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Journal for 3-Jan-2004 : Bomballa

After getting a whopping 4 hours sleep Linda and I reluctantly and tearfully left Linda's parents home at Tura beach, and retraced out steps back up into the mountains. It was a really beautiful ride through lots of lovely forested national park, and even spotted a wedgetail eagle (unusual along the coast) soaring on the thermas. For reasons I can't understand, it seems it's a few hundred metres further down the hill than up, which I guess is a good thing. I enjoyed it more going up than down, as I had the chance to be distracted by the wonderful scenery without thinking "shit, I'm on the wrong side of the road".

I have discovered a terrible design fault with our bike saddles. After a month without use, the covers become extremely hard, brittle and decidedly pointier than previously. As a result of this design failing, they become much less comfortable to sit on, and we shall be forced to initiate a class action against the manufacturers.

After a mere 5 hours of sweating and suffering, we neared the top of the ranges where a roads authority sign read "Ice on Road". While climbing in 35C heat this seemed a rather appealing idea, but the workers who lay out this ice were obviously still on their Christmas/New Year Break. This was unfortunate, as it allowed the road to melt, and our tyres became coasted in black goopy tar, and thousands of leaves.

Once over the top we powered across the high plains. We'd obviously lost none of condition from a month of sitting around eating stollen and orange cake, and the howling tailwind had nothing to do with it.

Exhausted at the micro town of Cathcart we rolled onto the wooden porch of the closed general store/post office. On the town notices: "WANTED: Couple of sheep for lawnmowers". Watched the local magpie making a futile effort to chase away a flock of starlings.



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