Australia

It seems rain just follows me wherever I go. Yesterday was fairly good day, I even got a mild sunburn. However, around 8pm it started to drizzle and it was drizzling on and off for a while. When I got up in the morning, my tent was wet and packing wasn’t pleasant. It also took longer than expected. Google gave me 3h20m to get to Warnambool and I gave myself a 1h cushion. Google, of course, didn’t account for strong head wind. On top of it, the first 15-20 km were hilly. But even when it turned into flat farmland, I had to pedal very hard and practically nonstop to keep a reasonable speed. I was worrying if I would make it on time for my train back to Melbourne. As a last resort, I kept the option of flagging a car open.

I managed to briefly stop at London Bridge, another limestone formation that is now called London Arch because one of its spans collapsed a few years back.

I was at the end of my rope when I got into Warnambool train station, just 17 minutes before departure. My legs were dead. But now I am writing this while seating comfortably in a first class coach.

A few hours from now, I’ll leave for New Zealand. Can I say I enjoyed my stay in Australia? Honestly, I can’t. It’s a great country and there’s a lot to see and do. And I did see and do what I wanted, but since it rained 14 out of 16 days while I was here, the enjoyment part got lost on me.
But maybe one day I will come back in a better season and then…

Today in numbers:

70 km – distance cycled
243 km – total length of GOR; because I started and finished further out, I did 305 km