatte Yattah, on the other side of the National Park. As there wasn't much going on there, we ended up pressing on to Milton, where we had a really nice lunch at a local vegetarian cafe, followed by some fish and chips, as we were also craving some hot greasy protein. At least it warmed us and dried us a bit, but the rain continued, so we got ourselves more properly decked out in our wet weather gear and pressed on despite the ickiness of it all. We headed through Ulladulla, and stayed cautiously hopeful that we might be able to make it to Batemans Bay that day. We ended up falling a little bit short, but achieving a little over 70km for the day, and stopped in a tiny little place called East Lynne for the night. It seems to be little more than a servo, but it does boast some apparently award-winning home-made pies. We arrived in time for some sausage rolls and Bundy ginger beer, then got ourselves set up in the back paddock. The owner of the servo even helped us light a fire to warm ourselves a bit, which was a bit of luxury before we crawled into our increasingly soggy tent.
The morning dawned foggy and a bit damp, and we had to accept that we'd have to roll our tent up wet. We got ourselves packed up, tried the award-winning pies fresh out of the oven, had our usual muesli breakfast as well, and rode the last 19km or so to Batemans Bay. We made a quick internet stop at the library, then took the more coastal tourist route towards Moruya. It ended up taking the better part of the day. The weather was decent, although it briefly bucketed down on us while we were having lunch, luckily sheltered under a pavilion. We waited out that squall of rain, then headed off again, and managed to stay dry. It was already getting dark when we got to Moruya, and we decided to head down the road a little further, as we weren't terribly enamoured with the idea of passing the night in an overpriced caravan park, which our map indicated was nine kilometres out of our way. We ended up going another 8km or so onwards, then stopped at a pair of houses a little off the side of the road. Stewart, the owner of the property, was happy enough for us to put up our tent, and came out for a quick chat before it started to rain again. Luckily, by then, the tent was up and there was a roof we could shelter under while making dinner. We said our goodnights when we came up to use the toilet. One of Stewart's kids was having a sticky beak under his arm, heaved a theatrical sigh, then wandered off, which made us chuckle. Apparently he wanted to ask us about our trip, but was a bit shy to talk to us.
We woke up to the sound of rain pattering on our tent, which meant that we'd be rolling it up soggy yet again. Oh well. When we were almost fully packed up and Stewart and family left for their various daytime pursuits, Stewart's mum Jan came up from the other house and offered us a shower. We gladly accepted, as we hadn't showered since Gerroa. As it happened, the TV was running, and we learned that just then, there was a Leadership Challenge happening. The upshot was that apart from having a shower and a cup of tea, we got to watch Julia Gillard become the new PM of Australia. Very cool. This did mean that we didn't get going until the early afternoon, but luckily, we were only heading for Narooma. The weather had turned sunny by then, so it was quite a pleasant day to be riding. We arrived in Bodalla for lunch, and figured it was only right to consume cheese in some way, shape or form. We decided to go for a very tasty piece of cheesecake, as well as another excellent lunch. Once we were done with that, it was past 4pm, so we had less than an hour before sundown, so we headed off on our last stretch to Narooma. We got there a little bit after dark, and found the house of some friends of Sundance's family. It's a nice change to sleep in a bed rather than the tent, I guess.
Total distance: 7778.5 km
By Sundance:
Picking up from last time, I felt like adding a few of my own thoughts to Yana's recollection of our last night in Sydney, and the fantastic meal we had. At one point I found myself staring out of the restaurant window at the street below, and feeling very impressed that Australia had such wonderful things to offer, from food to natural beauty. And it felt in many ways like the rest of the world doesn't really get it. I was grateful that I live here. After so much time on the other side of the world, coming home to a place that's so familiar and yet so different from my reality of the recent past made me feel like a native of a fictional land, like Neverland or Oz, coming back to reexperience all that magical stuff I grew up with and had missed so much.
On Friday morning we got stuck into reattaching the remaining paraphernalia to our bikes - front panier racks, bottle cages, speedometers and so on. It took a little doing, but we managed to remember how most of it attached and make up what we couldn't remember. This (naturally) took longer than we'd hoped, but a little after lunchtime we bid farewell to Amanda and Eddy, and set off through Sydney. But first we stopped off for a bite of Thai food. Then we set off through Sydney, making our way eventually to the southern edge of town. We had a quick chat with a fellow at a 7-eleven who assured us we could camp in the nearby National Park, and made our way in that direction. It was after dark when we arrived and the park office was closed, but we found a ranger's house and asked where we could put up a tent - well apparently we were supposed to have pre-registered to stay in the park, and he gave us a bit of a talking-to about that, and eventually said we could pop up a tent out of the way in one of the picnic areas. So we found a spot, Yana popped up the tent, and I discovered that the stove was being temperamental. I fiddled with cleaning it a bit and trying to get it to work, but eventually Yana just made us some peanut butter sandwiches. Quite a contrast from the previous night's dinner!
We awoke the following morning just before the Sun peered over the hills, and took great delight in the light creeping through the treetops and the birds wandering around our campsite. After breakfast we took off to ride through the rest of the park, struggling up the hills and realising that we're a bit out of shape, and zooming down the other sides. We passed through the mix of eucalypts and palms thinking that it really gave Maui a run for it's money in terms of beauty, and eventually emerged at teh southern edge of the park to overlook the Pacific. A bit further on we rode into the town of Stanwell Park and grabbed some groceries to make lunch. We wandered down to the beach chatting with a fellow named Jim - who looked a bit dishevelled. We weren't sure if he was homeless or just a little lonely, but he seemed to enjoy having someone to talk with, and it made us feel good to obviously brighten someone's day. Stanwell Park turned out to be where Lawrence Hargraves did his experiments in the 1890s, being lifted off the ground by large box kites. These experiemnts helped him figure out how to stabilise an aircraft, and although he didn't fly any powered aircraft, his ideas certainly helped the Wright brothers design their machines.
Since it's winter in Australia, and very close to the shortest day of the year we wandered briefly onto the beach to have a look around, and then headed back onto the road, southwards once more. We passed numerous pretty vistas, and eventually found a bike path that promised to run all the way into Wollongong. Just short of there we checked at a caravan park on how much they charged for a tent site ($27! No thank you!) and headed further along. Not too much furtehr along we came upon a fellow walking his dog for the evening and asked him if there was somewhere cheaper to camp for teh night, and he offered us his backyard. Milton was his name, and Tasha was his very friendly German Shepard. Milton turned out to be renovating his house to make it a nice beach house for his kids to stay in when they visit, and despite his numerous apologies about the mess we had a very pleasant evening chatting with him - he even put on a video for us so we got to watch The Men Who Stare at Goats. That was an amusing film, and it reminded us of the place we rode past in Indiana that was selling fainting goats.
The next morning we headed off along the bike path, and after only about 400 meters wound up having an extended chat with a guy who'd done a bit of bike touring himself, including a ride from Alice Springs to Canberra. The path wound its way along the beach, past downtown Wollongong (which seemed pretty nice actually - we stopped off in the main street to get some toiletries and thought it was a nice little place) and then continued along a slightly circuitous but verdant path down to Shellharbour where we had lunch, and Kiama. The whole coast is just brimming over with beautiful little towns, and we couldn't help noticing that everything seems very new and vital compared to the USA. It was clear when we were there that a lot of American infrastructure needs a fair bit of re-investment and repair, whereas everything looks pretty modern and well-maintained in Australia. Although it was starting to get dark, we pressed on through Gerringong, eventually finding a place to ask for directions to a nice cheap campground or a spot to turf-surf. The couple who lived there offered us the spare accmodations where there kids stay when visiting, which included a bed, bathroom, and stove to make our dinner on. So we got a hot meal and an episode of Dr Who before turning in for the night. In the morning we chatted with Malcolm about his dairy farming and then took off along the bike path beside the road. We took a brief detour to look at and wander along the beach at seven-mile beach national park.
By Yana:
We continued on our way to Nowra, where we made a quick stop at the tourist information centre, mostly for a few minutes using the internet, for some of our basic and necessary bits of communication. That done, we headed to the supermarket to top up our food supplies, then found a nearby park to have our lunch. Taking into account the rate at which we were going, we decided to aim to do 70km that day. We reached the town of Wandandian around sunset, at a little bit shy of 60km. The plan was to ride on to the other side of the Conjola National Park, and then find somewhere to pitch our tent, but that didn't eventuate. We had made a small stop at the local general store, and while we were making various phone calls, the guy running the place offered us the spot next to the shop to set ourselves up for the night. We ended up accepting. The guy, Mick, was actually very generous, and wouldn't take payment for a few items of canned fare we planned to use to supplement our dinner. Of course we always appreciate that kind of kindness, though it is also a slightly embarrassing thing when it happens, as there are times when you do want to pay. We got ourselves fed and bed ready fairly quickly, and turned in at a reasonable hour.
The following morning, we packed ourselves up only just before it started to rain lightly, which was a bit of luck. Mick arrived shortly before we were done, so we said our goodbyes, and left a few dollars and a note explaining that this was us buying him a beer - we didn't give it to him directly, as we suspected he wouldn't accept, but we wanted to give something.
We set off through the National Park, and found that as time went on, the rain slowly got heavier, until we were quite damp and cold when we reached Yatte Yattah, on the other side of the National Park. As there wasn't much going on there, we ended up pressing on to Milton, where we had a really nice lunch at a local vegetarian cafe, followed by some fish and chips, as we were also craving some hot greasy protein. At least it warmed us and dried us a bit, but the rain continued, so we got ourselves more properly decked out in our wet weather gear and pressed on despite the ickiness of it all. We headed through Ulladulla, and stayed cautiously hopeful that we might be able to make it to Batemans Bay that day. We ended up falling a little bit short, but achieving a little over 70km for the day, and stopped in a tiny little place called East Lynne for the night. It seems to be little more than a servo, but it does boast some apparently award-winning home-made pies. We arrived in time for some sausage rolls and Bundy ginger beer, then got ourselves set up in the back paddock. The owner of the servo even helped us light a fire to warm ourselves a bit, which was a bit of luxury before we crawled into our increasingly soggy tent.
The morning dawned foggy and a bit damp, and we had to accept that we'd have to roll our tent up wet. We got ourselves packed up, tried the award-winning pies fresh out of the oven, had our usual muesli breakfast as well, and rode the last 19km or so to Batemans Bay. We made a quick internet stop at the library, then took the more coastal tourist route towards Moruya. It ended up taking the better part of the day. The weather was decent, although it briefly bucketed down on us while we were having lunch, luckily sheltered under a pavilion. We waited out that squall of rain, then headed off again, and managed to stay dry. It was already getting dark when we got to Moruya, and we decided to head down the road a little further, as we weren't terribly enamoured with the idea of passing the night in an overpriced caravan park, which our map indicated was nine kilometres out of our way. We ended up going another 8km or so onwards, then stopped at a pair of houses a little off the side of the road. Stewart, the owner of the property, was happy enough for us to put up our tent, and came out for a quick chat before it started to rain again. Luckily, by then, the tent was up and there was a roof we could shelter under while making dinner. We said our goodnights when we came up to use the toilet. One of Stewart's kids was having a sticky beak under his arm, heaved a theatrical sigh, then wandered off, which made us chuckle. Apparently he wanted to ask us about our trip, but was a bit shy to talk to us.
We woke up to the sound of rain pattering on our tent, which meant that we'd be rolling it up soggy yet again. Oh well. When we were almost fully packed up and Stewart and family left for their various daytime pursuits, Stewart's mum Jan came up from the other house and offered us a shower. We gladly accepted, as we hadn't showered since Gerroa. As it happened, the TV was running, and we learned that just then, there was a Leadership Challenge happening. The upshot was that apart from having a shower and a cup of tea, we got to watch Julia Gillard become the new PM of Australia. Very cool. This did mean that we didn't get going until the early afternoon, but luckily, we were only heading for Narooma. The weather had turned sunny by then, so it was quite a pleasant day to be riding. We arrived in Bodalla for lunch, and figured it was only right to consume cheese in some way, shape or form. We decided to go for a very tasty piece of cheesecake, as well as another excellent lunch. Once we were done with that, it was past 4pm, so we had less than an hour before sundown, so we headed off on our last stretch to Narooma. We got there a little bit after dark, and found the house of some friends of Sundance's family. It's a nice change to sleep in a bed rather than the tent, I guess.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
map of routeI love the smell of Eucalyptus in the morning! Smells like...Victoria!
Distance in Australia: 1164.01 km
Total distance: 8545.9 km
By Sundance:
Once again it's been far too long since we have updated the blog. Email access has taken backstage to getting camp set up in the evening and making dinner. And with it being winter in Australia the days have been short - so hours of daylight tend to be spent riding rather than getting online.
Anyway, excuses over. We're now almost in Melbourne, at my Dad's place in Healesville, taking our first actual rest days since we left Sydney. And that means we can at least update the blog!
