Day 542 | Wellington: that's South Australia, not New Zealand

86 km | zzOz total: 17,240 km

I’m sitting, lying in a pool of water in my tent, not rain, it’s hot with the sun streaming in, I’m killing off ants. In the middle distance is the throaty roar from speed boats on the Murray that I can’t quite see and a whole lot of pre-teenage screaming and shouting.

I guess the summer holidays are almost here.

I could have, should have, continued for another 20 km but that would have brought me close to a town on a Friday night, I’m in no real hurry and this campsite is secluded with no road access, gotta take the bird in the hand.

After tomorrow the towns thin out and I’m hoping the ants do too, there’s just been streams of them near the river, the small black industrious variety, hurrying here and there for no apparent reason, maybe the exercise, but with the tent fully zipped up I’m concentrating on extermination internally.

I biked around the edge of Lake Alexandrina this morning, the lake full thanks to those barrages I visited, lots of green around the edge and birdlife colossally abundant.

At Milang I visited the bakery for a smoko treat and ran into another cyclist, Simon, on a recumbent trike towing a two wheeled trailer. At last a cyclist dragging more junk than me. The bike has been lovingly kitted out, various sturdy holders for phone, GPS, bike computer at eye level, a flood light for his night riding, beams like day for 100 m, the tube for sucking on water.

Overall it came to about $10k but it means he’s fully independent, admits to being a loner, friendly to me recognising another long distance fiend.

I ask a few questions about riding the bike, he changed from two years around Oz on a mountain bike and says he prefers his new machine now, top speed to date is just over 90 kmh, I say that even at 50k with my setup I feel death is imminent it’s so unstable, his basic cruising speed around 25k. He likes to make at least 100k.

I admit my longterm average is just over 14 kph.

Our discussion runs an hour or so, err, two, he started at 2am this morning and is going to stay here, I’m moving on, then as we are about to saddle up someone offers to take our photos, the sun is in the wrong place, three cameras come out for similar photos, Simon’s face increasingly glum.

Actually we hadn’t needed to say that much, there’s just validation of our life choices in meeting another long distance tourer, a shy smile sufficient reassurance that the world is an amazing place and we are out there, enjoying full on experience, living life as only we know how.