July 30, 2015
Bouncing along through Bonang: And into New South Wales
I’m sure all readers will be delighted to hear that we weren’t killed in the night and we awoke at the campground to another lovely day. Although we hadn’t been fortunate enough to see any platypuses in the stream almost as soon as we rounded the first corner on the bikes I spotted two llamas, presumably belonging to one of the few people who call Goongerah home. This gave me a 3-2 advantage in the kangaroo, rabbit, and llama spotting game, although our low-scoring start was about to end. Around the very next corner Dea spotted some kangaroos in the mist of a field down below us. It soon became apparent that there were whole herds of the creatures down there, which led to all sorts of controversies over who saw what first, by the end of which I came out with a 14-13 lead.
And there were even more kangaroo sightings as we climbed a steady hill progressively up through the mountains. We were still deep in the remote forest and even passed through another section that had burnt and recovered in similarly amazing fashion to that which we had seen the day before. Once again it was wonderful cycling.
We came out of the forest eventually and out into an area of cleared land where we reached our only real settlement since Orbost (Goongerah being almost entirely composed of nomadic people living in tents) - a tiny little hamlet named Bonang. We didn’t see any people in Bonang but after stopping to eat at a picnic table we did make use of the children’s playground, perhaps the first to do so for many years.
Then it was back into the forest and another climb that brought us up to the highest point of our journey, just a little shy of a thousand metres above sea level. From there we had a nice descent down to Delegate River, another non-descript hamlet, the Information Board of which perfectly summed up the pace of life out here.
Just after the place named Delegate River we crossed the actual river called Delegate River which also brought us into a different state, New South Wales. We were both desperate to see platypuses and we’d been told by John back in Sale that he’d seen them up at Delegate. The actual town of Delegate was another fifteen kilometres up the road but we figured Delegate River was Delegate River, and there was a good place to camp, so we stopped and spent the remainder of the evening crouched down by the river bank, watching quietly for platypuses. Although we knew they were most active at dawn and dusk it seemed like the water was a little bit too fast-flowing, however, and our patience brought us no platypuses. It did bring us something, though, as I spotted movement on the far bank. Closer inspection revealed the waddling figure of an echidna, a spiky creature somewhere between a hedgehog and a porcupine. Interestingly echidnas are one of only two egg-laying mammals in the entire world, the other being the platypus. We happily watched the echidna for several minutes as it foraged around before disappearing up the hill.
It seemed like the echidna was going to be all the excitement we were going to get on the wildlife front as darkness began to draw in. But then, just as we were about to give up, what should appear but another creature from the Australian wilderness. This time it was… wait for it… a single, lone, black goat. The goat wandered cautiously around on the far bank, checking out the area for a while before deciding on a good spot to lie down and sleep. It seemed like it had escaped from somewhere, and was trying to find its own way in the world. “Now there is a real runaway goat!”
Today's ride: 45 km (28 miles)
Total: 45,483 km (28,245 miles)
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