We spent the first part of our day in Narooma restocking our supplies, washing clothes, and relaxing a bit. There's a nice new bike/pedestrian path along the inlet which we cruised along as we headed off after lunch, and wound our way past a caravan park I nostalgically remembered camping in as a very little kid. After grabbing an afternoon snack in town we headed out along the highway, making it to the campground at Mystery Bay in time for sunset. Another spot I recalled fondly from years gone by and camping trips with my Mum. It hasn't changed appreciably in twenty years. Yana and I cooked dinner and sat on the beach chatting, before crawling into our tent. The following morning it was overcast and threatened to rain, but I spent a little while climbing on the rock outcrops at the end of the beach. Eventually the clouds opened upon us (just as we finished packing up camp) and we sheltered under the roof of a toilet block before deciding to don our wet weather gear and ride off to the highway, along a winding dirt road fringed by cows in paddocks, wondering who these strange flourescent two-wheeled things panting past them were.
We grabbed an extremely nice gourmet pizza in Bermagui, and pushed on to a little north of Tathra, where we sought a turf-surf. The house we knocked on turned out to be an excellent choice. Peter and Danya who lived there with their three kids told us they'd come home one day to find a female cyclist sheltering from the rain on their front porch one day, and were glad to host more travellers. They fed us cous-cous, let us sleep in a caravan they had in the yard, and I put on my physicist hat, answering questions for their kids about light and mirrors and stuff. And by a stroke of luck, as I stepped outside at one point I noticed that there was a lunar eclipse happening. In the morning we got up and were fed some delicious five-grain porridge before the kids were driven off to Eden to play soccer, and we got back on the bikes. We rode into Tathra (another place I fondly remember camping in as a kid) and on through Merimbula (where we stopped for groceries) before pushing on out of town along a very nice off-road bike path, eventually reaching Eden that evening. We had a chat with a local council worked who pointed us towards a park behind the local sports grounds where we could put our tent up, and nobody would mind.
Eden used to be a whaling town, and has an interesting history with Orcas herding the whales into harbour to assist the humans with hunting them (in exchange for the humans throwing the whale's tongues back for the Orcas to eat) but our principal interest was hunting for a screw to replace one which had fallen out of our gas camping stove. We spent the morning looking in hardware stores, then a jewellery store, who directed us to a fishing store, who directed us to a camping store, who directed us back to the fishing store, and finally we were in luck. Confident that our cooking equipment wasn't going to dismantle itself mid-meal, we set off through some very daunting hills, but beautiful countryside. We got close to the state border by evening but decided to camp at a roadside rest area. It was a bitterly cold night, and we made a fire in the barbeque area before making dinner. The morning was also icy, and we had to rekindle the fire before we could face making breakfast, but we did get to cross the state border in Victoria in daylight.
We had used up all our lunch supplies, and expected to get more food in Genoa, but discovered that the general store had closed, and there was no food to be had, save for a few packets of potato chips. We decided there as nothing for it but to press onwards to the next town, passing through the annoyingly mountainous Alfred National Park in the process. In the evening we reached Cann River, where we inhaled a couple of pizzas and settled into the local council-run campground for the night, seduced by the prospect of warm showers. In the morning we climbed out of the tent, and the first thing I noticed was an overpowering smell of eucalyptus - whch really drove home the fact that we're back in Australia. We stopped for lunch at a little hotel/tea room in Bellbird Creek where the friendly staff (and friends/relatives) listened to tales of our journey and advised us to avoid the highway on the way to Orbost due to hills and winding roads with logging trucks. They recommended that we take the longer but flatter detour past the mouth of the Snowy River at Marlo. We rode to the appropriate turn-off, tried to make up our minds about which route to take, tossed a coin, and headed to the coast. And very glad we were that we did - the road opened up into coastal grassland, we saw our first non-roadkilled kangaroos since getting back to Oz, and made it to the coast road running between Cape Conran and Marlo. In Marlo we settled into the local pub for a counter-meal, warmed ourselves by the fire, discovered that Hey Hey It's Saturday has returned to Australian TV, and had a delicious sticky-date pudding for dessert. The pub owner even allowed us to put our tent up out the back.
The next day we rode back inland along the Snowy River to Orbost, where we stopped to consider the option of moving onto the East Gippsland Rail Trail, to get off the highway. While the trail was quite pretty, it was also gravelly, so we ended up deciding to stick to the highway for the most part. At dusk, we stopped in the locality of Tostaree, where we knocked on the door of Glen and Jen, asking for tent advice. They pointed us to a spot along the path where we could put it up, and invited us in for a cup of tea, and dinner to boot. Some very good conversations were had before we trundled off to put up our tent and turn in for the night.
We got up and knocked the ice off our tent the next morning, then headed onwards through Lakes Entrance (where we had lunch), and on to just before Bairnsdale. We thought about pushing on, but came to the edge of the fruitfly-control zone, where we would have had to dispose of any fruit we were carrying. So instead we opted to find a place to camp for the night, use our fruit making dinner and breakfast the following morning, and then push on.
By Sundance:
Teena spotted us coming up the street, and Dad was waiting in the driveway to take a few happy snaps as we rolled in the front gate. It was a true delight to back at my Dad's place, settling into familiar surrounds, and sharing the company of my father and Teena again. From here on, everything will be familiar ground, and perhaps for the first time in the entire journey I feel physically connected to Adelaide, and the culmination of our trek. But for now, we get a couple of rest days. Today we relaxed, ate well, and went shopping for dinner and breakfast ingredients after talking travel, politics, and life. I've even got a few of my old clothes to wear that I'd left behind last time I was here. It makes the person in the mirror seem just a little more like a long-lost friend.
Total distance: 8545.9 km
By Sundance:
Once again it's been far too long since we have updated the blog. Email access has taken backstage to getting camp set up in the evening and making dinner. And with it being winter in Australia the days have been short - so hours of daylight tend to be spent riding rather than getting online.
Anyway, excuses over. We're now almost in Melbourne, at my Dad's place in Healesville, taking our first actual rest days since we left Sydney. And that means we can at least update the blog!
We spent the first part of our day in Narooma restocking our supplies, washing clothes, and relaxing a bit. There's a nice new bike/pedestrian path along the inlet which we cruised along as we headed off after lunch, and wound our way past a caravan park I nostalgically remembered camping in as a very little kid. After grabbing an afternoon snack in town we headed out along the highway, making it to the campground at Mystery Bay in time for sunset. Another spot I recalled fondly from years gone by and camping trips with my Mum. It hasn't changed appreciably in twenty years. Yana and I cooked dinner and sat on the beach chatting, before crawling into our tent. The following morning it was overcast and threatened to rain, but I spent a little while climbing on the rock outcrops at the end of the beach. Eventually the clouds opened upon us (just as we finished packing up camp) and we sheltered under the roof of a toilet block before deciding to don our wet weather gear and ride off to the highway, along a winding dirt road fringed by cows in paddocks, wondering who these strange flourescent two-wheeled things panting past them were.
We grabbed an extremely nice gourmet pizza in Bermagui, and pushed on to a little north of Tathra, where we sought a turf-surf. The house we knocked on turned out to be an excellent choice. Peter and Danya who lived there with their three kids told us they'd come home one day to find a female cyclist sheltering from the rain on their front porch one day, and were glad to host more travellers. They fed us cous-cous, let us sleep in a caravan they had in the yard, and I put on my physicist hat, answering questions for their kids about light and mirrors and stuff. And by a stroke of luck, as I stepped outside at one point I noticed that there was a lunar eclipse happening. In the morning we got up and were fed some delicious five-grain porridge before the kids were driven off to Eden to play soccer, and we got back on the bikes. We rode into Tathra (another place I fondly remember camping in as a kid) and on through Merimbula (where we stopped for groceries) before pushing on out of town along a very nice off-road bike path, eventually reaching Eden that evening. We had a chat with a local council worked who pointed us towards a park behind the local sports grounds where we could put our tent up, and nobody would mind.
Eden used to be a whaling town, and has an interesting history with Orcas herding the whales into harbour to assist the humans with hunting them (in exchange for the humans throwing the whale's tongues back for the Orcas to eat) but our principal interest was hunting for a screw to replace one which had fallen out of our gas camping stove. We spent the morning looking in hardware stores, then a jewellery store, who directed us to a fishing store, who directed us to a camping store, who directed us back to the fishing store, and finally we were in luck. Confident that our cooking equipment wasn't going to dismantle itself mid-meal, we set off through some very daunting hills, but beautiful countryside. We got close to the state border by evening but decided to camp at a roadside rest area. It was a bitterly cold night, and we made a fire in the barbeque area before making dinner. The morning was also icy, and we had to rekindle the fire before we could face making breakfast, but we did get to cross the state border in Victoria in daylight.
We had used up all our lunch supplies, and expected to get more food in Genoa, but discovered that the general store had closed, and there was no food to be had, save for a few packets of potato chips. We decided there as nothing for it but to press onwards to the next town, passing through the annoyingly mountainous Alfred National Park in the process. In the evening we reached Cann River, where we inhaled a couple of pizzas and settled into the local council-run campground for the night, seduced by the prospect of warm showers. In the morning we climbed out of the tent, and the first thing I noticed was an overpowering smell of eucalyptus - whch really drove home the fact that we're back in Australia. We stopped for lunch at a little hotel/tea room in Bellbird Creek where the friendly staff (and friends/relatives) listened to tales of our journey and advised us to avoid the highway on the way to Orbost due to hills and winding roads with logging trucks. They recommended that we take the longer but flatter detour past the mouth of the Snowy River at Marlo. We rode to the appropriate turn-off, tried to make up our minds about which route to take, tossed a coin, and headed to the coast. And very glad we were that we did - the road opened up into coastal grassland, we saw our first non-roadkilled kangaroos since getting back to Oz, and made it to the coast road running between Cape Conran and Marlo. In Marlo we settled into the local pub for a counter-meal, warmed ourselves by the fire, discovered that Hey Hey It's Saturday has returned to Australian TV, and had a delicious sticky-date pudding for dessert. The pub owner even allowed us to put our tent up out the back.
The next day we rode back inland along the Snowy River to Orbost, where we stopped to consider the option of moving onto the East Gippsland Rail Trail, to get off the highway. While the trail was quite pretty, it was also gravelly, so we ended up deciding to stick to the highway for the most part. At dusk, we stopped in the locality of Tostaree, where we knocked on the door of Glen and Jen, asking for tent advice. They pointed us to a spot along the path where we could put it up, and invited us in for a cup of tea, and dinner to boot. Some very good conversations were had before we trundled off to put up our tent and turn in for the night.
We got up and knocked the ice off our tent the next morning, then headed onwards through Lakes Entrance (where we had lunch), and on to just before Bairnsdale. We thought about pushing on, but came to the edge of the fruitfly-control zone, where we would have had to dispose of any fruit we were carrying. So instead we opted to find a place to camp for the night, use our fruit making dinner and breakfast the following morning, and then push on.
By Yana:
Quite close to where the fruit fly zone ended, we found a driveway into a property. The house was empty, but there was a caravan with its lights on a little further in. When we investigated, we came across Peter, who turned out to be the owner of the land. Instead of having us put up the tent, he invited us into his spare bunk room, which we accepted. He refused our offer to share our dinner with him, and we ended up having a very nice chat, comparatively late into the night, by our standards. Early the following morning his partner arrived, and they took us along on an errand of buying some rams. If we had ever felt bad about eating sheep, we came away thoroughly cured of that. They're not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed.
We got going on our bikes a little before noon, and headed into Bairnsdale for lunch and a quick mechanical check of our bikes. Sundance's bottom bracket was starting to make some noises, but the local bike mechanic had nothing useful to say on the matter before closing time. During lunch, we came to the conclusion that we might deviate off the highway and pass through Maffra after all, so I called my rellies from Briagolong to ask if they wanted to catch up. As I had suspected, they were somewhat out of the loop, and had no idea about my trip, so we accepted their invitation to drop past Briag. We pushed our way a little bit past dark, and made it at a not too obscene hour. While Gill and Kline were busy with dinner guests, Frieda took us in very warmly - it was wonderful to catch up again, as it had been a while. It reminded me of the fact that I really want to set some time aside to bond with my extended family.
The next morning, we stuck around for a little bit to socialise, and Gill showed us her printing studio, which had been built since the last time we had been there. After some hugs and a group photo, we set off again, through the back roads. It turned out to be a bit of a short travel day, but we made it a little bit past Heyfield, where we ended up turf surfing on a dairy farm. While we were making dinner, the owner, Nick, came out for a chat. He trundled back inside when we were ready to eat, but invited us to come in once we were done. We did so, and ended up bonding with the entire household and a bunch of people who had dropped past. Definitely one of the more sociable groups we have dropped in on, and we left the next morning, feeling that we definitely should drop past to say hi again when we're in the area.
We got past Moe and Trafalgar, and turf surfed in the front yard of an elderly couple just off the highway. It was set to be a bit of a cold and damp night, but we did alright. The couple in the house invited us in for a cup of tea in the morning, and we warmed ourself while waiting for the fog that had come down to lift. It stayed pretty dense, so we ended up just riding off, and finding ourselves out of the fog pretty quickly. We agreed to make it to Healesville in the next two days, and that this day would be for getting a little bit north of Pakenham, and into the Dandenongs. We got off the highway a little past Warragul, and rode through the town of Drouin with a sense of deja vu - turns out we had stopped there last time we had been in that neck of the woods, to get petrol. We continued parallel to the highway, stopped in Bunyip for lunch, and finally got to go through the cutely named towns of Garfield and Nar Nar Goon, which was nice. Not that the towns themselves were necessarily that interesting, but we had both wanted to go through on account of the names.
