Against The Wind - Adelaide, Australia
Adelaide, Australia
Hello from fabulous Adelaide. We're a little overdue in providing an update, mostly because we're still revelling in the attractions of civilisation after four weeks of crossing the Outback, and writing about it was the last thing on our minds. We left off having ridden into Coober Pedy in 43 degree heat. Well, what a difference a day makes as we left there in a cloudy morning and got absolutely soaked by a mid-morning downpour making it a pretty chilly few hours on the bikes. As was becoming the usual scenario for our Stuart Highway southbound journey, the wind was in our face the entire day making it another several hours of riding in a mini-peleton to allow ourselves a bit of respite. It was 250km from Coober Pedy to the next roadhouse, so this was another bush camping night. The area we were camping in was fairly decent and allowed us all to spread out and have our own little plot of land to pitch our tents in, but the howling wind made it a fairly tedious afternoon and evening. At one point, as I looked at a line of people sat in camp chairs with their backs to the wind, wearing rain jackets and holding mugs of tea or soup, I was reminded of a traditional British family day out at the seaside. The weather and the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere made for a pretty early night. Perhaps it was knowing that we were in the final few days travelling along the same road, but the cycling was starting to feel a bit tedious. It was becoming a case of getting up and getting on the bike to clock another hundred and something kilometres to bring us closer to the goal of Port Augusta. That said, there were still the daily surprises that reminded us why we were doing this in the first place. On the road from the bush camp to Glendambo roadhouse, we pulled alongside a pair of kangaroos - one large, one smaller - just to our left in the bush at the side of the road. Startled, they took off. Clearly not the smartest animals in the world, rather than choosing to escape into the thousand or so kilometres of empty space to the east, they elected to escape us by bounding away south, parallel to the highway in the direction that we were heading. This would have been fine except for the fact that we were travelling at almost exactly the same speed as them and followed them on their right for six or seven hundred metres. At one point the smaller roo decided that a change of direction was called for, but clearly neglected to tell the larger one, and as he cut across him mid-leap he sent the larger roo somersaulting through the air to land on his back. By the time he got to his feet he'd obviously figured that a change of strategy was called for, and he bounced off away from the road with his smaller mate in tow. So that 90 seconds was the highlight of 125km of riding, but it was pretty special. The following day had a much better star attraction when we arrived at Lake Hart, a huge salt flat just off the highway. It was a short hop, skip and a jump over some railway tracks to get down to the salt flats with the bikes, and we spent half an hour tearing around on the pristine white surface. It was a very strange experience as your brain was insisting that something that's flat, white, shiny and used to be a lake must be ice and therefore dangerously slippy to ride a bike on, but the salt crust provided great traction and you could cycle as fast as you liked on it. Also despite the fact that the brain was telling you that it must be cold, the temperature was back up in the high thirties, and the sun's heat really reflected off the white surface. As all you could see in every direction was this white plain, it was very difficult to judge distances. There was a real child-like joy in riding around it, but eventually we had to call time and continue on our journey to Woomera. Woomera was yet another pretty bizarre place. It's existence is purely down to the fact that it's in the middle of an area that the Australian Ministry of Defence decided would be a good place for space programmes, missile launches and hydrogen bomb testing. The whole town looked like it could have been drop-shipped in and assembled in a week, but there was a fascinating museum that explained the town's history and the associated military activities. Another big plus was that the campsite had a great little bar with an outdoor patio, and they served drinks at unbelievably low prices compared to everything we'd experienced so far. At $4 for a gin and tonic it would have been rude not to, so we ordered them until they finally ran out of tonic. The bar's owner couldn't quite understand it as he said that he hadn't sold any gin for six months. Out from Woomera we had two more days of riding until we reached Port Augusta, but at 117km and 62 km each day they could be realistically combined into a one-day ride. Being desperate to get the Stuart Highway completed, a few of us elected to do just that and give ourselves a couple of days of R&R in Port Augusta. So it was that around 3pm on Tuesday 18th November, we road into Shoreline Caravan Park in Port Augusta, and caught our first sight of the water in the Spencer Gulf. This officially meant that we had done it. We had cycled the 2,834k of the Stuart Highway and crossed Australia from it's northern coast at Darwin to its southern coast at Port Augusta. The Outback was finished. No more road trains. It's all vineyards, cities and coastline from here! Port Augusta is a pleasant little town with a well-maintained waterfront with cycle paths and shaded picnic tables and benches. We spent our two days there doing absolutely nothing other than occasional wander out for food and drink, and it felt great. Come Friday morning we were feeling well rested, ready to go again and looking forward to the new terrain. We certainly