Bike Odyssey
New Zealand 2004
| Home FAQ Maps Photos Subscribe Links | |
 | |
| Trip Journals | |
|---|---|
| Australia 2004 Europe America New Zealand Australia 2003 | New Zealand '02 | Sydney to Darwin '01 | |
| |
| Travelogues | |
| Around Australia 2003 Sydney to Darwin 01 Around Australia 99 | Great North Walk 98 Snowy Mountains 97 Tasmania 96 | |
| |
| About Us | |
| David Linda Bike Odyssey E-Mail: djf01@bikeodyssey.com.au | |
| |
| Bike Odysseypty ltd | |
| BODY - The PHP Symbolic Debugger TimesheetMagic For a range of cost effective industry standard solutions contact the Systems division of Bike Odyssey Pty Ltd | |
| |
| Journal for 1-Feb-2004 : Mosgeil |
|---|
|
Rained all night, and rained all day. Needless to say we're bloddy wet. I was very wheezy today, and last night too, thanks to a dusty doonah (I think). A pair of shocking hills made the ride "down" the Taieri Valley. Long overdue break at Hyde, where we found a building partially refurbished with a wonderful awning. Fairly tired at Middlemarch, but Linda pursuaded me to go on, as did the prospect of having to camp in the rain. Hills on the road to f***ing ridiculous. The road designer needs to be shot! After 4km struggling up a 1 in 9 climb the road ahead can be seen climbing through the clouds. Unfortunately this was usually on the other side of the river, 200m below. We knew it was a bad sign when we passed the boom gate marking the start of the snow poles. Did I mention the wind? At one point we could see the road ahead shoot into the sky across the valley ahead. An hour later we'd reached the point we could see. The hills were hard, but the descents were treacherous. Insanely steep downhills with howling gusty crosswinds (exaggerated by our rain coats) had us wobbling all over the road, and periodically stopping to clean the gunk out of our brake pads. Holding the bike at a steady speed was pretty near impossible, a bit like tracking a straight line. Did I mention it rained all day? << Prev - Next >> |