We made it to Pakenham pretty much exactly at sunset, and pushed north a little bit. Things got pretty dicey after dark, as there was no shoulder, the road was winding and unlit, and there were some reasonably fast trucks going along it, so we decided it was time to stop for the night. We were just about to ride into someone's driveway when a car beat us to it - it happened to contain Paul, the owner, who happily gave us permission to put up our tent. He also remarked that it was going to be a bloody cold night, but we assured him that we had almost certainly camped through worse. As it was, we did take the opportunity to warm ourselves for a while at the fire he lit outside, and Sundance explained physics-related concepts which Paul was curious about.
It did turn out to be a fairly cold night, but nothing we couldn't handle. We did wake up to rain pattering on our tent, so we had to roll it up soggy again. Not to worry - we got ourselves ready to go before Paul and family were up, so we left them a thank you note, put on our wet weather gear, and got going. We rode through the rain for a little while, grinding up a few respectable hills before the weather cleared and the road flattened somewhat. It was a real relief - we had expected crossing the Dandenongs to be a lot worse than it actually turned out to be. We made it to Woori Yallock for lunch, at which point we were only another 16km from Healesville. We bypassed the town itself, and took the back way to Gary's place. We pushed our way up the steep rise of our last hundred metres or so, and were greeted by Gary and Teena.
By Sundance:
Teena spotted us coming up the street, and Dad was waiting in the driveway to take a few happy snaps as we rolled in the front gate. It was a true delight to back at my Dad's place, settling into familiar surrounds, and sharing the company of my father and Teena again. From here on, everything will be familiar ground, and perhaps for the first time in the entire journey I feel physically connected to Adelaide, and the culmination of our trek. But for now, we get a couple of rest days. Today we relaxed, ate well, and went shopping for dinner and breakfast ingredients after talking travel, politics, and life. I've even got a few of my old clothes to wear that I'd left behind last time I was here. It makes the person in the mirror seem just a little more like a long-lost friend.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Leaps and bounds
Distance in Australia: 1384.2 km
Total distance: 8766.1 km
We had intended to stay at my Dad's place for a couple of days, but the weather decided we should stay for three. We spent our time in Healesville happily hanging out on the farm, helping Dad move an old tree stump, tinkering with the bikes and cleaning our multifuel stove (which works nicely now that we determined that the recommended fuel, called "white gas" in North America, is what we Aussies call shellite), cooking up Sopa de Lima for Dad and Teena, and generally relaxing. On Saturday we decided not to head into Melbourne as the weather forecast was for high winds and rain. It turned out to be reasonably dry, but the winds were fierce, and we were glad we had delayed our departure. Apparently a couple of trees got blown over in Healesville.
On Sunday morning we had brekkie and set out, with much hugging and kissing and well-wishes. We rolled nicely down through the hills beside Healesville Sanctuary, avoiding the centre of town. We rode on along the road through Lilydale, stopping to pick up a few muesli bars to fuel us for the ride. The rest of the way, I found myself gradually seeing more and more familiar landmarks. The route we followed basically took us right through areas that I spent various parts of my childhood in, and I delighted in seeing familiar road names and landmarks - a library where I remembered borrowing books about dinosaurs as a little kid, the area where our family GP used to practice. It was starting to get reasonably late in the day, but I led Yana on a detour past the
park where I first learned to ride a bicycle, and past the first house I remember living in as a child - which was still standing, much to my amazement, although much smaller and dilapidated than I remembered. I knocked on the door, but there was nobody home - although to my amazement I recognised some defects in the paintwork on the front of the house, which I think five-year-old-me may have been responsible for. We pushed onwards towards town, catching sight of the central business district of Melbourne from the crest of a hill. Each new street seemed to hold different memories - being driven down a road the proud owner of a brand-new Swiss Army knife (which has accompanied us throughout this entire trip, decades later), the road my Dad had a shop on, the apartments one of my primary school friends lived in... Eventually we arrived at the corner of Glenferrie road. We decided to have a late lunch in the Chinese restaurant that occupies the building my Dad used to run his leatherworks business out of (largely out of curiosity on my part to see what they'd done to the old building) and discovered that their food was actually extremely nice, and we'd probably be inclined to eat there again if we were in the area.
It felt great to be navigating through a city by memory rather than maps. We rode onward to follow the bike path along the Yarra river, a path I haven't cycled along since I was in high school, catching glimpses of the city along the way. We turned up Chapel street, and then (getting carried away with how familiar everything was) I forgot one of the turns that Google Maps had recommended, which resulted in us going too far south and having to backtrack to our friend Grace's place. But Grace greeted us warmly, with a delicious Sunday roast, and we chatted far too late into the night.
We spent Monday looking around town (and bumped into an old friend of mine from gymnastics, on the tram into town), doing a bit of shopping, and headed back to Grace's place, where we all watched the DVD of Secretary for after-dinner entertainment. On Tuesday we wound up going shopping in town a bit - I'm looking for a new phone, and Yana's been on the prowl for a new camera to replace the one we've used during this journey (which has gradually been wearing out, e.g. the timer button no longer works, which is why all the photos of us on the blog are taken at arm's length), and in the evening we took Grace out to dinner at an Indian restaurant on Lygon street to say thank you for letting us stay at her place. On Wednesday we headed to lunch with my brother, Luc, and sister Greta, and their mother and caught up on what they're all keeping busy with these days. After that we scooted back to Grace's place, collected our bikes, and rode out to the home of Brad, one of my oldest and best friends from high school. The route was a bit confusing in places, as I haven't lived in Melbourne for 19 years, and a lot of roadworks have happened in that time, but we got there in the end (despite a near miss from a silly woman in a car who rolled through an intersection and completely failed to see me), had dinner, met Brad's wife (at long last - I don't think she really believed we actually existed, as we've kept not meeting each other for one reason or another for several years!), and gave Brad the slideshow treatment of our excellent adventure.
On Thursday morning Brad showed us how to get on the Federation Trail bike path down to Werribee, which was a pleasantly traffic-free and reasonably verdant way to go, even if we were fighting a headwind the whole way. We stopped in Werribee for lunch, and to buy supplies, then headed out of town along a road that eventually turned to hard-packed dirt. That and the headwind made it slow going, but once again we were glad we had mountain bikes instead of road bikes. By sunset we found ourselves a turf-surf on the farm of a fellow called Damien, who drove us across his paddock to camp by a natural spring, sheltered from the wind in a stand of manna gums. Oh, once a pair of cyclists camped by a billabong...
The following morning Damien picked us up and chatted to us, describing how his farm was located quite close to where the explorer Hovell had found a stream and good soil for farming. We then pressed on past Anakie (which means three sisters in the local aboriginal language - referring to three extinct volcanic cones in the area), up into the Brisbane Ranges national park, stopped for lunch in the town of Meredith, then pressed onwards through Mt Mercer to Yana's parent's place in Dereel.
The dirt by the roadsides was becoming that wonderful red-ochre colour that screams "Australia!", and we saw a few mobs of kangaroos bounding across the road in places. Yana's Dad wanted us to call just before we arrived so he could take pictures of us arriving, but the mobile phone reception was lousy, so we made several failed attempts, eventually arrived without proper notice, and had to pose for our "arrival" photos.
This morning we went in to Ballarat, to watch Yana's mother taking their new dog (which looks like he's half-bear) through his paces in obedience class, and this afternoon and tomorrow her father is dedicating some time to teaching me how he bakes sourdough bread. Yummy!
By Yana:
Thankfully, our most recent day of riding hadn't been as windy as the previous one. As I came to realise in the morning, part of the reason I was going even slower than usual was my chain, which was producing an obnoxious screeching noise with each tread of the pedal - probably less than a km into the day, we stopped at the top of a hill and Sundance lubed the chain for me, which shut the bike up. Words cannot describe how grateful I was for that, as I really don't think I could have taken twenty minutes of that noise, let alone all day. Apparently our recent ride through the rain, on the way to Brad's place, had washed the grease off.
Ironically, the steepest hills that day were not while going through the Brisbane Ranges - that was actually quite flat and pleasant - but further on, as we had to cross two valleys. One of our decents was so steep that even Sundance put on the brakes, which is saying something.
As Sundance has already mentioned, it turned out to be practically impossible to warn my parents when we were about to arrive. Apart from the reception being absolutely awful in the area, it turned out one of the landline phones was on the blink, too. Upon seeing us, dad chased us out of the gate again to ride past as he took the photo. It was already getting a little dusky by then, so we ended up opting for an artistic 5-second shot of us riding past in a curve with our blinky lights on.
It's been surprisingly comforting being back at my parents' place, and not just because I finally got to see my crotchety old cat again. We also finally got to meet the new additions to my parents' household, their new Siamese cat, and shaggy black rascal of a German Shepherd puppy. The little bugger is quite the handful, and it's not without a certain amount of glee that I have watched my cat smack him one every now and again.
We now have the decision of which way to go back to Adelaide ahead of us. While we have pretty much decided that going along the Great Ocean Road is going to be a) cutting it very close in terms of time, and b) disgustingly cold, there are still some other possibilities, including possibly going along part of the Murray River, which sounds like a nice idea. We shall have to look into it.
Total distance: 8766.1 km
By Sundance:
We had intended to stay at my Dad's place for a couple of days, but the weather decided we should stay for three. We spent our time in Healesville happily hanging out on the farm, helping Dad move an old tree stump, tinkering with the bikes and cleaning our multifuel stove (which works nicely now that we determined that the recommended fuel, called "white gas" in North America, is what we Aussies call shellite), cooking up Sopa de Lima for Dad and Teena, and generally relaxing. On Saturday we decided not to head into Melbourne as the weather forecast was for high winds and rain. It turned out to be reasonably dry, but the winds were fierce, and we were glad we had delayed our departure. Apparently a couple of trees got blown over in Healesville.
On Sunday morning we had brekkie and set out, with much hugging and kissing and well-wishes. We rolled nicely down through the hills beside Healesville Sanctuary, avoiding the centre of town. We rode on along the road through Lilydale, stopping to pick up a few muesli bars to fuel us for the ride. The rest of the way, I found myself gradually seeing more and more familiar landmarks. The route we followed basically took us right through areas that I spent various parts of my childhood in, and I delighted in seeing familiar road names and landmarks - a library where I remembered borrowing books about dinosaurs as a little kid, the area where our family GP used to practice. It was starting to get reasonably late in the day, but I led Yana on a detour past the
park where I first learned to ride a bicycle, and past the first house I remember living in as a child - which was still standing, much to my amazement, although much smaller and dilapidated than I remembered. I knocked on the door, but there was nobody home - although to my amazement I recognised some defects in the paintwork on the front of the house, which I think five-year-old-me may have been responsible for. We pushed onwards towards town, catching sight of the central business district of Melbourne from the crest of a hill. Each new street seemed to hold different memories - being driven down a road the proud owner of a brand-new Swiss Army knife (which has accompanied us throughout this entire trip, decades later), the road my Dad had a shop on, the apartments one of my primary school friends lived in... Eventually we arrived at the corner of Glenferrie road. We decided to have a late lunch in the Chinese restaurant that occupies the building my Dad used to run his leatherworks business out of (largely out of curiosity on my part to see what they'd done to the old building) and discovered that their food was actually extremely nice, and we'd probably be inclined to eat there again if we were in the area.
We spent Monday looking around town (and bumped into an old friend of mine from gymnastics, on the tram into town), doing a bit of shopping, and headed back to Grace's place, where we all watched the DVD of Secretary for after-dinner entertainment. On Tuesday we wound up going shopping in town a bit - I'm looking for a new phone, and Yana's been on the prowl for a new camera to replace the one we've used during this journey (which has gradually been wearing out, e.g. the timer button no longer works, which is why all the photos of us on the blog are taken at arm's length), and in the evening we took Grace out to dinner at an Indian restaurant on Lygon street to say thank you for letting us stay at her place. On Wednesday we headed to lunch with my brother, Luc, and sister Greta, and their mother and caught up on what they're all keeping busy with these days. After that we scooted back to Grace's place, collected our bikes, and rode out to the home of Brad, one of my oldest and best friends from high school. The route was a bit confusing in places, as I haven't lived in Melbourne for 19 years, and a lot of roadworks have happened in that time, but we got there in the end (despite a near miss from a silly woman in a car who rolled through an intersection and completely failed to see me), had dinner, met Brad's wife (at long last - I don't think she really believed we actually existed, as we've kept not meeting each other for one reason or another for several years!), and gave Brad the slideshow treatment of our excellent adventure.
On Thursday morning Brad showed us how to get on the Federation Trail bike path down to Werribee, which was a pleasantly traffic-free and reasonably verdant way to go, even if we were fighting a headwind the whole way. We stopped in Werribee for lunch, and to buy supplies, then headed out of town along a road that eventually turned to hard-packed dirt. That and the headwind made it slow going, but once again we were glad we had mountain bikes instead of road bikes. By sunset we found ourselves a turf-surf on the farm of a fellow called Damien, who drove us across his paddock to camp by a natural spring, sheltered from the wind in a stand of manna gums. Oh, once a pair of cyclists camped by a billabong...
The following morning Damien picked us up and chatted to us, describing how his farm was located quite close to where the explorer Hovell had found a stream and good soil for farming. We then pressed on past Anakie (which means three sisters in the local aboriginal language - referring to three extinct volcanic cones in the area), up into the Brisbane Ranges national park, stopped for lunch in the town of Meredith, then pressed onwards through Mt Mercer to Yana's parent's place in Dereel.
