Category Archives: Random

Day 19

What a glorious day for our penultimate day of riding! We had an easy day of mainly “downhill” coming down from the Scottish Highlands and starting our final push for the north coast. The area we rode through was particularly effected in history by the barbaric “highland clearances”. This was where the wealthy landlords decided that they could make more money by grazing sheep than from the tenant farmers (or crofters), who had farmed the land since time immemorial. So the farmers were thrown out of their houses with no notice before the houses were burnt to the ground. There was one story I read about on widow who followed her husband around the world to the places he was fighting for king and country. After he was killed in battle she returned to this area of her birth. The landlord’s guards arrived to throw her out of her house and she begged them to give her enough time to get her things out as they were all she possessed. They threatened to start straight away so she could only drag the furniture a short distance from the house. The wind that was blowing took the flames from her house across to her furniture and ended up burning the lot to ashes.

It was such a delight to reach the sea this evening and it almost felt like we had finished even though we still hard 80 odd kms to ride the next day. Our hotel had a view from a cliff above the sea so we could see the rugged cliffs and beautiful sandy beaches in the estuaries.
The weather tomorrow is forecast to turn really bad so i hope this changes overnight.

Day 18

Day 12

Wow we are pretty happy that this day is over.  Nearly 130kms and over 1500m of climbing.  But that would have been alright if it hadn’t been for the 29km/h headwind we had to deal with as well. I’m sooooo saddle sore I couldn’t sit straight at dinner!!  Even the Papaw Ointment isn’t coping. (Too much information??) We had light rain on and off during the day too but not too concerning.

Well we’ve now “done” England.  We crossed into Scotland today.  I can’t believe it seems to have come so quickly.

Rest day in Peebles now – our one and only rest day.  Just in time for their annual Beltane festival which I believe celebrates the mid summer.  We caught a wonderful procession of children on their dressed ponies on the high street not long after we arrived yesterday and tonight we’ll have the fancy dress parade which goes for 3 hours (they go around the town twice)

Back on the track tomorrow heading further north to Kinross. Rain forecast but at least the wind is supposed to have dropped to around 13km/h.

We are having a great time.

Day 8

Coffee stop at a canal boat marina

Coffee stop at a canal boat marina

Day 5 in the saddle

We are currently in Tintern, Wales.  Home of the famous Abbey ruins.  A very pretty place.  Cycled through Cheddar this morning, but didn’t see any cheese as we had our head down into the wind as well as the huge climb out of the gorge.  Well worth a visit, but possibly best by car. Crossed over the famous bridge in Bristol and then headed into Wales by the Severn Bridge – massive!  A really gorgeous day.

Karyn is dealing with some tendonitis in her usual stoic form.  No complaints.  Just soldiers on.  She is a champion.

Tintern Abbey

Tintern Abbey

Day 2 Lands End to John O’Groat’s

The best thing about day 2 was that it was beautiful and fine.  The rest was just tough going.

Over 90 ks and we climbed nearly 1500 metres.  The wind was all over the place, but seemed to be on the nose most of the time.  Some reprieve towards the end when we had a lovely tail wind into our night’s accommodation at a golf resort.

Karyn is a champion and managed to climb the most horrendous hills.  One at 19%.

The group is going well and our three guides are doing a wonderful job to make the ride as good as possible.  They tell us that it will get easier after today.  I will have to see it to believe it.

Rod

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We are offffff!

I’m not trying to make excuses but …. We started our walk today but due to my bout of food poisoning yesterday (which I’m still recovering from boohoo) we elected to walk up the valley to Agentiere rather than the high mountain route. It was still beautiful with lots to see (as you will see from photos below) and it allowed us a more gentle shake down for our first day. We successfully managed to interpret the track notes and got a feel for how the author likes to describe the instructions. We worked well together to reason what they were meaning by various vagueries and didn’t have to turn back once! (which I’m so grateful for as it usually means retracing your steps back up hill from my experience) 

Rod is usually the martyr who absorbs all my vitriol as I struggle up hills so I’m on my best behaviour with Letitia. Tomorrow is 1180m up and 1130m down so I’m imprinting in stone (particularly for future days that are more strenuous) the wise advice in the Cicerone Guide Book which says: “If you gaze with dread at the amount of height to be gained in order to cross a path, no doubt you will suffer in consequence. Let every day be greeted with eagerness. Find joy in the steep slope as well as the downhill slope. Draw strength from the beauty of the scenes around you. Enjoy the movement of the clouds, the wind and wildness as much as the gleam of sunshine; the raw crags and screes of desolation as well as the lush flower strewn pastures and distant snowcaps. Each is an integral part of the mountain world; a world of magic and mystery. It is a world through which it is a privilege to move in freedom. Don’t take a moment of this experience for granted.”

And after all that’s what I’ve come all the way over here for.

 

Nearly there

2014-08-26 13.40.24On the last leg of the journey now. Arrived in Geneva and only the bus shuttle to Chamonix to go before I can say I’ve arived. Note to self – don’t fly Finair again. Not only are they very unglamorous planes but you have to fly almost to the Arctic circle before to come back to Europe! I don’t think i noticed anyone else doing the same circuitous route as me. I managed some sleep though and two showers through the journey so feeling pretty good.

Gastronomic delights on the first leg in Hong Kong

I’d (Karyn) never been to Hong Kong before so we decided to spend a couple of days having a brief look around. We really took it easy but managed to get in quite a few gastronomic delights – carb loading for the big bike ride to follow in France perhaps?

