*Photos* (from randoms)
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| Alice to Canberra bike tour |
Gday from Adelaide. My home town. Serious.. I was born here and then mum and dad promptly moved to Canberra about 2 years after that. So I have a certain affinity with the place I guess. Adelaide seems to be a polarising city. You love it or you hate it. I'm happy to report that I'm loving it. I was a bit scared about chilling out in the big smoke after two months of dust and rain, but I've nestled in like butter on hot toast. I've even taking to drinking Farmers Union Iced Coffee. So I'm a real local now. I think I'll stay a few more nights...
For the last two weeks, I've been meandering along the Mawson trail which is a cycling trail from Blinman in the Northern flinders to Adelaide. It's about 900km long and ranges from bitumen to grilling single track terrain. For the most part I've stuck to it religiously but due to 2 weeks of rain I've had to stay on the bitumen a good third of the time.
The first part of the Mawson is arguably the most beautiful. It's the bit I mentioned in my last blog where you follow the Wilpena pound wall. Jeez it was good. Luckily the weather was great around this time. From the moment my folks left however, the downpour started. I was pedalling to Quorn and stopped in at a real gem of a camp site at "Warren Gorge Conservation Park". The next day, it started raining of course, and it was just before I arrived in Quorn that I discovered the difference between fenders and mud guards. Fenders are made for water. Not mud!! When the downpour started, the road quickly turned into a thick goo which was picked up by my chunky tires and plastered all over the inside of the fenders. Well, within 1 minute of riding, my wheels literally stopped moving because the mud had filled the gap between tire and fender. I couldn't believe it! Luckily Quorn was only a kilometre down the road so after I attacked the mud with a stick, I was able to walk the bike the rest of the way and into town where I sat down to a hamburger with the lot and a large hot chips. From that moment on I've been very careful about unsealed roads and rain.
From Quorn I took a quick look into Port Augusta where I blogged from last time. I took Horrocks pass to get onto the east side of the Flinders at Wilmington which is just to the north of Mt Remarkable national park. After drying off my tent again, I set off to Alligator Gorge. It was only 10km in off the road, but it took me two hours to get there on account of the imposing gradients that I discovered. I basically walked my bike up every incline. The only thing that kept me going was the prospect of coming back down those hills. Oh man was I looking forward to that. Well, I did a half day hike through the gorge which was tip top and then hopped back on the bike and got back to the main road in 10 mins. On one of the hills I achieved a new speed personal best of 73.5km/h. w00t!!!!!!
After climbing Mt Remarkable the next day, the Mawson trail turned through more pastures and bare rolling hills. I scared alot of sheep and was constantly stopping to open and close gates. But it was great to be cycling away from any cars. Hehe, the sheep are hilarious. If a car goes past, they hardly batt an eyelid, but get within 500 meters of them on a bike and they just bolt. I guess they think I'm a sheepdog or something. Hehe, there was one point where I was riding in a narrow thoroughfare where a bunch of sheep had gathered. Well, I ended up rounding them up for a kilometer. I was laughing the whole bloody time. After my elation at being the king pin over the sheep however, I failed epically. I opened the gate and there was an electric fence line in front of it. Well, I'll admit to sheer stupidity. I didn't realise there was a plastic handle to move the electric fence so I tried to run my bike over the fence. That didn't work, the bike got snagged halfway over and I started getting shocked every second. Oh man that shit really gets the heart going. Every time I tried to unsnag it, the shock would get bigger and bigger. It wasn't until I was sitting on my arse with no idea what to do that I noticed the plastic handle. Stupid Anthony, stupid. Bah, I got thoroughly electrocuted though. Another experience in the books I guess ;)
I cycled 136km from Spalding to Burra in one day. That's my longest day so far and it was all on dirt. Stunning country though. After that I was in the Clare valley where cycling is all the rage. They've got a cycle only route called the Reisling trail. It follows an abandoned train line so the gradient isn't an issue. The trail takes you through all the wineries in the region, so it's safe to say I drank my way from Clare to Riverton. I had a blast up here. The wine was great and the people were really friendly. Two days later I was in the Barossa. The difference between the two wine regions is huge! I'd never heard of any of the Clare wineries but the Barossa was non-stop big brand wine.
My next stop will be Kangaroo Island I think. After that I'm basically going to stick to the coast with a brief stint inland to see the Grampians. That's the plan at this stage.
[ Last edited 02/09/2009 12:18pm ]