The dirt by the roadsides was becoming that wonderful red-ochre colour that screams "Australia!", and we saw a few mobs of kangaroos bounding across the road in places. Yana's Dad wanted us to call just before we arrived so he could take pictures of us arriving, but the mobile phone reception was lousy, so we made several failed attempts, eventually arrived without proper notice, and had to pose for our "arrival" photos.
This morning we went in to Ballarat, to watch Yana's mother taking their new dog (which looks like he's half-bear) through his paces in obedience class, and this afternoon and tomorrow her father is dedicating some time to teaching me how he bakes sourdough bread. Yummy!
By Yana:
Thankfully, our most recent day of riding hadn't been as windy as the previous one. As I came to realise in the morning, part of the reason I was going even slower than usual was my chain, which was producing an obnoxious screeching noise with each tread of the pedal - probably less than a km into the day, we stopped at the top of a hill and Sundance lubed the chain for me, which shut the bike up. Words cannot describe how grateful I was for that, as I really don't think I could have taken twenty minutes of that noise, let alone all day. Apparently our recent ride through the rain, on the way to Brad's place, had washed the grease off.
Ironically, the steepest hills that day were not while going through the Brisbane Ranges - that was actually quite flat and pleasant - but further on, as we had to cross two valleys. One of our decents was so steep that even Sundance put on the brakes, which is saying something.
As Sundance has already mentioned, it turned out to be practically impossible to warn my parents when we were about to arrive. Apart from the reception being absolutely awful in the area, it turned out one of the landline phones was on the blink, too. Upon seeing us, dad chased us out of the gate again to ride past as he took the photo. It was already getting a little dusky by then, so we ended up opting for an artistic 5-second shot of us riding past in a curve with our blinky lights on.
It's been surprisingly comforting being back at my parents' place, and not just because I finally got to see my crotchety old cat again. We also finally got to meet the new additions to my parents' household, their new Siamese cat, and shaggy black rascal of a German Shepherd puppy. The little bugger is quite the handful, and it's not without a certain amount of glee that I have watched my cat smack him one every now and again.
We now have the decision of which way to go back to Adelaide ahead of us. While we have pretty much decided that going along the Great Ocean Road is going to be a) cutting it very close in terms of time, and b) disgustingly cold, there are still some other possibilities, including possibly going along part of the Murray River, which sounds like a nice idea. We shall have to look into it.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Come and See Dereel Thing...
Distance in Australia: 1477.15km
Total Distance: 8859.05
By Yana:
We spent an extra day in Dereel with my parents, taking the time to chill and enjoy more excellent food. On our second evening, Mum's friend Christiane came over for dinner, and we stuffed ourselves silly with various types of curry, at which point Sundance of course put us all to shame. Yup, we still exercise hard. We also took the car into Ballarat the following day, in the name of getting groceries for dinner that night (Sopa de Lima and Chicken Cordon Bleu), and also to get provisions for the next few days of our trip, as we weren't sure when we would next pass a town with decent shopping facilities - we were quite deliberately planning to circumnavigate Ballarat.
The morning of our departure, we got off to a bit of a slow start, and were only ready to go at midday. Sundance had to re-measure the front wheel of his bike, as his speedo/odometer had obnoxiously decided to reset itself completely. Good thing we had written the previous blog entry, so we could enter the important stats again. The day was quite pleasant, which was a nice change from the previous day, which had been all rainy and icky. As Mum had had to leave for town, we had already said our goodbyes to her. Dad waved us off, equipped with his camera, and we headed down Rokewood Junction Road, deeper into the middle of nowhere. The road was blissfully flat, and even the slight headwind we had wasn't so bad. We passed through Rokewood Junction, as well as various other little localities which aren't marked on the maps. We made the occasional snackstop whenever we got hungry, having decided to push all the way to Skipton, in order to have lunch there. Sundance got a few groceries there and we had our sandwiches, bundled up against the increasing cold. There was a family from out of town using the next picnic table - Skipton was a point of interest to them, as one of their ancestors used to be the schoolmaster there.
We headed onwards, figuring that we'd maybe get another 20km or so further before sunset. Not quite far enough to get to the next town, Streatham, but we were going to go for a turf surf anyway. Around the time the sun started to set, we started to keep an eye out for reasonable candidates, especially as we didn't want to ride in the dark, as Sundance's headlight had a flat battery. We found that it was pretty empty, aside from the paddocks filled with empty tin sheds. Farmland, obviously. We did spot a pretty little brick house with a beautiful driveway planted with flowering natives, but it was apparently abandoned. From the looks of it, the front yard was being used as an occasional sheep paddock by someone, as it was strewn with sheep dung.
We had almost resigned ourselves to heading to Streatham, as it was getting increasingly dark, but ended up spotting some lights a little way off the road. We went up a long dirt driveway to investigate, and discovered a friendly-looking house. We were greeted by the lady of the house, Sally, who didn't hear Sundance knocking on the door but fortuitously came out to look for the family dog, and her four little boys. She was quite happy for us to put our tent, and ended up directing us to the cottage where one of their farm hands, Evan, lived. We trundled down the driveway to the cottage in the headlights of the car which Sally had put on for our benefit, and knocked on Evan's door, explaining that Sally had given us permission to camp nearby. He ended up inviting us to use the spare bedroom in the cottage, as the other fellow who lives in there is currently travelling. Convenient. We accepted, after making sure we wouldn't be cramping his style.
While making dinner, we also got to meet Sally's hubby, Alastair, who was helping Evan move in some sort of cabinet. We had our dinner in the comfort of the house, with an episode of Mythbusters, followed by Man vs Wild, which is a bit of a luxury. We turned in a bit later than planned, but still got a good night's sleep, and didn't get up too horribly late.
We got up to a bit of a damp morning, and got ourselves ready, only briefly catching sight of Evan, as he was already up and about, doing his work. We went past the main house on our way out, and came across Sally, Alastair, and their kidlets. As it started to rain just then, we stepped under the shelter and ended up chatting for a bit, telling them about our adventures thus far. We told them that we would probably be aiming for Dunkeld today, which Alastair told us is a beautiful place, boasting one of the top two restaurants in Victoria.
When we got a break in the rain, we got moving, and back onto the road. As the road was wet, we found ourselves occasionally sprayed by a passing truck, as they kicked up a fairly impressive amount of water as they went past, no matter how polite they were about giving us a wide berth. We shot through Streatham, wanting to head on to Lake Bolac fairly promptly. About half-way there, we found ourselves in another little town, Westmere, and made a quick stop at the little antique shop we found there. I partook in a cup of mocha, and Sundance got himself some ginger beer as we admired the various nifty little antiques, which were varied indeed. There were quite a few wooden inlays of various Disney critters, as well as all sorts of crockery, and old motor cycle, a small stove, and several ceramic hot water jugs. Not bad.
It was raining again when we came out, but we just shrugged and headed onwards to Lake Bolac, where we decided to have lunch. Conveniently, there is a tourist information centre here, with internet access, so I'm taking advantage of the chance to type up a blog post. The town itself is quite pleasant, and obviously geared to cater to the travellers who pass through it, which is appreciated. The weather has also become a bit more sunny, which is nice too. Might turn out to be a nice ride to Dunkeld, after all. But I think we must remember to come back here sometime, partly for the consumerist urge to buy one of the rusty metal emu and wallaby lawn ornaments which can be procured here.
Total Distance: 8859.05
By Yana:
We spent an extra day in Dereel with my parents, taking the time to chill and enjoy more excellent food. On our second evening, Mum's friend Christiane came over for dinner, and we stuffed ourselves silly with various types of curry, at which point Sundance of course put us all to shame. Yup, we still exercise hard. We also took the car into Ballarat the following day, in the name of getting groceries for dinner that night (Sopa de Lima and Chicken Cordon Bleu), and also to get provisions for the next few days of our trip, as we weren't sure when we would next pass a town with decent shopping facilities - we were quite deliberately planning to circumnavigate Ballarat.
The morning of our departure, we got off to a bit of a slow start, and were only ready to go at midday. Sundance had to re-measure the front wheel of his bike, as his speedo/odometer had obnoxiously decided to reset itself completely. Good thing we had written the previous blog entry, so we could enter the important stats again. The day was quite pleasant, which was a nice change from the previous day, which had been all rainy and icky. As Mum had had to leave for town, we had already said our goodbyes to her. Dad waved us off, equipped with his camera, and we headed down Rokewood Junction Road, deeper into the middle of nowhere. The road was blissfully flat, and even the slight headwind we had wasn't so bad. We passed through Rokewood Junction, as well as various other little localities which aren't marked on the maps. We made the occasional snackstop whenever we got hungry, having decided to push all the way to Skipton, in order to have lunch there. Sundance got a few groceries there and we had our sandwiches, bundled up against the increasing cold. There was a family from out of town using the next picnic table - Skipton was a point of interest to them, as one of their ancestors used to be the schoolmaster there.
We headed onwards, figuring that we'd maybe get another 20km or so further before sunset. Not quite far enough to get to the next town, Streatham, but we were going to go for a turf surf anyway. Around the time the sun started to set, we started to keep an eye out for reasonable candidates, especially as we didn't want to ride in the dark, as Sundance's headlight had a flat battery. We found that it was pretty empty, aside from the paddocks filled with empty tin sheds. Farmland, obviously. We did spot a pretty little brick house with a beautiful driveway planted with flowering natives, but it was apparently abandoned. From the looks of it, the front yard was being used as an occasional sheep paddock by someone, as it was strewn with sheep dung.
We had almost resigned ourselves to heading to Streatham, as it was getting increasingly dark, but ended up spotting some lights a little way off the road. We went up a long dirt driveway to investigate, and discovered a friendly-looking house. We were greeted by the lady of the house, Sally, who didn't hear Sundance knocking on the door but fortuitously came out to look for the family dog, and her four little boys. She was quite happy for us to put our tent, and ended up directing us to the cottage where one of their farm hands, Evan, lived. We trundled down the driveway to the cottage in the headlights of the car which Sally had put on for our benefit, and knocked on Evan's door, explaining that Sally had given us permission to camp nearby. He ended up inviting us to use the spare bedroom in the cottage, as the other fellow who lives in there is currently travelling. Convenient. We accepted, after making sure we wouldn't be cramping his style.
While making dinner, we also got to meet Sally's hubby, Alastair, who was helping Evan move in some sort of cabinet. We had our dinner in the comfort of the house, with an episode of Mythbusters, followed by Man vs Wild, which is a bit of a luxury. We turned in a bit later than planned, but still got a good night's sleep, and didn't get up too horribly late.
We got up to a bit of a damp morning, and got ourselves ready, only briefly catching sight of Evan, as he was already up and about, doing his work. We went past the main house on our way out, and came across Sally, Alastair, and their kidlets. As it started to rain just then, we stepped under the shelter and ended up chatting for a bit, telling them about our adventures thus far. We told them that we would probably be aiming for Dunkeld today, which Alastair told us is a beautiful place, boasting one of the top two restaurants in Victoria.
When we got a break in the rain, we got moving, and back onto the road. As the road was wet, we found ourselves occasionally sprayed by a passing truck, as they kicked up a fairly impressive amount of water as they went past, no matter how polite they were about giving us a wide berth. We shot through Streatham, wanting to head on to Lake Bolac fairly promptly. About half-way there, we found ourselves in another little town, Westmere, and made a quick stop at the little antique shop we found there. I partook in a cup of mocha, and Sundance got himself some ginger beer as we admired the various nifty little antiques, which were varied indeed. There were quite a few wooden inlays of various Disney critters, as well as all sorts of crockery, and old motor cycle, a small stove, and several ceramic hot water jugs. Not bad.
It was raining again when we came out, but we just shrugged and headed onwards to Lake Bolac, where we decided to have lunch. Conveniently, there is a tourist information centre here, with internet access, so I'm taking advantage of the chance to type up a blog post. The town itself is quite pleasant, and obviously geared to cater to the travellers who pass through it, which is appreciated. The weather has also become a bit more sunny, which is nice too. Might turn out to be a nice ride to Dunkeld, after all. But I think we must remember to come back here sometime, partly for the consumerist urge to buy one of the rusty metal emu and wallaby lawn ornaments which can be procured here.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
We are the Grampians, my friend!
Distance in Australia: 1631.8 km
Total Distance: 9012.6 km
By Sundance:
After our last blog update in Lake bolac, we hopped on our bikes and pressed wetwards through Glenthompson, where we got sprinkled by a sudden shower a few hundred metres short of a shelter, and then towards Dunkeld. We also caught our first glimpse of the majestic Grampians rising in the distance. About 6km out of Dunkeld a guy pulled up in his ute offering to give us a lift into town. He informed us that his wife had seen us one the road and was concerned that it was getting dark and we weren't very visible. We explained to the fellow (who's name turned out to be Robin) that while we appreciated the offer, it was a bit of a matter of pride to cover the whole distance on our own leg-power, and we really just were looking for a place to put up a tent for the night. Robin suggested that one of his sons had a farm a little way down the road where we could stay, then suggested that if we wanted more comfortable lodgings we could ride to Dunkeld and stay at his place. Since it was only another six kilometres we opted for the latter, memorised the instructions to get to his house, and set off in his wake. We arrived about twenty minutes later, and after a quick jaunt to the local cafe for some dinner, settled in to a very pleasant discussion of the upcoming election, and various envirtonmental and political matters. I also tried my hand at baking some parsnips, spuds, carrots and sweet potatoes in Robin's oven, as our appetites are gigantic and Robin offered us a few extra morsels to cook up and supplement the food we had bought from the cafe.
