Planalto Cycles

Hugh got up early to build a shed for the sheep and went there at 6:30 when it still was dark. The kids appeared one after the other, Dimity made breakfast, we had a big photo-shooting in the garden and then I left.

On the road to Goulburn, we saw each other again 40 or 50 min later, because they had the same way to school and work, but when we said “Auf Wiedersehen” and good-bye we didn’t mean that, but hopefully once in Austria. Or Uganda??

In Goulburn I changed from the nice country road to the Hume highway which is more direct, with less – but still enough! – climbs and of course more traffic and noise. For a while, I could see signs for bicycles, e.g. for crossing when there was an exit or for narrow bridges, but then there were no signs anymore. And later I noticed that the highway now was called motorway. I had not seen any sign that forbid bicycles, but at least I now understood, why Mr.G wanted to leave the motorway and go somewhere else. I wanted to continue to a service station at km 118 (of my tour) but then I saw a sign for a caravan park earlier and took that exit. Mr.G was happy, and I was ok with it, because I had done more than half of the 200km to Leumeah. Later, I tried to find out if the motorway is open or not for cyclists, but it still was not clear. But google maps takes this route (komoot not) and it is 60 instead of 72km and only 210m uphill instead of 430m. I is hard to decide, maybe the weather conditions will give an answer, because it is one hour less riding, but for sure less beautiful.

This time there was no need to go to a bathroom for charging my stuff, I had been sitting in the kitchen of the camping place and my phone even had enough internet for a hotspot, so I could upload something.
Then came a couple with a friend who had 69^th birthday and they sat down with two bottles of wine. Soon their voices became louder and maybe their pronunciation changed, too, but they were hard to understand for me anyway. They fried some sausages and invited me to their table. The pan was loaded with 12 big and fat sausages and during this meeting I got 4 of them. I had been eating my own “dinner” before and was not hungry but still it was no problem to eat them, including some toast bread. The only thing that I could not do like my hosts was putting butter between bread and sliced sausages, what seemed too fat even for me.
The conversation was not easy, but I am sure if they would not have been a bit drunk and if I would have had less problems with the Australian accent, it would have been interesting enough.

Yesterday evening, I had been reading some mails with problems I must solve and at 3 a.m. my brain decided I should deal with them instead of sleeping. Ok, I woke up, wrote emails and hoped that I would be allowed to sleep again.
That reminds me on the phrase “no worries” that folks use in so many situations where I am surprised, but I think it is a fundamental problem of understanding or attitude:
Why should I NOT worry?! There eis always something around, claiming to be worth worrying about and I can do that! Until my mid-thirties I was better at worrying in the evening and often couldn’t fall asleep, now it has changed to early-morning-worrying which fits well to some restlessness and moral concerns about laziness.
Hugh went to work early, Dimity and the kids left later and I had a plan for the day, too. But at 9, there was a power cut. First, I thought it was too much that dishwasher and washing machine were working at the same time, but then I saw what else could run at the same time, like air conditioning and also found out that the fuse was in. It was not easy to send a SMS to Dimity, because I had to find a spot in the garden with reception (and it was not always the same spot). Dimity then remembered that it had been an announced cut off for today between 9 and 15:00.
So, worked on the PC (without internet) until the battery gave up and then switched on a light and lay down. I was sleeping a bit when around 14:20 the light turned on and everything recovered. I even had internet on the PC after that.
When everybody was at home, Dimity on a motorcycle and Hugh with me in a buggy went out to look for the sheep. They have two herds, one also with rams and they explained me some details about the balance between grassland and sheep. It is obvious that you can have too many sheep for a land, but when there are not enough sheep, the grass gets too long and becomes useless straw. When you have not enough grass for your herds, you must sell some before winter comes, but depending on other farmers who also sell sheep, prices can vary from 150-180 AUD or so.

Hugh drove to the nearby hill with me and on the way checked the watering placed. Then I was again invited for dinner and after that, we made another family Bürgschafts-recording.