weren't let down in this regard. After a month of the same highway, we were soon on a rough track leading us out of town and towards the hills of the Flinders Ranges. There was our first hill to climb since leaving Indonesia, which also meant the first freewheeling downhill for over a month too. What we had just described as a 30-day spin class was over, and we were really cycling again, needing to steer, change gear, brake and all those other things that make cycling fun. I was so overjoyed at the fact that we had hills and rolling scenery that I even took a 14km detour from our planned route out to Hancock's Lookout which promised views back over the Flinders Ranges and the Spencer Gulf, and it was definitely worth it, even just for the fantastic, rolling dirt road up to it, and even more so for the fast, sweeping descent back down. Our lunch stop that day was in the pretty little town of Melrose, just outside a great bike shop/coffee shop. The shop owner must have had one of his best days ever as 35 re-invigorated cyclists appeared over the space of a few hours and all bought coffee, cake and several items of clothing. His free wifi meant that people hung out there longer than normal for a lunch stop too. The post-lunch route to Jamestown took us deep into farming country and as far as the eye could see were fields of wheat. The scale of the farms is incredible compared to Britain, and the harvesting machinery is equally super-sized. The following day out of Jamestown to Riverton was much anticipated by most of the riders as it took us through the vineyards of the Clare Valley and onto the Riesling Trail. This is a former rail line that has been converted into a 30km cycle and walking track that winds its way amongst the vineyards famous for their Riesling and Shiraz wines. We had to take the morning as slowly as possible so as to not hit the Riesling Trail before the vineyard cellar doors opened for wine tasting, and sods law dictated that of course we would get a tailwind pushing us along for the first time in weeks. After a long, lazy lunch we figured that some of the vineyards must be open from 10am and set off. The next five hours were spent meandering from vineyard to vineyard sampling their wares. The biggest challenge of today's ride was how many bottles of wine could be carried on a bike. With a little repacking I reckoned I could safely manage three, and had to be very selective about which vineyards got my custom. The Riesling Trail ended at a lovely town called Auburn, and we'd been reliably informed that the Clare Valley Brewing Company there did great beers and served sampler paddles of four beers. Again, it would have been rude not to. Thankfully the route from Auburn to our campsite at Riverton was on another off-road trail, meaning that we didn't have to worry about cars and trucks, or cycling on a public highway whilst intoxicated. Rolling into camp at 4pm made it my second-longest day of cycling by time for our whole tour, but unlike the longest day it was a thoroughly pleasant day out, and I didn't feel like I wanted to just lie down and die. It also helped that our campsite was just across from a lovely cricket pitch, and Saturday matches were in progress. The ride into Adelaide the following day was another treat, with a spectacular trek through a section called Gorge Road that climbed up and then dropped steeply into the sides of river-carved gorge. It must be one of the top road rides in the world and was certainly popular with the local cycling clubs, motorcyclists and meat-heads with muscle cars. We saw some crazy driving going on around the S-bends of the gorge, and at the top of the big climb, Dara came upon a motorcyclist who had just wrapped himself around a tree. Shortly after this a fleet of police cars, fire trucks and an air ambulance arrived and closed the road off before air-lifting the victim out of there. We saw on the local news later that he had somehow survived and was a stable condition. Having seen the speeds that some of the motorbikes and cars were taking on the corners, I imagine they must have to scrape someone off the road at least once a month. Still, an absolutely fabulous cycle. In Adelaide we have decided to treat ourselves and stay in town in the wonderful Adina Apartments Hotel, which is in the former city treasury building. What was a beautiful one bedroom apartment soon descended into some sort of squat as we took out our tents to dry off, scattered the contents of our bags everywhere and hung our washing out to dry on a line strung up across the bathroom. Thank goodness for Do Not Disturb signs. Our day and a half in Adelaide has been great, and it is a fantastic city with a lot going for it. We have naturally spent a lot of the time here sampling the excellent restaurants, and today ate in what we think is the best burger joint we've ever experienced. Soft-shell crab burger - MmmmmMmmmmm. However the real highlight was a visit to Cleland Wildlife Park in the hills to the south east of the city, where you can walk around with, pet and feed kangaroos, wallabies and koala bears amongst others. It was incredible to be able to get so close to all of these animals and amazing to have them come and eat out of your hand. I was a bit freaked out by the rapid pecking movements of an emu taller than I was and bravely swapped places with Dara to put myself safely behind the camera. I blame Rod Hull. We really wish that we could have some more time in Adelaide as we have been so impressed with the little that we've managed to see so far, but it's back on the bikes tomorrow for a five day section of riding that will bring us down the coast and towards the start of the Great Ocean Road. It's hard to believe that we will reach our finish line in Sydney in under four weeks, but we know that there's still a lot of fun to be had between now and then.