Day 574 | A few kms from Adaminaby: last night in K National Park
66 km | zzOz total: 18,945 km
Well, I got the fire bit somewhat wrong: this alpine area was only rated Extreme, 10 on the old scale but they decided to close every national park in NSW, and people had to leave, it’s a Total Fire Ban day across the state today.
Up here in the clouds you might not know it, the temperature is almost 20ºC cooler at altitude, but one thing’s that raging is the wind, I’m glad to be wearing my bike helmet with all the stray forest woody bits raining down on the road.
There’s a real heart starter before smoko, morning tea, although I traditionally only have a few swigs of my water as my beverage, and a handful of dates and three or four dried apricots, the climb from Tumut Ponds Dam up to Cabramurra, which bills itself as the highest town in Australia, you know I just had to go there, 1488 m. The pedals are whirring as I grind out the climb and surprise myself that I don’t need to take a breather, those photo stops don’t count, surely.
It’s the usual mountain roller coaster for the rest of the day, a gigantic gust of wind at one stage blows me off the road, just at the point I break a chain link, and some rain really buckets down, has to be Atherton since I’ve last seen drops like that, the misty drizzle around Ravenshoe and the Iron Range National Park don’t really count.
I just camp in the bush like the old days, a very minor track, barely discernible, branches off at the top of the hill, another Great Dividing Range summit for the day, this time the sign states 1250 m, I’m 80 m from the highway but there’s little traffic, the rain has gone, no clouds even, but that wind is still shaking the trees around.