This night I had problems to sleep because I felt cold and colder. I put on everything I found in the tent but didn’t want to search for more in the bags outside. I feared the time coming when I had to get up, and it came.
I did everything as fast as I can, to feel warmer und to have it done, but combined with dew that temperature made my fingers numb and it was hard to pack and to take down the tent. On 7:15, I set on the bike, with a second t-shirt, an extra jacket and my gloves and so I was riding the first two hours. The temperature rose from 3° to 6° and I could remove the gloves (I cannot operate that GPS with them), then the jacket and after 3 hours I was riding like on the days before.
This was another very exhausting day, many kilometres, many height meters and enough wind for a sailing ship, but after doing half the distance to Bannister yesterday, I didn’t want to give up (and was near to that – on the whole trip I gave up 1x in Armenia and 1x in Iran).
But after 11 hours, I reached Bannister and I can stay there for two nights, so I find some time to do things, I didn’t since Melbourne, like sorting the photos etc. Only problem: my PC doesn’t get access to the internet, not directly and not by the phone, but then, I’ll do other things.
Funny situation:
I was all the time writing with Dimity about the stay. When I arrived, a woman opened the door and later introduced my to Hugh and to the kids. Hugh was like a father to the kids and I just wondered when Dimity would come and how the woman’s named would be (but I couldn’t access the warmshowers site to read about it) And only after a while I got it: Dimity is a female name and Hugh and Dimity are the parents of this kids and so it was no wonder when Hugh was like a father and I could stop waiting for Dimity coming home.

Why did I wake up early today?? I don’t know. There seem to be different levels of consciousness and when you reach the highest, you are awake (ok, there are higher ones for spiritual peoples)
I prepared everything and wondered about John who wanted to go with me but was not around. He then came a little hastily because his alarm had not worked, but we had breakfast, he prepared the two dogs for a bicycle ride and everything was ready at 7. It was fresh, also 7, but °C.
Monique took  a departure photo and we left. After 4 km, our ways seperated, John to his praxis and I to Junee , my first stop. It took 2 hours until my fingers were warm and the whole day, I was riding in my jacket. In Junee is a chocolate manufactory and I bought as little as possible for me when I see such a selection of organic delicatessen .

I set down for two pieces of cake, one was called “something of all” or so and looked funny, because you could see many different things in it, but not all of them met my taste. The first 100km were fast done, I had most of the time no wind or even tail wind! That changed and the road changed,

the climbs and the downhill parts were steep and changed fast, in the evening I could feel how weak and tired my muscles were. But I came to Harden before four, what was good for 137km. I found the caravan park that John had shown me on the map, set up my tent first inside out to make it dry and then properly and the went to the bathroom with my electronic gadgets, because I could not plug in my adapter at the plug of my place. There I also wrote some messages, for example I tried to find another host between Bannister and Leumah, because I had got no more answer from the host in Bundanoon.
The manager had showed me the way to some restaurants, but they were all closed. I went in the direction of the “shopping center” of Harden, didn’t find it, but found a Chinese restaurant. I got a big veggie-omelette and fried rice and that was not only much, it was ok, because I don’t think I would have had a chance to it authentic Australian food this evening.
Evening: it was getting fresh again and the morning will not be the best for me, cold and dark, but the sky full of stars might be an omen for a clear sunny day.

At night it had started raining from time to time. At 4:30 I had to get out of the tent. That is always the problem of cheese for me: After eating cheese, I get thirsty. After getting thirsty, I drink. After drinking I must go out of the tent or room (if it is not a bathroom). After getting out at 4:30, I will not sleep too much. But it was too dark, and I didn’t want to disturb my neighbours when I try to pack up and leave so early.
When it was getting brighter, it was again raining, but not too strong, so I could get most of the things packed before they were wet. Only the top and the footprint were wet, but I think they will survive until I need them again and until I finally can dry them in Sydney.
The sky was very dark and strange was that the strong wind came from the front and the bad weather from the back. I could ride 2,5 hours without getting wet, then I needed a breakfast and the rain caught me. It was not to heavy and the good thing was that to my surprise the wind got less instead stronger. Around noon there was no rain and no wind, and I could go much faster, so that my calculation changed from 18:00 to 17:00, to 16:00 and in the end 15:00 for arrival.
I lost time only, because I wanted to buy something for dessert with my host family and because the GPS sent me to another place as final destination, I don’t know why. So, I had to find my way the normal maps and additionally climbed a hill just to go down on the other side (there was another road avoiding that).
Monique awaited me, showed me a nice room and I could refresh myself and she even washed my clothes. Later, John and their youngest daughter Nelly came home, too and we had dinner. Nelly had been to Sweden for a year, including a crazy 14 days trip through 11 European countries during holidays. The four other siblings are all in other places, two of them musicians. We talked for a while and then we made a special Bürgschafts-recording (reciting one verse with the lines distributed between them in a “life” version). I had to leave them to get my own stuff done a bit, that is, at least writing the diary, saving the photos and videos of the last 2 days on the PC and making some tour changes John and I had been talking about, and telling them to Mr.G. Doing this was always hard before I found out about the wifi connection between him and my phone, but today, it took more than 30 min trying, retrying, closing, starting again, until I finalnow ly could transfer the data.
Then it was time to sleep, because John would go with me before 7, and before that having breakfast and all things should be packed up.
I wonder if I manage to do the tour to Bannister with 2000m uphill and 270km in total in two days or, like originally planned in three, but the idea is very strong. Maybe not the legs….

