meander

eagerly getting on our bikes this morning for a fun filled day of riding in the rain and wind, we managed to set off from melrose a little after 9:30. dyon did take some convincing to actually leave, believing that we should spend another day in the safe, warm sanctuary of 'A' cabin in the caravan park.

we rode down the main road then onto the dirt in high spirits aided by a tailwind and a false flat down, and the roads appeared to be fine after all the rain. well, that is until we turned onto spring creek road; it was a red clay mud bath. from there, riding turned into pushing the bikes and then the pushing turned into stopping every 50 metres to clear the gunk out so our wheels could still turn. it was hard to see when it would end...

luckily for us a lovely farmer saw our plight and rescued us in a 'red oot' (ute). kai was delighted to get a ride in an oot. and we were delighted by his warmth and helpfulness. he pulled out his high pressure hose so our bikes were clean in no time. luckily for us everything seems to be running smoothly still.

after spending the whole morning to cover 15ish km we decided to only go as far as wilmington (30km from melrose), but when we got there we didn't feel ready to stop. so we bought a pie, a pastie and a chocolate milk from the (un)friendly grocer (she was very narky about my muddy shoes which i voluntarily took off outside!) and headed on out of town.

luckily the roads north out of wilmington on the mawson trail were great, not a patch of mud in sight. and the tailwind was still helping us along. after another 11km we stopped for 2nd lunch only to find that someone had forgotten to pack the lunch (and dinner) ingredients!! they were still sitting in the fridge in melrose. :( so a brief and boring 2nd lunch stop was had.

there was a conservation park about 15km further along the road which we had in mind for a bush camp night. however, the road to the CP proved correct when it said "dry weather road only'. so we turned off the mawson trail (once again) and headed down to the highway. unfortunately there weren't any nice camping spots on the back roads to the highway so we ended up just riding into quorn. a long day for all of us as we didn't get here until a quarter past five.

the highlights of the day were:

• mud, mud, mud
• a friendly farmer
• ride in a red oot
• an unfriendly grocer (and a closed cafe that promised home made pasties! :( )
• observing dry weather signs
• fast highway riding
• riding the furthest so far on this trip (72km)
• corn in quorn (with yummy chicken schnitzels at the pub)