Day 31 | here in Macclesfield: after running into a few others on a bike
64 km | Heading west total: 1,330 km
After seeing very few cyclists on the trip to date I met 3 sets of riders today in about 15 minutes.
This photo is the boy from Barcelona. He landed in Darwin, rode to Uluru in 19 days, took a bus back to the Stuart Highway and headed to Adelaide in another 9 days. (That’s really moving.) He was off to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road. He was shaking his head looking at all my stuff. He had a lightly packed trailer and no panniers. He said there was a tent in there somewhere. He suggested I come and ride through the Pyrenees, no doubt to get me to lose the baggage fetish.
The photo was taken by another road cyclist from Murray Bridge out for a blast who rode with me for 20 minutes.
The other 2 riders were a couple of credit card blokes (ie, no camping so just staying in motels) about my age with just small panniers also off to Melbourne but via a different route. They had 2 weeks with each day’s accommodation already booked and paid for. Humm, this type of travelling seems to me pretty destination orientated. Not much time for looking around.
My main diversion today was wine tasting at Bleasdale Winery at Langhorne Creek which was established in 1850 and still operated by the same family descendants.
They had an open bottle policy: just help yourself.
Then took off for some lunch and left me with the whole room to myself.
That didn’t help the climb up the hill later in the day.