Flat out

Day 42. 21/10/11: Manatoo Road to Bundaleer Forest

Lily's bit

Hmmm. Interesting.... Yesterday's feeling fit and strong didn't make an appearance on this morning's ride. We started off in the rain, feeling good. We were heading into another forest and they're always nice. After about a kilometre we reached a big puddle straddling the whole road. Negotiated well. Feeling confident. Around a corner past a ruin of a hut and a reasonable hill stretching up for a few kms in front of us. That's ok. It's wet and my tyres are caked in mud, but this is cool. It's lovely to be out in the rain. Up the hill, slowly. Getting slower. Breathing harder. 'I'm really finding this hard today, Tim', says I. But I'll feel better soon. My legs will wake up and I'll be speedy again. A bit of gravel road to kick off all this mud and I'll be right. 3kms later, the hill still doing its  hilly thing...I'm really struggling! But I'm ok with hard, it's probably all the mud caked on my tyres making my bike twice as heavy. It'll get easier.

Umm. No. 

'Lil, you've got a flat'. WHAT???!!! There were tears. Of relief that it wasn't just me being unfit? Frustration at being so dim and not noticing? Something like that. I'm impressed at my lack of swearing, actually. That was a moment of pure frustrated, angry, relieved emotion and I did well to keep it together (I think. Tim may have seen it differently).

The tyre wasn't staying inflated, so we did a quick pump up and raced down hill to the van. (I was flat again about half way down, mind.) 6kms on a flat tyre in the mud, uphill, in the rain. I was feeling pretty crappy. So I told Tim to go on without me. It meant he could just run unencumbered by a whinging pom and I'd pick him up in the forest later.

I repacked the van with our muddy bikes and drove to the pick up point. My water bladder broke in my backpack. Soaked. Not my day. A good day for sitting inside the van not doing anything!

We're in Jamestown now. The town with modern shopping facilities. It's a very industrial-rural town. There are a couple of grain silos on the outskirts and shops catering for farmers. It was RM Williams' birth place. RM Williams: the bush outfitter. Clothing for the man-about-farm. But it's pretty soulless. Tim put it well: it's a town that wants to be a city. It's not happy with just being a great rural town, so has car yards and oddly placed sections of paving. No bookshops. No history on show. But I'm very very happy that it has a Foodland. Foodland hummus! AND my favorite muesli! To hell with history! Score!

Tim's bit:

Lily's not a whinging pom. She's a delicate flower having mud thrown at her by Fate and flat tyres. But for me it was great she decided not to ride today. Not for the reason she suggested but because the course was hilly, wet, slippery and varied between muddy 4WD tracks and just invisible paths crossing paddocks covered in long wet grass. It was very slow going and I wouldn't have wanted to do it twice. There were some lovely moments: watching kangaroos bound through long grass is somehow beautiful. It's kind of like the land version of watching dolphins dive in and out of water. Seeing this every now and then lifted my spirits when they were down with my feet, sloshing around in my soaking wet shoes. It felt like a true cross country trail half-marathon, and one I kind of felt like I did well to finish. And I'm not saying "Finish in under such-and-such-a-time" - just finish. I was going to sum it up simply as: "Progress was made" but that probably doesn't suggest how much of an achievement that is some days. I would have held my arms up when I reached the van, but my left shoulder is playing up (weird - all this running and the thing that's really hurting is my shoulder!) but I did manage a good WOOT! and a bit of a YAY! as I met up with Lily.

The best bit about the Jamestown Caravan Park is that a portable ocean liner - a beheamoth of lifestyle travel - the ark Noah bought when he retired to drive around Australia - has parked next to us. The thing is big enough to be a terrorist target. If we were a single french fry, it would be the burger grill. It has been supersized so much it even has an extendable midrift which, after it parked, extended out towards us like a fat man loosening his belt. I was reading at the time, and wanted to yell out: "Whoa there, boy: not too far! Maybe just keep the shirt tucked in, eh?!"

But good showers, good dinner, and hopefully a good night's sleep! I think the next few days I may be reduced again to doing a lot more walking than running, and boasting (honestly) that "progress was made!" I am enjoying it. The harder things bring out something like the joy of having something to really have a crack at. Nature all wet and windy and spooky is cool, too!

(Can I put in a plug for Tim’s book-chatting blog here? Follow the link from our travel blog or go straight to http://booksthatmakeyougohmmm.blogspot.com, then click on “The Invitation” to get the general idea... I still haven’t written anything for it, but will soon!)