In the morning Robin had to take some lambs off to market, so he bid us farewell and let us make brekkie in his kitchen, shower, and lock up after ourselves. Yana made some very nice porridge, and we got ourselves well fed before hitting the road, though we did feel compelled to leave Robin some money for the food of his we'd consumed. It was a pretty foggy day, but once we got out of town we found that the sky started to clear, and we had quite a good view of The Grampians as we rode along. We stopped in Cavendish for lunch, where we were amused to see the local pub was called the Bunyip Hotel, and a group of adolescent magpies wandered around our lunch table looking cutely inquisitive. The terrain was rolling, a bit less flat than we would have considered ideal, but it was nice and green with lots of gum trees. We rode on to Balmoral, where we knocked on a door for a turf-surf and met a fellow called Joe, who let us put our tent up at the back of his land, which fronts onto the Glenelg river. While Yana set up the tent, and then got sat upon by Joe's insanely affectionate dog, Monster, I struggled with getting a fire stared (most of the wood was quite damp, at some of it I concluded was taken from fenceposts that had been treated with some sort of fire-retardant chemical, since I found that they stubbornly refused to burn) although it eventually turned into a merry blaze. We popped up to the house before bed to use the loo, and got chatting with Joe and his wife Betty, and ended up having quite a late night. betty did mention that ther were platypi (or platypusses) in the river, but alas we didn't spot any of them.
This morning Joe and Betty had gone to work, and we were having breakfast when Yana spotted that one of their hirses had gotten her foot caught in a roll of wire, so Yana had to be horse-whisperer and hold her steady while I uncoiled the wire from her foot. Fortunately she was a very chilled-out horse and nobody got hurt. We hopped on our bikes, abnd rode up into town wher we saw a very cool house built into an earth-mound We knocked on the door and found that the resident was an American woman who'd moved to Australia 38 years ago to be a teacher. So we chatted a bit about our bike trip, and the design of the house, and then headed off to grab second-breakfast at a cafe in town before riding out into the countryside once more. It wasn't long before we passed the 9000 km mark of our journey, the last thousand-kilometre mark of this trip, as we're only a few hundred km from Adelaide now. We then rolled on into the historic town of Harrow, where we're currently having lunch.
Total Distance: 9012.6 km
By Sundance:
After our last blog update in Lake bolac, we hopped on our bikes and pressed wetwards through Glenthompson, where we got sprinkled by a sudden shower a few hundred metres short of a shelter, and then towards Dunkeld. We also caught our first glimpse of the majestic Grampians rising in the distance. About 6km out of Dunkeld a guy pulled up in his ute offering to give us a lift into town. He informed us that his wife had seen us one the road and was concerned that it was getting dark and we weren't very visible. We explained to the fellow (who's name turned out to be Robin) that while we appreciated the offer, it was a bit of a matter of pride to cover the whole distance on our own leg-power, and we really just were looking for a place to put up a tent for the night. Robin suggested that one of his sons had a farm a little way down the road where we could stay, then suggested that if we wanted more comfortable lodgings we could ride to Dunkeld and stay at his place. Since it was only another six kilometres we opted for the latter, memorised the instructions to get to his house, and set off in his wake. We arrived about twenty minutes later, and after a quick jaunt to the local cafe for some dinner, settled in to a very pleasant discussion of the upcoming election, and various envirtonmental and political matters. I also tried my hand at baking some parsnips, spuds, carrots and sweet potatoes in Robin's oven, as our appetites are gigantic and Robin offered us a few extra morsels to cook up and supplement the food we had bought from the cafe.
In the morning Robin had to take some lambs off to market, so he bid us farewell and let us make brekkie in his kitchen, shower, and lock up after ourselves. Yana made some very nice porridge, and we got ourselves well fed before hitting the road, though we did feel compelled to leave Robin some money for the food of his we'd consumed. It was a pretty foggy day, but once we got out of town we found that the sky started to clear, and we had quite a good view of The Grampians as we rode along. We stopped in Cavendish for lunch, where we were amused to see the local pub was called the Bunyip Hotel, and a group of adolescent magpies wandered around our lunch table looking cutely inquisitive. The terrain was rolling, a bit less flat than we would have considered ideal, but it was nice and green with lots of gum trees. We rode on to Balmoral, where we knocked on a door for a turf-surf and met a fellow called Joe, who let us put our tent up at the back of his land, which fronts onto the Glenelg river. While Yana set up the tent, and then got sat upon by Joe's insanely affectionate dog, Monster, I struggled with getting a fire stared (most of the wood was quite damp, at some of it I concluded was taken from fenceposts that had been treated with some sort of fire-retardant chemical, since I found that they stubbornly refused to burn) although it eventually turned into a merry blaze. We popped up to the house before bed to use the loo, and got chatting with Joe and his wife Betty, and ended up having quite a late night. betty did mention that ther were platypi (or platypusses) in the river, but alas we didn't spot any of them.
This morning Joe and Betty had gone to work, and we were having breakfast when Yana spotted that one of their hirses had gotten her foot caught in a roll of wire, so Yana had to be horse-whisperer and hold her steady while I uncoiled the wire from her foot. Fortunately she was a very chilled-out horse and nobody got hurt. We hopped on our bikes, abnd rode up into town wher we saw a very cool house built into an earth-mound We knocked on the door and found that the resident was an American woman who'd moved to Australia 38 years ago to be a teacher. So we chatted a bit about our bike trip, and the design of the house, and then headed off to grab second-breakfast at a cafe in town before riding out into the countryside once more. It wasn't long before we passed the 9000 km mark of our journey, the last thousand-kilometre mark of this trip, as we're only a few hundred km from Adelaide now. We then rolled on into the historic town of Harrow, where we're currently having lunch.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Coorong, and thanks for all the fish!
Distance in Australia: 2036.06 km
Total Distance: 9417.8 km
Harrow turned out to be one of those surprisingly charming little towns, and we found ourselves spending a little more time there than we initially intended to. We had a quick touristy look at the log jail, which is right next to a little wooden shed which apparently used to be the local "Finishing School for Young Ladies and College of Deportment". We've rarely seen such a grungy little building give itself such airs and graces, and had a good giggle about it.
By the time we left Harrow, it was well into the afternoon, and we were still about 15km away from Edenhope when it started getting dark. Still, as we'd kept up alright with our schedule in the previous days, we decided that this didn't bother us too much, and we started to keep an eye out for turf surf opportunities. We did still have to ride on for a little bit, but after a few sheep paddocks, we found a little house and knocked. Val, the lady who answered the door, was happy enough for us to put up our tent, and got hold of her hubby, Peter to figure out somewhere reasonably dry to put it. In the end, Peter offered to stick us in their little granny flat instead, which we accepted. Another pretty comfortable night.
In the morning, while we were getting ready, we had a bit of a chin wag with Peter, and he bestowed on us a few grapefruits from his tree. We set off shortly afterwards, and rode the last 11km into Edenhope. The town was pleasant enough, though not hugely remarkable. It did have a bit of that vibe of a South Australian country town though, which was kind of nice. We also discovered, when we got our groceries, that the local supermarket had completely phased out plastic bags! Great to finally see that. That done, we skipped across the road to the bakery, as Val and Peter had told us that it was a good one, and had ourselves some pies. While we were eating, we spotted another heavily loaded bicycle close to us, and realised that there was a fellow traveller around. When the fellow returned to his bike, we popped out to chat to him. His name is Guillaume, and he's heading from Melbourne up to Alice Springs via Adelaide. Very cool. We exchanged contact details, and if we happen to get to Adelaide before Guillaume does, offered him a place to crash. Not sure we'll get there before him though, he's not carrying quite as much weight as us, and has a slightly more zoomy bike. You never know though.
We headed off a little bit before Guillaume, towards Apsley - the last town before the SA border! We were heading along at a fair clip, which was nice. We got to Apsley in pretty decent time, and made a quick stop for the local public toilet. We ended up having a bit of a chat with the guy who runs the local roadhouse, a fellow named Gary. He was a bit of an interesting character, with the right side of his face tattooed, and skull-adorned swastikas on the backs of his hands. He was interested to hear about our travels though, and we had a pleasant enough conversation.
We headed onwards, with only a short distance left to the SA border. We stopped a few km short to dig up our grapefruits, as we would have to get rid of them soon, which was when Guillaume caught up with us. After a brief chat, he zoomed onwards, and we lost him completely.
We reached the state border shortly afterwards, took our celebratory photo of our last state crossing, and rode on in search of somewhere to sit down and have lunch. We ended up sitting down by the quarantine bin when we reached it, made our sandwiches, ate our grapefruits, and threw the peel in. Interestingly, most of the quarantine paranoia seems to be about phylloxera, that nasty vineyard parasite, although fruit flies are also a thing South Australia is trying to keep out.
After lunch, we kept on pedalling, and discovered a paddock full of kangaroos, wallabies and deer off the side of the road, just short of the town of Hynam. Quite cute - the kangas and wallabies all hopped up to the fence to say hi, whereas the deer dashed across to the other side of the paddock. We rode through Hynam witout stopping, and headed onwards to Naracoorte, with maybe an hour of daylight left.
Once in Naracoorte, we considered our options. The town boasts some nice caves about 6km south, but we also have a big day ahead of us tomorrow if we want to make it to Kingston, which is right on the coast. We ended up heading to the tourist information centre, and the fellow there was quite helpful. We wallowed in indecision for a little while, and almost went down to the caves, with the intention of camping and then looking at them the next day, but changed our mind at the last minute, as the weather was turning cold and icky. We decided to head in the direction of Kingston, to at least knock some of that distance off of the following day's trip. We didn't end up going much further though, as it was starting to get dark, and a few kms out of town we picked a cluster of housey-looking lights to try for a turf surf at.
This turned out to be a little more complex than expected, as we ended up riding a decent little distance over a very gravelly track with some pretty big rocks, but we eventually found the house in question. The inhabitants saw us as we rode up, and came out while we were being mugged by a pair of friendly dogs. Gabrielle, the lady of the house, consented for us to put up our tent, and hung around outside to chat with us while we put it up. We ended up cooking our dinner indoors, which was a plus, and are now chatting with the family. We also had the opportunity to do some laundry, which was an overdue necessity.
We ended up having a fairly late night staying with Gabrielle and Brett near Naracoorte, as we managed to get sucked into watching an AFL game. Hawthorne vs St Kilda, a draw, if anyone's interested. We still got up at a not too disgraceful hour, but ended up chatting with Brett a bit after breakfast. To add to all of this, just when we were about to set off, Sundance spotted a bulge in my front tyre - yes, ladies and gentlemen, the first Wal-Mart tyre had worn through, after taking me all the way from Hazlehurst, Mississippi, to Naracoorte, South Australia. Brett quickly ran us up to town in his ute, and we got a new semi-slick tyre at the bike shop. A fairly efficient procedure, but it still took a bit of extra time.
Our second attempt to get going was successful, and we said our goodbyes. A few kilometres down the road, Sundance spotted our friend Guillaume having a rest. We had a quick catch up chat: he'd stayed at a hostel in Naracoorte, and was now tossing up whether to head to Robe or to Kingston. We left him to his decision and kept on going, figuring we'd have lunch in Lucindale, which was at roughly the 40km mark. The terrain was fairly flat, although we sort of felt like we had a bit of a headwind. Must have been our imagination though, because not a blade of grass was stirring. We got to Lucindale without further incident, though we were feeling a little pooped.
We set ourselves up for lunch at a little picnic table, where someone had for some reason left a pristine 3 litre bottle of milk, which looked like it might even still be fresh. Odd. We had our sandwiches, supplemented with some chicken nuggets and a sausage roll Sundance procured from the local tuck shop. He bumped into Guillaume there, who had arrived while we were making our sandwiches. While we were eating, we saw him zoom past us. He had decided to head for Kingston, the shorter way.
We headed off not much later, still noting that phantom headwind. Maybe it was just the fairly rough paving of the road which was wearing us out - it does make a difference.
A few kilometres out of Lucindale, I saw an indistinctly blob-shapped brown thing crossing the road in the distance. It had burrowed into the grass on the side of the road by the time we came close enough to see, but we decided to investigate anyway. As it turned out, the critter in question was an echidna! Very cool. I'd never seen one before, and to come across one in the wild kind of added to the thrill. The echidna wasn't feeling sociable, and just kind of stuck out all his quills. We hung back a little bit, and were rewarded with it at least showing its long nose as it looked around to see if we were gone.
We eventually stopped pestering the little fellow, and continued to head towards Kingston. We weren't going to make it before dark, so after a little contemplation, we decided to opt for a turf surf, if we could find one. Pretty much exactly 17km before Kingston, we got lucky. We rolled into the driveway of an invitingly scruffy-looking place with a backyard overrun with cats. The proprietor, Colin, wandered out just as we were leaning our bikes against the fence to go and ask permission to pitch the tent, so it saved us a walk up to the door. He gave us permission, and had a bit of a chat while we put up the tent. He also got the nearby fire drum rolling, which was nice.
