Racing to the forest: And trying to get my blog posts in the right order

August 1, 2015

We woke up early to get out of the field as we were probably trespassing and were fortunate enough to spot a couple more platypuses in the river below our campsite before moving on. We were now on a not-very-busy paved road and decided to have a bit of a race to the next town of Cathcart. As you may have guessed from all our games we both have a friendly competitive streak and as a consequence the race turned out to be quite epic. Dea went off ahead at first but got hot on a climb and I passed her as she stopped to change clothes. But as the hill went on she gradually clawed back the distance until she was behind me, at which point I started teasing her. I assumed she must be tired from catching me up and I felt good and I was confident I could still win easily. But then at the top of the hill she suddenly sling-shotted past me with a burst of energy. Amazed and doing my best to respond I stepped on the pedals as the long descent to Cathcart began and I made a risky undertake at a junction. Even this wasn’t enough, however, with Dea once again coming back stronger and passing me yet again as we neared the line. I tucked in behind her and caught her slipstream. The Cathcart sign, our finish line was rapidly approaching. 300 metres, 200 metres, 100 metres. I moved out from her slipstream and gradually glided past for my moment of glory. But the incredible Dea pounded the pedals harder than ever and put on a last burst of speed to win by a nose.

We recovered from our exertions in Cathcart - a somewhat run-down and mostly deserted village – by playing noughts and crosses and swinging on the swings in the playground. Once we’d caught our breath we continued, and three kilometres later made a left turn onto a gravel road with no traffic at all. This took us once again up into the forest. It was such a wonderful place to be riding a bike, away in the secluded woodland where it seemed so few others went. There was plenty of climbing and then some very steep downhill until finally we found ourselves at a rest area deep in the forest.

At this rest area was signposted a short walk to some cascades which, with us not being in any particular rush, we naturally went to explore. And it was well worth it, as we soon came across a big waterfall. It was surrounded by large boulders and rock pools and fallen tree trunks and it was a beautiful place that was great fun to climb around. With just the two of us there it felt like we were alone in the world and once again we were sharing the most incredible and wonderful experiences.

After more ascending and descending on the gravel roads we finally came out of the forest late afternoon and once again returned to a paved road and to farmland. Behind us we could see dark rainclouds in the mountains we had just traversed and this rain was coming after us. Unfortunately we were now surrounded by fences and there was simply no place to stop and camp so we had to press on even as the clouds drew closer.

Camels! I finally saw camels! I'm not sure they were wild

Eventually it began to get dark and we reached the town of Candelo still just ahead of the rain. Now we had no choice but to find somewhere to sleep in the town but fortunately there was a football field that looked like it was a perfect place for a tent. We stopped in a sheltered picnic area next to the field to wait out the rain as it caught us up. Whilst we were there making bean burgers on the free-to-use public barbeques that are all over Australia (and were providing us our only hot food since my stove gave up the ghost) a van pulled up. It was two travellers, a couple from Australia and Italy. They were friendly and told us that there was going to be a market on the field in the morning so we’d have to get up early. The Italian’s name was Tia, which Dea was amazed by because she thought he had the same name as her. I argued that it wasn’t actually the same name, but she was insistent. “It is the same name!” she argued, “It’s just spelt differently and pronounced differently!”

Today's ride: 56 km (35 miles)
Total: 45,595 km (28,314 miles)

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