September 2, 2015
Bananas: Bananas bananas, bananas, bananas, bananas, bananas, bananas, bananas, bananas, bananas, bananas, bananas!!!
We woke up in the forest and saw what a very impressive forest it actually was, with huge great big trees and palms and ferns that were rather tropical. Of course this magnificent forest which would once have covered so much of this part of Australia was now somewhat limited in size and it wasn't long before we had cycled out of it again and were on our way into Coffs Harbour on a nice bicycle path next to the highway. This bicycle path lead us past a rather un-Australian stall where they were selling fruit right next to the road. The primary fruit for sale was the banana, and this was obvious to us before we'd even got close to the stall, because from the roof of the stall protruded a most gigantic bunch of bananas which, according to the gigantic sign above them, belonged to a man named Cunningham. Well Dea was impressed with Cunningham's bananas, and I was impressed with the correct use of the apostrophe, and so we stopped and bought some bananas from this stall, and we dipped them in chocolate spread and ate them like that, and declared it a most delicious and nutritious snack.
In the sizeable town of Coffs Harbour we stopped at a bike shop to ask which route they thought best to take onwards to Grafton and, after the man in the shop had told us his opinions on that matter, we further quizzed him as to what there was to see and do in the sizeable town of Coffs Harbour. He mentioned the harbour, which sounded a little dull, and was too far away, and we didn't want to go to, and we were about to leave it at that, but then he came up with a much better idea, and told us we should go and see the big banana. Dea's eyes lit up, and she eagerly asked him “What is the big banana?” as if she thought it some sort of euphemism. But the man just looked back at her and replied dryly “Well, it's a big banana.”
We did our usual thing and went to the supermarket to buy food, and the library to use the wifi, and then we set about leaving Coffs Harbour. On our way we decided that we would visit the big banana, because the man in the bike shop had added that he thought it was in fact the biggest banana in the world and that had intrigued us, but also because, more importantly, it was on the road we planned to cycle on anyway. There was a big hill before we got to the big banana, and it took us a long time to crawl up it, cycling on the footpath because the road was busy and dangerous, and the suspense of what awaited us therefore built up quite nicely. By the time we crested the hill Dea was getting really rather excited about the big banana. Unfortunately what we saw when we descended down was a little disappointing. “Is that it?” Dea asked “It's not as big as I expected” in a dejected tone that brought out a troublesome moment of deja vu for me.
If the big banana wasn't all we had hoped for at least things returned to awesome on the banana front soon thereafter, when we turned off the highway onto a small road and soon came across a freezer and a sign saying that ice cold chocolate coated bananas were on sale. We had just started to climb upwards and the sun was high in the sky. An ice cold chocolate coated banana was, remarkably, just exactly the thing that both our hot and sweaty selves wanted. We gobbled up the delicious treats only stopping long enough for Dea to mention that it was the third banana with chocolate she had consumed in the last hour and for me to ask what exactly her point was. We had after all, already agreed that bananas and chocolate were the best thing in the whole world, and we'd just discovered how even more awesome they were frozen.
It was a brilliant idea for the owners of the farmhouse here to leave a freezer filled with ice cold chocolate coated bananas in the street for hot and sweaty cyclists to enjoy. We just had to pay our money into the honesty box. Simple. But we noticed that there was a security camera afixed to the top of the stall where the bananas were. “Is that really necessary?” asked Dea. “Apparently so” I said, pointing to a poster on the side of the stall that depicted some very grainy CCTV shots and the question 'Do you know this thief'. We looked at the images which were, according to the date, some four years old, and we wondered who on earth would stoop to stealing bananas. “Maybe it's Alex?” Dea said with a smile.
I was further reminded of my time cycling with Alex in southern China when Dea and I continued our climb and began to pass banana plantations which covered the surrounding hillsides. This certainly explained Coffs Harbour's obsession with bananas and it confirmed that we really had travelled a long way now. From the temperate south of Australia we were now far enough north for bananas to be grown in abundance. And that they were, all over the hillsides and what a sight and what a feeling it was to be cycling uphill through them, with the mighty Pacific far below us. The only downside was that the road was narrow and busy, but that just made it feel more like we were back in Asia.
Thankfully the traffic thinned out for a while after the climb and we left the traffic and the bananas behind, and returned to the forest. That night we camped early and reminisced. In the morning it would be exactly one year to the day since we had first met on the Mongolian plains, and what a year it had been. We celebrated in the most appropriate way that we, as two happy young lovers, could think of, by, yes you've guessed it, eating bananas dipped in chocolate spread.
Today's ride: 46 km (29 miles)
Total: 46,927 km (29,142 miles)
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