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We also managed to fit in eating at street stalls at the night markets,and a sushi lunch.

Dim Sum lunch looking out at Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong.

HEADING SOUTH IN SEARCH OF HEROES

Karyn and I have been away from home for just over a week.  We are travelling South in our van, complete with kayaks and pushbikes and are off on another adventure.  This time, we have our good friends the Ridgy’s along as well and Loris has planned a sensational trip through all the back roads and small country towns.

We never really intended to search for heroes, they just happened to jump out at me.  Day two was the first.  We stopped at Myall Creek, the site of the infamous massacre of at least 28 aboriginal men, women and children on 10 June 1838.  Over 100 years later and not many years after the last massacre of aborigines was recorded, Len Payne was a resident of the nearby town of Bingara.  In January 1965 he proposed the erection of a memorial in the memory of those who died.  Now Len was not an aboriginal man, but he strongly believed in the importance of reconciliation.  An article on the proposal appeared in the Bingara Advocate, but it was soon condemned with correspondence saying “the whole idea is ill conceived, unconsidered and mischievous and an insult to the Bingara people.”  Len’s written reply was not printed and the proposal dropped.  Len was a man ahead of his time.

But he did not give up, and every year on the 10th June, along with others, he laid a wreath at the site.  Len died in 1993 and never got to see the memorial that now stands as a result of his efforts and the efforts of the descendants of those who died and those who committed the crime.  The plaque at the entrance of the site, bears his name.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes a hero as – “ A person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements or noble qualities.”  For me, Len Payne fits the bill on all counts.

Oh, and by the way, you can add to the list the following names.  Beulah Adams and Des Blake.  They are descendants of those who carried out the murder at Myall Creek and represented them at the opening ceremony of the memorial on 10 June 2000.  Together with the descendants of those who died, Sue Blacklock and Lyall Munro, they sought reconciliation between both groups and a desire to heal the wounds of the past.

As we travelled South, we would often stop for a cupper in a park on the outskirts of small communities that dot the landscape.  Invariably, in the centre of the park, there would be the memorial to those local residents who died in the many wars fought by Australians in its brief history after English settlement.  The numbers were staggering. For most Australians, these men and women are our heroes.  On one such memorial, the following words were written.

“WHEN YOU GO HOME, TELL THEM OF US AND SAY,

  FOR YOUR TOMORROW, WE GAVE OUR TODAY”

This statement was originally inscribed in stone by some Aussies in Burma during WW2.  The Japanese were intent on dominating this part of the World and were heading in the direction of Australia.

As I read the inscription with my good mate Ridgy, we wondered out loud as to whether this was always the case.  Have Australians always gone to war with the view of keeping those left at home safe?  It makes some sense when invasion is imminent, but what about the times when there is no direct threat to Australian lives?  I mean, what was the Boer War in South Africa all about in the late 19th Century, and for that matter, Gallipoli and the Western Front during WW1?  To this list you can possibly add the whole European campaign in WW2, along with Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now of course, this is not a simple issue and there are those who would argue that sometimes we need to go to war to help our mates in other countries.  And then there are those situations where the little people are being screwed, just because they want their freedom.  East Timor is a classic example.  It is certainly a complex issue, but we can all be assured that the real heroes are only contained within the numbers that go and generally not in the politicians who send them.

In some cases, the heroes can also be found in amongst those who refuse to go, when the call to arms seems unjust.  Vietnam with conscription and those who consciously objected comes to mind. I was never brave enough to do that.  Besides, it sounded like a bit of an adventure and so I headed off with thousands of others to do my two year stint.  One of those others was John Myers.  We did our officer training at Scheyville together.  His mother often took me in to her home in Hunters Hill in Sydney on the odd weekend we were let loose into the real world.

We called in to catch up with John on our way South.  He and his lovely wife Toni, live in Bowral where they run a small shop specializing in old books.  I think, that like a lot of small business in this country, John is doing it tough.  Bowral is a lovely town, but the empty shop fronts tell the story.  The owners are hiking up the rents out of greed, but no one is buying.  In many ways, people like John are the real heroes of our country.  They show immense courage just to keep going.

Right now, we are in a lovely caravan park on the edge of the water at Jervis Bay.  We were going to stay in the local National Park, but the price of entry and a campsite was off the scale.  It seems like the government is getting in on the rent hiking rort.  So we are supporting the local small business with better facilities and cheaper rates.

We’re off to Canberra in a few days.  We will possibly visit Parliament House. And if I can catch their attention, I’ll ask Julia and Wayne about people such as John and his small shop in Bowral.  If I really get launched, I might add in all of those small family run dairy farms that are disappearing off the landscape along the roadside of our journey.

I wonder if we will find any heroes in Parliament House?

Actually I do know of one, but I have to go back a long way.  It’s also associated with the statement on the war memorial that I mentioned earlier.  John Curtin was Prime Minister of Australia when the Japanese were about to head through New Guinea.  He decided it was time to bring the troops home from Europe to defend our shores.  Churchill refused.  The bastard.

Curtin went ahead anyway and loaded the troops onto boats heading back to Australia.  In the middle of the Indian Ocean, Churchill diverted the boats to Asia.    The bastard.  Curtin again stood his ground and thankfully they ended up in Perth where the troops took the train to the East Coast.  I suppose it was a bit more difficult to turn a train around.  For me, Curtin was a hero and he stood up to the big boys in Europe.  Not sure if I will find someone like Curtin this trip.  Though, Julia’s pretty tough.