May 18, 2024
Capella
Today's ride didn't start off in the best way. Two kilometers from leaving our very nice digs I discovered I had left my mobile phone behind at the motel. The only reason why I realized that I had was because we stopped to draw money at an ATM and I noticed it wasn't in my handlebar bag. A disaster averted!
Once I had returned from collecting my mobile phone it was an easy ride northwards to Capella.
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The ride was easy thanks to a tailwind which canceled out the effects of the gentle climb that only really ended four kilometers from Capella. As expected, there weren't any interesting things to see along the way. Traffic was also quite heavy, about a hundred and fifty vehicles per hour.
Capella seems a neat little town but I suspect its best days have come and gone. There are a number of tidy looking motels and a large bottle store but the local grocery store and pharmacy are both closed down. With the declining mining activity and three excellent supermarkets and a number of pharmacies just fifty kilometers away it must have been difficult to keep them operational.
With today's ride being relatively easy we were in good spirits upon our arrival at the caravan park. Unfortunately the manager of the caravan appeared to have had her sense of humour surgically removed some years before. My upbeat mood and her sour disposition combined to have me involuntarily responding to her grumpiness with witticisms while she probably thought I was a smart arse. Eventually Leigh signaled to me to keep my mouth shut.
It's much drier here than further south and our pitch is on some crispy grass but thankfully under the shade of a tree that didn't look as if it will shed branches in the wind, as eucalyptus trees are inclined to do, or be a roost for birds that will poo over the tent overnight. It is also some way away from the powered sites where all the Grey Nomads are parked.
It turns out that Capella bills itself as the Country Music Capital of Australia. The campground has a bandstand and we had a couple of hours of the locals serenading us as the sun was setting. Some good, some less so. All done by seven o'clock so it wasn't going to keep us awake.
Just over fifty kilometers to Clermont tomorrow with another tailwind predicted.
Today's ride: 60 km (37 miles)
Total: 3,128 km (1,942 miles)
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