It was turning out to be a rather cold, dewy night, so after having our dinner, we headed inside to socialise with Colin and his friend Wayne who was staying over that night. We also ended up watching the latter half of Bee Movie, which was unapologetically silly. We turned in not long afterwards, once again grateful for the fact that the tent is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the cold.
As we ate our dinner and then later as we climbed into bed it was interesting to note the bats swooping around overhead. Apprently there are a bunch of fruit bats that have taken up residence in South Australia for part of the year, though they normally belong in Queensland. The following morning we awoke, climbed out of bed and chatted some more with Colin and Wayne - Colin is a big fan of some interesting TV series, including Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, and so we had a chat about things like the Hoover Dam and the Panama Canal, and other things we'd like to see on our future travels.
We got into Kingston after about an hour's ride. Fortunately the weather was nice, but being Sunday almost everything was closed. We found an IGA supermarket which was shut, and then some local directed us down the street to a Foodland which was open. Yana waited outside while I went in to restock us on pretty much everything. We took a brief detour to look at the beach, then on the way out of town grabbed a couple of yiros' at a cafe. We're really found that having "second breakfast" is an essential part of not getting worn out by all the exercise of riding. On the road out of town we spotted the big lobster - one of the numerous Big Things made of concrete scattered around Australia - and posed for the obligatory photos. The road north of Kingston was pretty long and uninteresting, though it was nice to reach the start of the Coorong National Park. We had a map of campgrounds in the Coorong that Brett and Gabrielle had printed out for us, and we started looking out for roads leading towards places we could camp for the night (as we figured we wouldn't reach the town of Salt Creek before it was quite late and dark). We eventually opted for a road which looked to be in the right spot, even though there were no signposts indicating camping areas. It turned out to lead us to the 32 Mile Crossing camping area, which is what we had been expecting. Unfortunately, almost immediately after the drop-box where you pay your camping fees and put them in an envelope the road turned from unsealed, to sand! We had to get off and push our bikes, and after a couple of kilometres trying to find the proper camping area decided that we'd satisfied our duty to try and camp in an environmentally-harmless, responsible area and we were just damn well going to camp where it suited us! So we picked a spot where there were no plants to crush, and Yana put up the tent while I made some yummy noodles. As the night settled, a fog composed largely of mist from the ocean rolled in and obscured the stars somewhat, but still, while the rest of the country was watching the final of MasterChef, and the pre-election Great Debate (why not just combine them and call it the "Masderbate"?) we slept in the Coorong sand dunes, beneath the Southern Cross and a full moon.
We woke up in the mornng and, after packing up our campsite, walked te rest of the way through the dunes to the beach, watched the surf rolling in, admired the scenic beauty of it all and then headed back to our bikes, noting various animal tracks along the way. It looked like sometime during the night a wallaby and a feral cat may have crossed paths, and it was a bit disturbing to think of feral cats and foxes running around in this national park. We pushed our bikes back to the start of the path, washed the sand off our gears in a puddle, and rode back to the main highway. We rolled into Salt Creek about an hour later and stopped to buy some chips and local shark and mullet, as well as make sandwiches and clean the sand off our tent fly. By the time we had finished eating we had a bit of a tailwind! So with some astonishment we took off north again, passing beautiful views across the Coorong, and averaging about 20 km/h for the next couple of hours. We were about 10 km from Meningie by sunset, and passed Camp Coorong, an aboriginal cultural centre. We pushed on another couple of kms, and came to a sheep farm where Yana called the phone number on the gate and asked if we could camp for the night. We got permission, but I felt a little bit like it would be nice to see if we could stay at Camp Coorong, so I headed back by myself to doorknock, while Yana set our tent out to dry a bit more. I got to the camp and knocked on the door but nobody answered so I eventually gave up and headed back to Yana.
It was a very chilly night, and as we sat eating our dinner, looking at the moon, and planning our course over the next few days, we reflected that we may only have two more nights before we are back home in Adelaide. That's a very strange thought after almost ten months of travelling. It was a cold morning when we got up, and while we got our gear packed up with our warm gloves making us clumsy we were treated to the sight of sheep being herded past us. Then we set off and rolled along the road into Meningie.
In Meningie, Yana dropped into a supermarket to grab supplies. After we'd restocked we went and ate second breakfast by the shore of Lake Alexandrina, although it was chilly and very windy, and then went to the local library seeking internet access. That turned out to be fruitless, as the computers wouldn't read the pre-written blog |I had typed up on my USB key. We then headed to the council offices, trying to use their wireless network to get online, but their network was down! Frustrated and feeling like we'd wasted a lot of time (which we had) we set off again. The gong was slow and we had to deal with the headwind the whole way. About 20 km down the road we found a place to sit in the shelter of some trees and make sandwiches. Unfortunately as we were halfway through our lunch Yana spotted a group of bull ants making their way towards us, and as we jumped up out of their way she got a nasty bite on the ankle from one!
We pushed on and made it to Tailem Bend just before sunset. At last we were less than 100 km from Adelaide, and could see the Adelaide Hills in the distance.We decided to stop at a caravan park in Tailem Bend for the night, have a shower in the morning, and we've just arrived in Murray Bridge, having completed our last proper river/bridge crossing of the whole trip (although the pedestrian path on the bridge was so narrow we couldn't really ride and had to walk or kick our bikes across.) We're now so close that this will almost certainly be our last blog update before we complete the trip!
Total Distance: 9417.8 km
By Yana:
Harrow turned out to be one of those surprisingly charming little towns, and we found ourselves spending a little more time there than we initially intended to. We had a quick touristy look at the log jail, which is right next to a little wooden shed which apparently used to be the local "Finishing School for Young Ladies and College of Deportment". We've rarely seen such a grungy little building give itself such airs and graces, and had a good giggle about it.
By the time we left Harrow, it was well into the afternoon, and we were still about 15km away from Edenhope when it started getting dark. Still, as we'd kept up alright with our schedule in the previous days, we decided that this didn't bother us too much, and we started to keep an eye out for turf surf opportunities. We did still have to ride on for a little bit, but after a few sheep paddocks, we found a little house and knocked. Val, the lady who answered the door, was happy enough for us to put up our tent, and got hold of her hubby, Peter to figure out somewhere reasonably dry to put it. In the end, Peter offered to stick us in their little granny flat instead, which we accepted. Another pretty comfortable night.
In the morning, while we were getting ready, we had a bit of a chin wag with Peter, and he bestowed on us a few grapefruits from his tree. We set off shortly afterwards, and rode the last 11km into Edenhope. The town was pleasant enough, though not hugely remarkable. It did have a bit of that vibe of a South Australian country town though, which was kind of nice. We also discovered, when we got our groceries, that the local supermarket had completely phased out plastic bags! Great to finally see that. That done, we skipped across the road to the bakery, as Val and Peter had told us that it was a good one, and had ourselves some pies. While we were eating, we spotted another heavily loaded bicycle close to us, and realised that there was a fellow traveller around. When the fellow returned to his bike, we popped out to chat to him. His name is Guillaume, and he's heading from Melbourne up to Alice Springs via Adelaide. Very cool. We exchanged contact details, and if we happen to get to Adelaide before Guillaume does, offered him a place to crash. Not sure we'll get there before him though, he's not carrying quite as much weight as us, and has a slightly more zoomy bike. You never know though.
We headed off a little bit before Guillaume, towards Apsley - the last town before the SA border! We were heading along at a fair clip, which was nice. We got to Apsley in pretty decent time, and made a quick stop for the local public toilet. We ended up having a bit of a chat with the guy who runs the local roadhouse, a fellow named Gary. He was a bit of an interesting character, with the right side of his face tattooed, and skull-adorned swastikas on the backs of his hands. He was interested to hear about our travels though, and we had a pleasant enough conversation.
We headed onwards, with only a short distance left to the SA border. We stopped a few km short to dig up our grapefruits, as we would have to get rid of them soon, which was when Guillaume caught up with us. After a brief chat, he zoomed onwards, and we lost him completely.
We reached the state border shortly afterwards, took our celebratory photo of our last state crossing, and rode on in search of somewhere to sit down and have lunch. We ended up sitting down by the quarantine bin when we reached it, made our sandwiches, ate our grapefruits, and threw the peel in. Interestingly, most of the quarantine paranoia seems to be about phylloxera, that nasty vineyard parasite, although fruit flies are also a thing South Australia is trying to keep out.
After lunch, we kept on pedalling, and discovered a paddock full of kangaroos, wallabies and deer off the side of the road, just short of the town of Hynam. Quite cute - the kangas and wallabies all hopped up to the fence to say hi, whereas the deer dashed across to the other side of the paddock. We rode through Hynam witout stopping, and headed onwards to Naracoorte, with maybe an hour of daylight left.
Once in Naracoorte, we considered our options. The town boasts some nice caves about 6km south, but we also have a big day ahead of us tomorrow if we want to make it to Kingston, which is right on the coast. We ended up heading to the tourist information centre, and the fellow there was quite helpful. We wallowed in indecision for a little while, and almost went down to the caves, with the intention of camping and then looking at them the next day, but changed our mind at the last minute, as the weather was turning cold and icky. We decided to head in the direction of Kingston, to at least knock some of that distance off of the following day's trip. We didn't end up going much further though, as it was starting to get dark, and a few kms out of town we picked a cluster of housey-looking lights to try for a turf surf at.
This turned out to be a little more complex than expected, as we ended up riding a decent little distance over a very gravelly track with some pretty big rocks, but we eventually found the house in question. The inhabitants saw us as we rode up, and came out while we were being mugged by a pair of friendly dogs. Gabrielle, the lady of the house, consented for us to put up our tent, and hung around outside to chat with us while we put it up. We ended up cooking our dinner indoors, which was a plus, and are now chatting with the family. We also had the opportunity to do some laundry, which was an overdue necessity.
We ended up having a fairly late night staying with Gabrielle and Brett near Naracoorte, as we managed to get sucked into watching an AFL game. Hawthorne vs St Kilda, a draw, if anyone's interested. We still got up at a not too disgraceful hour, but ended up chatting with Brett a bit after breakfast. To add to all of this, just when we were about to set off, Sundance spotted a bulge in my front tyre - yes, ladies and gentlemen, the first Wal-Mart tyre had worn through, after taking me all the way from Hazlehurst, Mississippi, to Naracoorte, South Australia. Brett quickly ran us up to town in his ute, and we got a new semi-slick tyre at the bike shop. A fairly efficient procedure, but it still took a bit of extra time.
Our second attempt to get going was successful, and we said our goodbyes. A few kilometres down the road, Sundance spotted our friend Guillaume having a rest. We had a quick catch up chat: he'd stayed at a hostel in Naracoorte, and was now tossing up whether to head to Robe or to Kingston. We left him to his decision and kept on going, figuring we'd have lunch in Lucindale, which was at roughly the 40km mark. The terrain was fairly flat, although we sort of felt like we had a bit of a headwind. Must have been our imagination though, because not a blade of grass was stirring. We got to Lucindale without further incident, though we were feeling a little pooped.
We set ourselves up for lunch at a little picnic table, where someone had for some reason left a pristine 3 litre bottle of milk, which looked like it might even still be fresh. Odd. We had our sandwiches, supplemented with some chicken nuggets and a sausage roll Sundance procured from the local tuck shop. He bumped into Guillaume there, who had arrived while we were making our sandwiches. While we were eating, we saw him zoom past us. He had decided to head for Kingston, the shorter way.
We headed off not much later, still noting that phantom headwind. Maybe it was just the fairly rough paving of the road which was wearing us out - it does make a difference.
A few kilometres out of Lucindale, I saw an indistinctly blob-shapped brown thing crossing the road in the distance. It had burrowed into the grass on the side of the road by the time we came close enough to see, but we decided to investigate anyway. As it turned out, the critter in question was an echidna! Very cool. I'd never seen one before, and to come across one in the wild kind of added to the thrill. The echidna wasn't feeling sociable, and just kind of stuck out all his quills. We hung back a little bit, and were rewarded with it at least showing its long nose as it looked around to see if we were gone.
We eventually stopped pestering the little fellow, and continued to head towards Kingston. We weren't going to make it before dark, so after a little contemplation, we decided to opt for a turf surf, if we could find one. Pretty much exactly 17km before Kingston, we got lucky. We rolled into the driveway of an invitingly scruffy-looking place with a backyard overrun with cats. The proprietor, Colin, wandered out just as we were leaning our bikes against the fence to go and ask permission to pitch the tent, so it saved us a walk up to the door. He gave us permission, and had a bit of a chat while we put up the tent. He also got the nearby fire drum rolling, which was nice.
It was turning out to be a rather cold, dewy night, so after having our dinner, we headed inside to socialise with Colin and his friend Wayne who was staying over that night. We also ended up watching the latter half of Bee Movie, which was unapologetically silly. We turned in not long afterwards, once again grateful for the fact that the tent is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the cold.
By Sundance:
As we ate our dinner and then later as we climbed into bed it was interesting to note the bats swooping around overhead. Apprently there are a bunch of fruit bats that have taken up residence in South Australia for part of the year, though they normally belong in Queensland. The following morning we awoke, climbed out of bed and chatted some more with Colin and Wayne - Colin is a big fan of some interesting TV series, including Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, and so we had a chat about things like the Hoover Dam and the Panama Canal, and other things we'd like to see on our future travels.