When I got up Joan was awake, too. We had breakfast together and at 7:40, I left this nice place. The roads today were mostly good, but the wind made it again hard to move forward. So, I needed 10 hours for 130 km, including one break for buying food and 3 for eating. I am not sure if I possibly got weaker since Taiwan, because I didn’t cycle so much or if the last 3 days simply were harder, but I am more exhausted. Ok, I did more than 110 km every day, but still I wonder.
I needed much water and when I wanted to buy something in a small town and hoped to get water, too, I didn’t even find a gas station. But then I saw a wine-bottle-shaped tower and on the backside, you could get water from a tap. Nice!

My least goal for today was half the distance to my next hosts in Wagga Wagga (242km). When I sleep in my tent (or any guest house), I have more time for my work, because there is nobody to talk with. So, I wanted to do some kilometres more. I made a list of possible goals:
130km or 400m climb (out of 700m) or reaching Burrumbuttock or finding a camping place or cycling until 18:00 and then looking for a place to camp. Important for a night in the tent was to have enough water for evening until somewhere on the next day. So my priority was this, because then I can camp wherever it is good. I reached Burrumbuttock and a couple was sitting in front of their house and waved. I said hello and asked them for water and if they know a camping site. They showed me the way and when I was there, I was in Burrumbottock AND had done 130km & 400m AND it was 18:00.

There were three men, maybe father and 2 sons with cars and tents who told me that I only must donate 5$ in a box, that’s it. The place had water and toilets and if I would have called  the manager, I also could have had electricity, but you need a long cable from the plug to the tent and additionally, it started to rain. I finished everything outside and inside only wrote this, then I lay down, because I had no internet or other connection to communicate with my next hosts and could not charge my gadgets and – I was tired.

At 5:30, the rats on the roof started to be loud or they had been loud before, too, and now my ears were too sensitive. The result was another shortened night. It was dark until nearly seven and no light available except the torch of my phone, so packing up took a while.
And suddenly out of the dark came the sleepy Laura and we talked a bit and she assisted me a bit and when everything was ready for leaving, she took her bike and showed me the first direction.

And then I was on the “train-trail” that goes along an abandoned train line. It was beautiful and I saw many animals, this time alive ?

But after 45km, Mr.G wanted to go left and when I saw the nice road and because feeling a bit tired of the gravel road of that trail, I did what he said. Troy had showed me an alternative that would have gone on on the trail and later on a highway. That variant would have been 20km longer but with 300m less climbs. I calculates roughly that the original road would be shorter, but there was a big problem:
My route left the nice road again soon and for 50km I had bad roads, so I sometimes even could hardly push the bike and when it went down, I couldn’t go fast because the small stones of the road made it very slippery. For 2/3 of the distance I had needed 8 hours and feared I would be 12 hours in total. But the last part was going down most of the time and the road was good, so I made good

a part of the delay and at 17:15 landed in front of Joan’s house.  Her dog heard or saw me first and Joan came out and showed me a place for the bike and a nice extra room for me. First, I cleaned my bike and threw the ball for the dog, and after showering, Joan and I talked until 22h, with a dinner in the middle. She had also used cargo ships, but in the year 1964, they had been cheaper than other transports. Joan is nearly 80 but still volunteering in health care transports to Melbourne and back and has plans like going on trails in Tasmania.
It was nearly too late for a Bürgschaft recording, at least for me, because I was too tired after a long day and an exhausting tour, but we did it.

