I arrived in Canberra late this morning after a bit of a difficult day yesterday. I thought I was going to have plenty of time yesterday leaving around 930 having 115km to do. I was more climbing still to do. I had been led to believe it was relatively flat, with about 300 meters of elevation difference. Turns out I did 873 meters of climbing and didn’t make it into Canberra.
I ran out of light 35km south of Canberra. I’ve had a tactic for a while to find a decent camping spot in these pastoral areas. Find a drive was, ideally where the house(s) cannot be seen. Ride up it until I hit the property line fence. There is almost always a path leading off one direction or the other. Find a hidden place to camp. This went really well last night. I was a bit close to the path but usually this isn’t a problem. one or two cars will usually drive in after work, I haven’t been notices so no big deal. There was an exception this night. Apparently there was a party going on this night and there where calls coming and going for hours. Normally I’d just join a party, but these folks sounded like…. no my type. Anyhow I wasn’t able to sleep and people where parking pretty close to me, yelling, pealing out in the gravel and generally doing what…. not my kind of folks… do. Once the neighbour (must have been a big fella) yelled at the top of his lungs “Shut the *FRONT DOOR*, people (like me) are trying to sleep!” the party died down. This didn’t help the sleeping situation as it was friggin’ freezing! I woke up to ice in my tent, frost on everything outside and generally cold ass misery. When I arrive at Tom’s house I learned it had been -3.8C! I cannot ever think of a time when I was in anything colder. Snow boarding in Tahoe? 48F. January in Karlsruhe, 0/-1C. -3.8C! I pushed on quickly so to get warmed up. Started riding around 9am (no alarm). Had some delicious pies and catching up on stuff and things now.
In just a couple of days I will arrive in Sydney. Around 300km to go. And with as much fun as I’m having I’ll be glad to be done. It will be nice to get some other things done and get back to playing polo. This will also give me the opportunity to document the whole journey and finally upload all my pictures. Another big post in less then a week. Brook, you at the beach with my beer? Sorry I’m late.