After some trouble with a useless bike shop, Hadleys Cycles, the night before, I set out from Newcastle last Saturday morning and thanks to Hadleys I had to wait for the bike shop in Raymond Terrace to open so that I could buy a spare tube. On Advice from the guy at the bike shop, I also bought a couple of these medical masks and ended up wearing one of them for most of the day. Not much fun when you get out of breath, as I do up the slightest of hills, but you can see at the back of this photo that we had another dust storm on Saturday and even with the mask my lungs still took a bit of strain the next day.

Medical Mask - see dust in background


I had my first puncture at 45kms, so I was very happy that I had waited for the bike shop to open to buy extra tubes! I was also a little concerned about how many flats I'd have during the trip if they started this early, but fortunately did not have any other on the trip! Wind was a little strong on day one and with the wind, difficulty breathing in the dust and late start, I stopped at Bulahdelah for the day.

Wind and Dust storm day 1


My trip went something like this and even though I didn't make it all the way to Brisbane, I was quite happy with my performance on most days:

Day 1 - 95Kms to Bulahdelah
Day 2 - 116Kms to Kew
Day 3 - 126Kms to Macksville
Day 4 - 140Kms to Grafton
Day 5 - 131Kms to Bellina
Day 6 - 95Kms to Tweed Heads

The most beautiful area of the trip for me was around the farms just after Grafton with a similar setting around Macksville being a close second.

Sunrise Outside Grafton


River Before Macksville




The farms around Grafton is also where I had a Pulp Fiction experience... one of those stories that nobody else will ever believe - like a storm of bullets passing through the guys in Pulp Fiction without hurting them:) I was attacked by a magpie that just would not stop!! Normally those buggers attack for a while and then give up, but this one wouldn't stop! I'd gotten off my bike twice, but it even attacked me while I was walking. At the end I just stood there looking at this bird not certain what to do next. While I was getting back onto my bike, I heard its beak snapping next to my ear again and as I looked up, a smaller bird attacked the magpie??? I couldn't believe it and I'm sure nobody's going to believe this story, but it's the honest truth. The magpie sat down on a telephone cable above me and the little bird sat down just behind it. I stood watching for a moment in absolute amasement, got on my bike and cycled off and didn't see that magpie again. I don't know what that little bird's mission was, but if I could grant wishes, I'd tie that magpie to a pole and torture it slowly... Oh wait, that would be my wish. Not sure what a little bird would wish for, but I'd grant it anyway!

Magpies are a serious pain!!! On one of the days, may have been that same day, I counted six different attacks!
The day before was a little more serious than being chased by a magpie though. On the way to Grafton, I was chased by a bushfire!!
I saw something in the distance and thought, what on earth is that? I thought it's a storm, but the clouds seemed too thick and where I was, was hot and clear skies. A while later I stopped to give my butt a rest and again I thought "what on earth is that?". This time is was considerably closer and looked pretty much like a nuclear mushroom. It took me a while to realise, but I eventually figured that I wouldn't still be standing if that was an A-bomb mushroom so close to me. Then a chain of thoughts fired in me little brain and it went something like this:
"Hey, it's a bushfire!
Hey, it must be a fairly large fire to cause that sized mushroom!
Hey, that's pretty close to me.
Oh damn, the wind's kinda blowing in my direction.
Damn, it's hot out here!!
Probably no reason to panic, I'm sure these Ozzies deal with bushfires all the time!".
No disrespect meant here, but in that moment I remembered last year's fires where whole towns were destroyed and, if I'm not mistaken, thousands of people died. My amusement changed into a casual urgency to get the hell out of there.
Found the first couple of hills that I may normally have gotten off the bike and walked up, but decided to push through and keep cycling. Then I looked around and could only see some smoke in the distance and decided that I was probably stressing for no reason. Relaxed for a while until I looked to the right and saw the dark grey/black clouds through the trees and realised that the fire was now even closer than ever. Shortly thereafter I saw some smoke on the left, though not nearly as thick as on the right and I thought to myself "shit a brick, I'm surrounded by fire!"
Then I hit a hill!!! Pretty steep hill... at least the second worst hill of the trip and I couldn't even dream of cycling up that. Must have been around 11-11:30ish, boiling hot and I was genuinely scared. Well, I may have been walking, but I was walking at one hell of a pace up the hill. I finished more than a bottle of Powerade up that one hill and I think I sweat (sweated?) it out faster than I could drink. Either that or I had wet my pants in fear, can't remember! Got to the top of the hill and there was just white smoke everywhere on the Horizon. bla, bla, bla... The fires were in front of me and behind me, but obviously everything worked out - I'm still here. Anyway, apart from cycling through some pretty thick smoke, nothing happened. Still, I was pretty scared and had a good mind to jump on a train back home from Grafton.

Fire next to road


Also see smoke in the background, effects your breathing

Thanks Eric,

It certainly was a big achievement for me. Couldn't believe the 140km day and yes, you're absolutely right in your previous post, I think my local rides will be a breeze from now on. I must admit that my legs are still a little sore today, 2 days later. But I think I'll be ready to ride to work tomorrow.

Now your time is short, well relatively:) Hope your training is going well.

At Macksville the first motel wanted to charge me $130 for the night. When I said that's too expensive, the lady said she can go down to $117, but that the lowest possible. She then offered to phone another motel for me and they said they can do $89 for the night, which is expensive, but a little better. On the way to the second motel I saw a sign saying $60 for the night, followed that and ended up at Bellevue Riverside Motel. I got the last room, which happened to be a family room with one kick-ass big television and 6 beds. Pitty I was too tired to enjoy the television. Here's a pic of the next morning taken meters away from the motel's exit.

River next to Bellevue motel in Macksville


Woods Outside Macksville


Road Outside Macksville


Mosque in some town before Grafton

More Mist Outside Bellina


BigTree


Big Knight


Big Prawn


View Of Brisbane, Not


In the above pic you can see some large buildings under the red arrow. At first I thought I was taking a photograph of Brisbane, but I don't think I can see that far (see next photo). Instead I think that must have been aruond Surfers Paradise or something.

One day's travel

Dirk
You finally wrote what I wanted to see, I mean read. . All the photos, all the places. Eric is teaching me a lot about Spain and now I am reading about and seeing Australia. You've done a great job.I am still laughing about the Magpies! I am very concerned about the fact that there is so little response. I trust that people did take note and that there will be some response.
You must have enjoyed the scenes. It is a beautiful country.

The children went back to school today and the two volunteers are geared towards helping them with their studies and keeping them to their study times.
Tia

Eric, haha, not certain what you're talking about. Certainly I had my usual complaints with the saddle, being a deep, numb pain in my muscles/bones, but actually even that was better than I expected. Months ago, with one of the saddles I tried, I had a burning/raw sensation in the shower and I guess that's what you're talking about. Fortunately, apart from that one saddle, I have not been plagued by that:)
One of the biggest discomforts for me was the bibs or whatever you call these lycra shorts with padding... They were constantly pinching something that shouldn't be pinched and I ended up riding the last 2 days with normal jocks:)



I think that's very true!! I didn't cycle to the office this morning because we changed to daylight savings time on Sunday so it's still dark at 5:00am and I didn't have batteries for the back light om my bike. But I'll be back on the bike tomorrow and I have some big plans for my training from now on.