With a day of nothing being planned, I
exceeded all expectations by actually doing something. Nothing of
real merit like promoting world peace, or even peace in the camp
ground as there was too many loud kids running around for that. To my
disappointment, our nearest and noisiest neighbours left before I had
mounted snot-seeking missiles on Niamh's car. Therefore I was left to
do something vaguely positive and leave auto-mobile armament until a
more apocalyptic time.
We went to some other random beach that
we happened to chance upon during our holiday driving dawdle.
Wandering down to the soft white sand, we saw that someone had
started a sand castle and left it as a real fixer-upper. When its
sand you're dealing with though, it means your castle is in ruins but
relatively easy to fix. A couple of hours were spent building
bridges, moats, botanical gardens and other places of necessity for
imaginary sand dwellers. We eventually noticed this beach was
extremely deficient in frolicking dolphins so we went back to Hymas
Beach and spent too long pointlessly trying to relive yesterdays
magic.
The beach did offer enough time to
evaluate my efforts thus far and I was able to summarise how much I
had done up till that point in time. 1079.3kms in 66.1 hours of
riding over 17 days (not including rest days) at an average speed of
16.3 kms an hour. A good enough effort to tell some hypothetical
grandchildren about it one day and I'm only half way.
Before my ego could help me levitate,
Niamh put everything in perspective when she detailed a similar
experience of her own. While holidaying in Bali, her and her friend
Laura decided it would be a good craic to ride from Cairns to
Brisbane. As you do! After doing as much training as anyone would in
a place like Bali, ie. none, they set themselves up with the cheapest
of everything and set off dreaming of adventure. They found it in
spades too and having made less of a personal mission out of it than
I have, they also found enough kind souls to give them a lift about a
quarter of the way.
That last fact is shared from envy, not
an attempt to belittle their efforts. That kind of bravado is
admirable as even a two day ride is challenging in the absence of
training. Niamh was later to marvel at my bike for how well equipped
it was and my respect increased in a way only someone in the same
boat could understand. Ultimately, no matter what you do, someone
else has already done it harder, longer, cheaper, drunker, etc.
A long forested walk out to the point
of Jervis Bay National Park was the stretch my legs always need. The
weather was finally doing something expected of it for this time of
year, and sunlight streaking through dense forest was even more
ethereal for its rarity. Some of the clearest sea water on Earth
could be seen through the trees, but after yesterdays surf thrashing,
it was like window shopping in Amsterdam. I would've loved to have
gotten involved but knew that it could only lead to trouble. The path
was so nice, I could have walked for ever but doing so wouldn't have
broken anything on my bike, and therefore didn't seem as interesting.
Before it had really felt like it had
started, I was driving Niamhs car back to Bondi in time for NYE. I
hadn't wanted to get large knowing that doing so would use up funds
better spent on the trip. Not planning a big one is a sure fire
method to ensure it will be a big one. I was in Sydney after all and
only my naivety forgives me for thinking I wasn't going to blow it
out. And like someone acting half their age, in fact the closest
possible impersonation of it, I really blew it out. Broomites Jess
and Paul came over to join Jess, her neighbours, myself and some
sneaky Black Russians. We joked around singing, dancing, loving the
world, particularly the people in the room, and celebrated the night
like we had all ridden from Brisbane just for this night.
We went to Paul's friends place in
Pyremont and watched the fireworks from the top of their apartment
roof. The harbour bridge was shielded from view, but every tall
building around shot off fireworks like God was pouring coca-cola on
his keyboard. No one had checked to see if they were planning on
shooting fireworks from the building we were on, but standing on a
roof with no barricade was dicey enough in our current state. Didn't
care. Loved everyone. Winning!
We saw the night out in Bondi, but
numbers were reduced to four by the time 2012 greeted us with an
amazing sunrise over the beach. Paul had stayed in Pyremont and
Broome Jess had wandered off into the night smiling. Entertainment
was left to Jess' neighbour Shane whose hyperactivity provided witty
observations, profound insights, random tangents and a inspirational
dance track for me to tackle big hills.
It was all pretty messy by this stage
and I must have been anxious about ending such an awesome night as I
couldn't stop grinding my teeth. A joint might be the best answer to
any question, but not if a cop is asking, as it's great at convincing
your brain it's sleep time when you've done everything you can to
avoid it. 10:30am I eventually checked out ensuring the first day of
the year was a write-off, as it seemed to be for the entire suburb.
By the time I was able to recognise
simple shapes again, it was time to pack the trailer and hit the
road. It was another hot, sunny day and I was already in full stench
mode by the time I had dropped passed Niamh and Jess' places. Such
weather is rendered void when traveling in a train, and I returned
back along the line I had taken only three days before. I couldn't
justify going to the end of the line at Nowra as I had, so I got out
at Sutherland and started from there.
The traffic was so thick from a mass
exodus from Sydney. Most of the cars ignored an Audley Road closure
sign that greeted us on the turn off to Royal National Park, so I
went along with the pack. The road was closed and chumps had lined up
for a long time to discover that the sign as telling the truth.
Fortunately I was allowed through because of the small stature of my
vehicle and faced up to a long steep hill that highlighted the small
stature of my will and determination. Six days off and I was heaving
like I had emphysema, not to mention still keeping some chewing gum
companies in business.
The ride levelled out after that and
continued along a ridge for awhile before turning in to an amazing
forested track that seemed anything but penultimate at the time. Once
the road had made it out of the National Park, it hugged the rocky
cliff face most of the way into Woolongong. It was a spectacular road
that reminded me of a shorter version of Victoria's Great Ocean Road.
All I could do to stop my smile from getting any bigger was to shout
out to everyone “Still winning!”
And that was where the win streak
ended. The caravan park I was heading for was as open for business as
Enron, and everything else I had checked was full. Standing out the
front of a derelict looking caravan park office, my phone chose then
to stop working altogether. Unsure of my options, I headed down the
road until something came up. That something might have been
Melbourne had I not found the friendliest 7-11 worker to grace the
stores. He used his phone in a manner mine still refused to and found
some nearby caravan parks.
That would have saved the day had they
not all been full. Finding that out though forced me to consider, or
again invent other options. Always good at making nothing out of
nothing, I surprised even myself when I found a sheltered little
haven nestled right between the Sydney Freeway and the Princess
Highway. How this prime plot of real estate has been over looked by
smart investors is beyond me, if I ignore the incessant noise, take
delight in being underneath massive steel power pylons and love the
company provided by a million different biting insects.
It had been my longest day of the ride,
but I hadn't even covered enough ground to crack a century given how
slow I was traveling. I was feeling deflated by the fact that 'no
vacancy' signs could greet me all the way south, but I took a lot of
comfort in knowing I've got what I need to just camp anywhere. As the
pylons hummed above me and mosquitoes hummed in my ear, I was lulled
to sleep still missing the simple things in Sydney that this camp
couldn't offer me, like friends, a shower, and uber blow-outs.