We got into Kingston after about an hour's ride. Fortunately the weather was nice, but being Sunday almost everything was closed. We found an IGA supermarket which was shut, and then some local directed us down the street to a Foodland which was open. Yana waited outside while I went in to restock us on pretty much everything. We took a brief detour to look at the beach, then on the way out of town grabbed a couple of yiros' at a cafe. We're really found that having "second breakfast" is an essential part of not getting worn out by all the exercise of riding. On the road out of town we spotted the big lobster - one of the numerous Big Things made of concrete scattered around Australia - and posed for the obligatory photos. The road north of Kingston was pretty long and uninteresting, though it was nice to reach the start of the Coorong National Park. We had a map of campgrounds in the Coorong that Brett and Gabrielle had printed out for us, and we started looking out for roads leading towards places we could camp for the night (as we figured we wouldn't reach the town of Salt Creek before it was quite late and dark). We eventually opted for a road which looked to be in the right spot, even though there were no signposts indicating camping areas. It turned out to lead us to the 32 Mile Crossing camping area, which is what we had been expecting. Unfortunately, almost immediately after the drop-box where you pay your camping fees and put them in an envelope the road turned from unsealed, to sand! We had to get off and push our bikes, and after a couple of kilometres trying to find the proper camping area decided that we'd satisfied our duty to try and camp in an environmentally-harmless, responsible area and we were just damn well going to camp where it suited us! So we picked a spot where there were no plants to crush, and Yana put up the tent while I made some yummy noodles. As the night settled, a fog composed largely of mist from the ocean rolled in and obscured the stars somewhat, but still, while the rest of the country was watching the final of MasterChef, and the pre-election Great Debate (why not just combine them and call it the "Masderbate"?) we slept in the Coorong sand dunes, beneath the Southern Cross and a full moon.
We woke up in the mornng and, after packing up our campsite, walked te rest of the way through the dunes to the beach, watched the surf rolling in, admired the scenic beauty of it all and then headed back to our bikes, noting various animal tracks along the way. It looked like sometime during the night a wallaby and a feral cat may have crossed paths, and it was a bit disturbing to think of feral cats and foxes running around in this national park. We pushed our bikes back to the start of the path, washed the sand off our gears in a puddle, and rode back to the main highway. We rolled into Salt Creek about an hour later and stopped to buy some chips and local shark and mullet, as well as make sandwiches and clean the sand off our tent fly. By the time we had finished eating we had a bit of a tailwind! So with some astonishment we took off north again, passing beautiful views across the Coorong, and averaging about 20 km/h for the next couple of hours. We were about 10 km from Meningie by sunset, and passed Camp Coorong, an aboriginal cultural centre. We pushed on another couple of kms, and came to a sheep farm where Yana called the phone number on the gate and asked if we could camp for the night. We got permission, but I felt a little bit like it would be nice to see if we could stay at Camp Coorong, so I headed back by myself to doorknock, while Yana set our tent out to dry a bit more. I got to the camp and knocked on the door but nobody answered so I eventually gave up and headed back to Yana.
It was a very chilly night, and as we sat eating our dinner, looking at the moon, and planning our course over the next few days, we reflected that we may only have two more nights before we are back home in Adelaide. That's a very strange thought after almost ten months of travelling. It was a cold morning when we got up, and while we got our gear packed up with our warm gloves making us clumsy we were treated to the sight of sheep being herded past us. Then we set off and rolled along the road into Meningie.
In Meningie, Yana dropped into a supermarket to grab supplies. After we'd restocked we went and ate second breakfast by the shore of Lake Alexandrina, although it was chilly and very windy, and then went to the local library seeking internet access. That turned out to be fruitless, as the computers wouldn't read the pre-written blog |I had typed up on my USB key. We then headed to the council offices, trying to use their wireless network to get online, but their network was down! Frustrated and feeling like we'd wasted a lot of time (which we had) we set off again. The gong was slow and we had to deal with the headwind the whole way. About 20 km down the road we found a place to sit in the shelter of some trees and make sandwiches. Unfortunately as we were halfway through our lunch Yana spotted a group of bull ants making their way towards us, and as we jumped up out of their way she got a nasty bite on the ankle from one!
We pushed on and made it to Tailem Bend just before sunset. At last we were less than 100 km from Adelaide, and could see the Adelaide Hills in the distance.We decided to stop at a caravan park in Tailem Bend for the night, have a shower in the morning, and we've just arrived in Murray Bridge, having completed our last proper river/bridge crossing of the whole trip (although the pedestrian path on the bridge was so narrow we couldn't really ride and had to walk or kick our bikes across.) We're now so close that this will almost certainly be our last blog update before we complete the trip!
Friday, July 30, 2010
Going all the way
By Sundance:
Just a quick update, to let you all know that we made it to Adelaide yesterday! Hooray for us! It sure feels weird but wonderful to back in our own home. We'll post a full description of the last few days of the ride, and what comes next, in the next few days.
Just a quick update, to let you all know that we made it to Adelaide yesterday! Hooray for us! It sure feels weird but wonderful to back in our own home. We'll post a full description of the last few days of the ride, and what comes next, in the next few days.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
What better place to make your base than the arse end of the Earth?
Distance in Australia: 2155.01 km
Total distance: 9536.8 km
By Sundance (with help from Yana):
At long last, the day has come.
Not the day when we return to Adelaide, of course That was almost three weeks ago! The day when we finally get organised and motivated enough to write up the events of our last two days on the road and post a blog entry. Yep, we've been slack.
Last time we posted a proper blog entry, we were in Murray Bridge. After spending a little time at the local library doing our blog post we rolled down to a park next to the tourist info and council offices building and made lunch, then hit the road again to press onwards to Adelaide. Our plan was to make it to Eagle-On-The-Hill, find a turf-surf, and spend our last night on the road in the hills overlooking the lights of Adelaide, before rolling downhill in the morning to the beach, and then inland along the river Torrens linear park back to our house. We'd made an announcement on facebook to our Adelaide-based friends that we'd be passing the Adelaide University footbridge around lunchtime if anyone wanted to drop by and say say hi as we rode past.
The road out of Murray Bridge has a bike route signposted along the way, which diverted us from the freeway and ran past Monarto and into Adelaide along the old freeway. It's a fairly dry pice of terrain, with vegetation that reminded us of how much Texas reminded us of South Australia - if that sentence makes sense. After a little while I found that my rear wheel seemed to be rubbing on the brakes and slowing me down, and since I tend to travel faster than Yana I told her to go on ahead while I adjusted my wheel, and I'd catch up. It only took a couple of minutes to adjust the brakes and I set off again, but very soon I found that the wheel was starting to rub on the rear forks - this suggested something that did not make me happy. The last time I'd had a problem like this was on the road into Van Horn, Texas. I stopped again, turned the bike over, took off the rear wheel and just as I'd suspected, the rear axle had snapped!
Normally that's the kind of thing that would screw up your mood and your journey utterly. Fortunately though, I'd become a little paranoid after the last time my rear axle broke, and had been carrying around the makeshift spare I'd used to get my bike back on the road in Van Horn. Lugging the extra weight halfway around the globe finally paid off. But first I had to deal with the fact that Yana was riding on ahead of me, oblivious to the fact that I needed to do a repair job that would take a substantial amount of time.
And it was here that I noticed a definite cultural difference between South Australia and Victoria. We'd discovered that as soon as we got west of Melbourne it was virtually impossible to stop by the side of the road without having someone pull up and check if we were okay. On one occassion, we'd even been sitting happily munching on our sandwiches for lunch when a tour bus had rolled past us, stopped, and backed up so that the driver could check if we needed assistance. But as I stood at the side of the road, pointing at my upterned bike and making "telephone" gestures with my other hand, a string of about eight or nine cars sped past me with no apparent intention of rendering assistance. Eventually a woman stopped and let me use her phone to call Yana and tell her what the situation was. It turned out that one of the previous drivers had caught up to her and told her he'd seen me fidgeting with my bike. Would've been nice if he'd stopped to check if I was okay, though.
Anyway it took me about an hour to take the old axle out, clean the gunk out of the bearings, get the new axle in position, re-lube the bearings, centre the axle, put the appropriate spacers on the axle, tighten the cones properly and get the bike back on the road. I caught up to Yana on the crest of a hill overlooking Callington, which led us into a fun, fast downhill run. The road continued on into the pretty little town of Kanmantoo. The landscape as we rode in included some very appealing eroded ochre valleys in the green farmland.
In many ways it was reminiscent of the ride into San Diego - rather than rolling down the backside of a mountain range we were cruising through a succession of valleys and farms and rolling hills. As we passed out of Kanmantoo the hills gradually became more pronounced, and by the time we made it to Nairne, a little after sunset, our legs were complaining and I was muttering bitterly under my breath that I hadn't realised Nairne was the highest point in the Adelaide hills - at least it felt like it must be. When we pulled up in Nairne we decided that eating immediately outweighed all other considerations, and fortunately the BBQ chicken shop we wandered in to served the finest chicken and chips ever crafted by human hands. Or at least it seemed that way at the time.
After eating our fill, we climbed back on the bikes, with some intention of finding a place to sleep for the night between Nairne and Littlehampton. We knew we weren't going to make it to Eagle-On-The-Hill on account of my broken axle, and while we could have headed towards a caravan park, we felt that it would be nice to make our last night on the road a turf-surf night. Almost immediately upon leaving the BBQ chicken place we started encountering signs that we were on the outskirts of Adelaide, such as TransAdelaide buses. Only a little further on, out of Nairne, we realised that the road was becomeing quite busy, and wound tightly through the hills. The nearest house seemed like a good place to stop and turf-surf. A car was pulling out of the driveway as we rolled up to the gate, and the driver informed us that they didn't live there, but the owners were home, so we rode up the steep drive, wheeled our bikes around to the carport on the side of the house and introduced ourselves to a woman who turned out to be named Gale. She was happy for us to pop up a tent in their front yard, and when her husband Graham and their two kids (who were curious to meet the people travelling on bicycles) joined it we wandered across the front yard down towards the duck pond, then back to the rear yard before finding a nice flat spot close to their chook shed. We popped up the tent, and after getting everything organised, and trying to cope with the strangeness of knowing this was the last time we'd be setting the tent up on this journey, headed inside to share our story with our hosts. We were plied with cups of tea, discussed our experiences crossing the USA and Mexico, talked about philosophy and their kids high school academic interests, and finally wound up getting sucked into watching Spicks and Specks, The Gruen Transfer, and Yes We Canberra, before dragging ourselves away from the TV and the dinner table to retire to our tent.
That night it rained. I awoke several times to hear the patter of raindrops on the tent fly, and was pleased to realise that we could roll the tent up and pack it away wet instead of having to dry it in the morning because we didn't need it again.
In the morning we got up, grabbed breakfast, said farewell to Gale and the kids as they left for school, and chatted with Graham while we packed and made ready to depart. Gale and Graham's chickens checked us out as we packed.
We hit the road and wound our way through the hills, passing the Beerenberg store before we knew it, and rolling with a feeling of some triumph into Hahndorf. Our surroundings looked decidedly familiar. Unfortunately the weather left a lot to be desired, but we pressed on towards Bridgewater, up steep hills, and back down them again as we worked our way through Aldgate and Stirling.
In Stirling we somehow missed our turn and found ourselves almost heading onto the freeway, but backed up to check our maps and got some confusing directions from a passing fellow, before spotting a sign that we'd somehow riden straight past before which promised pedestrian access to Crafers. This involved riding up a fairly steep stretch of pedestrian path that ran behind houses and off-and-on minor roads before reaching a footbridge over the freeway. We rolled down the other side looking for further bike directions into Adelaide, and didn't see anything signposted, circled back to a service station to ask the guys who worked there if they had any idea which way we should go, and finally asked some council workers who pointed us in an appropriate direction. In fact, just a few metres past them I spotted the Adelaide bikeway sign that we'd been seeking earlier. This bikeway follows the old road into Adelaide, running roughly parallel to the new freeway, but with none of the traffic. Admittedly, as we were enveloped in a thick white mist at the time we could barely see ten metres ahead of us, let alone the view of the city. Somehow these things never unfold exactly as you imagine they will. It was still a delightful stretch though, as we had the entire old road to ourselves, and it was just a matter of comfortably coasting downhill, towards home. We had decided that the weather was too lousy to be bothered riding to the beach and back, so we stopped when we saw the "Welcome to Adelaide" sign at the bottom of the freeway for our obligatory photo opportunity, with the city skyline (visible at last!) in the distance, then rolled on into town along Glen Osmond rd.
The whole thing was a bit surreal, because we finally knew we were almost through with this amazing journey. From time to time as we got closer to Adelaide we had been discussed how it's sometimes difficult to believe that places still exist when you're not there - the world can feel like a movie set that gets torn down and rebuilt each day. It was a funny feeling to admit that Adelaide had continued to exist for all the time that we've been away doing things on the other side of the planet, and as we rode into town we joked that the props department had done a good job rebuilding everything just the way we remembered - or joking that they'd messed up when we passed a new building or a business that hadn't been there the last time we were here. We continued past the east end of town, through the University of Adelaide grounds and across the university footbridge to stop and make sandwiches and see if anyone would come to say hi (admittedly not likely as it was early afternoon on a work day for most people). While we were making our lunch it started raining on us, so we grabbed all our stuff and ran it down under the footbridge to get under some shelter, then Yana exchanged a few text messages with her friend Richard to let him know where we were. Richard showed up and we spent an hour or so chatting about his travels (across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway) and our own, before I gave my mum a call and let her know we were on our way home. Then we set out on the penultimate leg of our journey.