Like yesterday, at 5:50 an alarm (most probably from Konstantin) rang for a while. And After a while for another, maybe shorter while. And so on until 7:00, then stopped. I need only the first “beep” of “beebeebeep – beebeebeep – beebeebeep – (…) beebeebeep” to wake up and stay awake.
I went to the kitchen to pack my bags there, because I didn’t want to wake up anyone. When I was finished with eating, packing the bags, packing the bike I set down to work until the family got up, so I could say good-bye to them (Shawna and Harry slept too deep).
The first 25km where Melbourne and suburbs and I cannot say where which ended but then it looked more village-like. It took a while to get out, because there where bike lanes that changed from left to right or sometimes to a wide space between the directions of the road. And of course, there were traffic lights and a lot of roadworks, sometimes with complicated detours and one time I had to move a fence of the roadwork and carry and push my bike to get to the next normal way.
This was time-consuming and after 30km, I had an average of 11km/h, which would mean 11 hours for those 110km to Yea – too much, because Troy had told me that they would leave at 18:00.
But first, I needed a new water bottle. I had forgotten my original bottle (no bike bottle, but good to use, from “gatorade”) in an ice-cream shop in Thailand (see day 132) and bought a bike bottle in Bangkok (see day 137). Somewhere in China it began to have a bad taste and I saw spots inside that I cleaned. It didn’t help long and whatever I tried had only little or short effect. On the ship, I tried it again, because the water on the ship is prepared seawater and I thought that might kill everything inside. I made the bottle completely dry, then made a treatment with that water and dried it again. The smell was gone. But today, after 30 min it began again and after a while, I thought it begins to be unhealthy and stopped using it.
I went to a gas station and found again “Gatorade”, that has a drinking nozzle, only it was 600ml instead of 750, so it was shaking in the bottle holder and I had to adjust it.
I filled up my other bottles with water and this was good, because after that gas station, I came to farm-land and forests and would have had no good place to get water.
I saw my first kangaroo, big as a man, but dead on the side of the street.

Later I stopped counting or photographing them, it was too much. Some I could smell first (smells different than dead dog) and see later. I also saw an animal that could have been the size of a fox or racoon (but the Australian equivalent). It was completely flat, except the bushy tail, that still was moved by the wind. Wind is the second keyword. Around noon it started. Not storm but enough to slow me down again. And the next thing that started, and slowed me down were hills. Sometimes I even used the lowest gear – it was hard. Nice and interesting was that I most of the time had either wind or slopes, normally not the combination of both.
Less nice was, that I got strong cramps in my left leg and 4x had to stop for loosening it. I know this from other “first days” but not in this intensity.

The last part was going down and so I arrived not much later than I first had calculated.
Laura, the youngest daughter was around and brought me to the house (as she could guess that I am the cyclist whom they would host)
Soon after arrival we had dinner together and Joseph, the 2y old son, wanted to sit on my lap and be fed by me.

Rose and Beth, the elder sisters, had a camping weekend with some “military scouts organisation” (I did not ask too much about that) and so, soon after dinner, the whole family went there to bring them to the camp. All three girls are self-taught, not attending any school.

When the rest of the family came back, I could record a complete verse, because Laura easily could learn 3 lines and the parents did another two lines each.
We talked on for a while, but I had to give up at 22:30 because I was too tired and wanted to finish my diary.

This was an intense workday, I was motivated to prepare everything in double secure way (or is it 3 or 4x?) I have all data of the hosts on paper (except one, who didn’t answer so far, but there is time left). I saved all telephone numbers in my phone, saved the locations both in maps and maps me (after downloading all offline maps) and suddenly my spare-part phone was again unusable, the screen a mess of points and no function available. I tried a lot for the whole day and in the evening, I changed my Austrian SIM card to the other phone and – now, without any card it does everything again. Logic or magic??
Eugene had helped me with my GPS and to prove its function, I wanted to go for a round. Konstantin was at school, Karina at work, the Swiss surfer had gone, the couple, Shawna and Harry were in the city and Eugene wanted to leave later with Keira. So, he gave me the key, in case I would come back after he would have left.
I immediately put it in my pocket and closed the zipper. I prepared my bike and then thought, it is a bit to cool for the short trousers and t-shirt and changed to my long bike trousers and took my jacket. I drove around, the GPS did what a GPS should do, and I went to a supermarket to get some food for today and nuts for tomorrow.

And then I remembered that the key is in the trousers, but the trousers are at home. (First I realized that my bike trousers don’t have pockets, so I wondered in which pocket I might have put the key until I found out, that I had changed the trousers, but this is too embarrassing to tell, so forget it)
I had my phone with me, so I could call Eugene to wait until I am back (And then I saw that he was about to leave). I returned to my work and only left for a dinner of all together and for two times for talking with Eugene and with Karina.
I wonder about tomorrow and the following days – my imaginations are between nice and smooth and unexpected problems. The landscape can be very different, rural or wilderness, I saw quite different photos.
I will tell you!