The ride from the footbridge to the rendezvous point where mum was going to intercept us was exhilarating. Everything was familiar, yet everything that had changed was immediately obvious, like a new footbridge, markers showing the distance from the city every kilometer or so, and new patches of native vegetation being replanted to replace the introduced plants that grew along the river. Eventually we pulled up at the park just beyond Portrush rd, called mum, and waited for her to drive down the hill from her house to find us. Several minutes passed and then a familiar sounding engine and a blue truck turned the corner. It pulled up across the road from us and as soon as the door opened, my mum, sobbing uncontrollably, climbed out and into the biggest hug I could give her.
Needless to say, mum was relieved to see us. She's a mum, and that means she worries about my safety, and boy was she glad to see me alive and well! Anyway, we hugged, and we chatted, and mum took photos, and we rang my dad to tell him where we were, and we figured out how to use the video feature on mum's camera, and gave her one of our cameras as a backup and she drove off to our house to await our arrival, at the last front door we would roll up to, to video the end of the ride. Then we hopped back on our bikes for the last time, and rode once more along the river, amongst the beautiful river redgums that I love so much, past playgrounds, parks, benches, rock cuttings, and ochre-coloured river banks, until we reached our exit onto the road, turned up our very last hill (which we always found pretty steep and difficult when we lived here before, but now seems quite gentle and manageable), turned at the top of the hill, and then paused.
I wanted to make sure mum was there waiting for us, so I'd asked her to wait at the corner to let us know she was ready to video us, and we could get the last part of the trip recorded for posterity as we rounded the final corner and rolled into the driveway of my house. There was no sign of her, and eventually Yana edged forward, peeped around the corner, let me know that mum was indeed there, and we pushed the pedals, I set eyes on my house again, and in the space of a few seconds we had done what we set out to do almost a year ago. We stopped our bikes in front of the house, dismounted, and did all the things triumphant adventurers do, like posing for photos with our steeds, hugging and kissing, putting down our packs, stepping inside our home so mum could show us what a great job she'd done of getting it cleaned up and ready for us to move into, ringing dad to tell him we'd made it, and all that stuff.
And even though this is the end of the bike journey, it's not the end of the story. The weekend after we arrived we got interviewed for SA Life magazine and the resultant article should be in next month's issue. We'll hopefully keep blogging from time to time about our future holidays, or adventures around Adelaide, around Australia, and around the world. Plenty of people have already asked us where we're going to ride next. Kangaroo Island, The Great Ocean Road, and across the Nullarbor are high on the list. And we've picked up a passion for a lot of foods we'd never tried before, so I expect we'll turn this into a bit of a cookery blog too, on occassion. I feel like we should make some grand statement, some finishing note, on a par with the magnitude of our journey. But all I can really think to say is, thank you for reading about our travels, thanks for the comments on the blog (even if we rarely found the time to reply, we still appreciated them), thanks to everyone who helped us along our way, who opened their hearts and doors and back yards to us.
It's nice to be home.
And yes, our legs are tired.
Total distance: 9536.8 km
By Sundance (with help from Yana):
At long last, the day has come.
Not the day when we return to Adelaide, of course That was almost three weeks ago! The day when we finally get organised and motivated enough to write up the events of our last two days on the road and post a blog entry. Yep, we've been slack.
Last time we posted a proper blog entry, we were in Murray Bridge. After spending a little time at the local library doing our blog post we rolled down to a park next to the tourist info and council offices building and made lunch, then hit the road again to press onwards to Adelaide. Our plan was to make it to Eagle-On-The-Hill, find a turf-surf, and spend our last night on the road in the hills overlooking the lights of Adelaide, before rolling downhill in the morning to the beach, and then inland along the river Torrens linear park back to our house. We'd made an announcement on facebook to our Adelaide-based friends that we'd be passing the Adelaide University footbridge around lunchtime if anyone wanted to drop by and say say hi as we rode past.
The road out of Murray Bridge has a bike route signposted along the way, which diverted us from the freeway and ran past Monarto and into Adelaide along the old freeway. It's a fairly dry pice of terrain, with vegetation that reminded us of how much Texas reminded us of South Australia - if that sentence makes sense. After a little while I found that my rear wheel seemed to be rubbing on the brakes and slowing me down, and since I tend to travel faster than Yana I told her to go on ahead while I adjusted my wheel, and I'd catch up. It only took a couple of minutes to adjust the brakes and I set off again, but very soon I found that the wheel was starting to rub on the rear forks - this suggested something that did not make me happy. The last time I'd had a problem like this was on the road into Van Horn, Texas. I stopped again, turned the bike over, took off the rear wheel and just as I'd suspected, the rear axle had snapped!
Normally that's the kind of thing that would screw up your mood and your journey utterly. Fortunately though, I'd become a little paranoid after the last time my rear axle broke, and had been carrying around the makeshift spare I'd used to get my bike back on the road in Van Horn. Lugging the extra weight halfway around the globe finally paid off. But first I had to deal with the fact that Yana was riding on ahead of me, oblivious to the fact that I needed to do a repair job that would take a substantial amount of time.
And it was here that I noticed a definite cultural difference between South Australia and Victoria. We'd discovered that as soon as we got west of Melbourne it was virtually impossible to stop by the side of the road without having someone pull up and check if we were okay. On one occassion, we'd even been sitting happily munching on our sandwiches for lunch when a tour bus had rolled past us, stopped, and backed up so that the driver could check if we needed assistance. But as I stood at the side of the road, pointing at my upterned bike and making "telephone" gestures with my other hand, a string of about eight or nine cars sped past me with no apparent intention of rendering assistance. Eventually a woman stopped and let me use her phone to call Yana and tell her what the situation was. It turned out that one of the previous drivers had caught up to her and told her he'd seen me fidgeting with my bike. Would've been nice if he'd stopped to check if I was okay, though.
Anyway it took me about an hour to take the old axle out, clean the gunk out of the bearings, get the new axle in position, re-lube the bearings, centre the axle, put the appropriate spacers on the axle, tighten the cones properly and get the bike back on the road. I caught up to Yana on the crest of a hill overlooking Callington, which led us into a fun, fast downhill run. The road continued on into the pretty little town of Kanmantoo. The landscape as we rode in included some very appealing eroded ochre valleys in the green farmland.
In many ways it was reminiscent of the ride into San Diego - rather than rolling down the backside of a mountain range we were cruising through a succession of valleys and farms and rolling hills. As we passed out of Kanmantoo the hills gradually became more pronounced, and by the time we made it to Nairne, a little after sunset, our legs were complaining and I was muttering bitterly under my breath that I hadn't realised Nairne was the highest point in the Adelaide hills - at least it felt like it must be. When we pulled up in Nairne we decided that eating immediately outweighed all other considerations, and fortunately the BBQ chicken shop we wandered in to served the finest chicken and chips ever crafted by human hands. Or at least it seemed that way at the time.
After eating our fill, we climbed back on the bikes, with some intention of finding a place to sleep for the night between Nairne and Littlehampton. We knew we weren't going to make it to Eagle-On-The-Hill on account of my broken axle, and while we could have headed towards a caravan park, we felt that it would be nice to make our last night on the road a turf-surf night. Almost immediately upon leaving the BBQ chicken place we started encountering signs that we were on the outskirts of Adelaide, such as TransAdelaide buses. Only a little further on, out of Nairne, we realised that the road was becomeing quite busy, and wound tightly through the hills. The nearest house seemed like a good place to stop and turf-surf. A car was pulling out of the driveway as we rolled up to the gate, and the driver informed us that they didn't live there, but the owners were home, so we rode up the steep drive, wheeled our bikes around to the carport on the side of the house and introduced ourselves to a woman who turned out to be named Gale. She was happy for us to pop up a tent in their front yard, and when her husband Graham and their two kids (who were curious to meet the people travelling on bicycles) joined it we wandered across the front yard down towards the duck pond, then back to the rear yard before finding a nice flat spot close to their chook shed. We popped up the tent, and after getting everything organised, and trying to cope with the strangeness of knowing this was the last time we'd be setting the tent up on this journey, headed inside to share our story with our hosts. We were plied with cups of tea, discussed our experiences crossing the USA and Mexico, talked about philosophy and their kids high school academic interests, and finally wound up getting sucked into watching Spicks and Specks, The Gruen Transfer, and Yes We Canberra, before dragging ourselves away from the TV and the dinner table to retire to our tent.
That night it rained. I awoke several times to hear the patter of raindrops on the tent fly, and was pleased to realise that we could roll the tent up and pack it away wet instead of having to dry it in the morning because we didn't need it again.
We hit the road and wound our way through the hills, passing the Beerenberg store before we knew it, and rolling with a feeling of some triumph into Hahndorf. Our surroundings looked decidedly familiar. Unfortunately the weather left a lot to be desired, but we pressed on towards Bridgewater, up steep hills, and back down them again as we worked our way through Aldgate and Stirling.
In Stirling we somehow missed our turn and found ourselves almost heading onto the freeway, but backed up to check our maps and got some confusing directions from a passing fellow, before spotting a sign that we'd somehow riden straight past before which promised pedestrian access to Crafers. This involved riding up a fairly steep stretch of pedestrian path that ran behind houses and off-and-on minor roads before reaching a footbridge over the freeway. We rolled down the other side looking for further bike directions into Adelaide, and didn't see anything signposted, circled back to a service station to ask the guys who worked there if they had any idea which way we should go, and finally asked some council workers who pointed us in an appropriate direction. In fact, just a few metres past them I spotted the Adelaide bikeway sign that we'd been seeking earlier. This bikeway follows the old road into Adelaide, running roughly parallel to the new freeway, but with none of the traffic. Admittedly, as we were enveloped in a thick white mist at the time we could barely see ten metres ahead of us, let alone the view of the city. Somehow these things never unfold exactly as you imagine they will. It was still a delightful stretch though, as we had the entire old road to ourselves, and it was just a matter of comfortably coasting downhill, towards home. We had decided that the weather was too lousy to be bothered riding to the beach and back, so we stopped when we saw the "Welcome to Adelaide" sign at the bottom of the freeway for our obligatory photo opportunity, with the city skyline (visible at last!) in the distance, then rolled on into town along Glen Osmond rd.
The ride from the footbridge to the rendezvous point where mum was going to intercept us was exhilarating. Everything was familiar, yet everything that had changed was immediately obvious, like a new footbridge, markers showing the distance from the city every kilometer or so, and new patches of native vegetation being replanted to replace the introduced plants that grew along the river. Eventually we pulled up at the park just beyond Portrush rd, called mum, and waited for her to drive down the hill from her house to find us. Several minutes passed and then a familiar sounding engine and a blue truck turned the corner. It pulled up across the road from us and as soon as the door opened, my mum, sobbing uncontrollably, climbed out and into the biggest hug I could give her.
Needless to say, mum was relieved to see us. She's a mum, and that means she worries about my safety, and boy was she glad to see me alive and well! Anyway, we hugged, and we chatted, and mum took photos, and we rang my dad to tell him where we were, and we figured out how to use the video feature on mum's camera, and gave her one of our cameras as a backup and she drove off to our house to await our arrival, at the last front door we would roll up to, to video the end of the ride. Then we hopped back on our bikes for the last time, and rode once more along the river, amongst the beautiful river redgums that I love so much, past playgrounds, parks, benches, rock cuttings, and ochre-coloured river banks, until we reached our exit onto the road, turned up our very last hill (which we always found pretty steep and difficult when we lived here before, but now seems quite gentle and manageable), turned at the top of the hill, and then paused.
I wanted to make sure mum was there waiting for us, so I'd asked her to wait at the corner to let us know she was ready to video us, and we could get the last part of the trip recorded for posterity as we rounded the final corner and rolled into the driveway of my house. There was no sign of her, and eventually Yana edged forward, peeped around the corner, let me know that mum was indeed there, and we pushed the pedals, I set eyes on my house again, and in the space of a few seconds we had done what we set out to do almost a year ago. We stopped our bikes in front of the house, dismounted, and did all the things triumphant adventurers do, like posing for photos with our steeds, hugging and kissing, putting down our packs, stepping inside our home so mum could show us what a great job she'd done of getting it cleaned up and ready for us to move into, ringing dad to tell him we'd made it, and all that stuff.
And even though this is the end of the bike journey, it's not the end of the story. The weekend after we arrived we got interviewed for SA Life magazine and the resultant article should be in next month's issue. We'll hopefully keep blogging from time to time about our future holidays, or adventures around Adelaide, around Australia, and around the world. Plenty of people have already asked us where we're going to ride next. Kangaroo Island, The Great Ocean Road, and across the Nullarbor are high on the list. And we've picked up a passion for a lot of foods we'd never tried before, so I expect we'll turn this into a bit of a cookery blog too, on occassion. I feel like we should make some grand statement, some finishing note, on a par with the magnitude of our journey. But all I can really think to say is, thank you for reading about our travels, thanks for the comments on the blog (even if we rarely found the time to reply, we still appreciated them), thanks to everyone who helped us along our way, who opened their hearts and doors and back yards to us.
It's nice to be home.
And yes, our legs are tired.