The Waiting – Strenuous Activity – Day 6

Day 6 – 86 kms (54 miles)

“It’s time to go home, when you start to smell the donuts.”

It is my favourite quote from two of my favourite friends’ adventure stories. It was Day 13 of a 14-day backpacking trip. Dan was trudging along, pretty hungry and not all that excited about the food rations left in his pack that late in the trip. As he hiked further along, he thought he started to smell donuts. He didn’t eat them on a normal basis so he wondered why all of a sudden he’d be smelling and craving donuts.

He hiked further. He then came to the realization that it was his long hair next to his face that smelled like donuts. He stopped and put a strand of hair to his nose. Yeah, his hair smelled like donut fryer oil. He called out to his friend. “Smell my hair. Does it smell like donuts to you?”

His friend sniffed. He replied, “Yeah, you smell a bit like an apple fritter.”

Back around Day 7, Dan had washed his hair with a travel-size bottle of shampoo left over from a motel visit. He looked through the rubbish he was carrying in his pack. Yep, the shampoo had an apple fragrance. So the remnants of the apple shampoo combined with all of his built-up hair oil had made his hair smell like an apple fritter.

To this day, Evan jokingly still refers to Dan as ‘my little apple fritter’.

Since then, those guys always say that it’s time to hit town, clean up and resupply or go home when your hair starts to smell like donuts.

Of course, that quote makes fun of the 1980s commercial we all still remember: ‘time to make the donuts’. Don’t remember? Not American? See below.

My hair doesn’t smell like donuts, but it’s still time to go home. I’m out of food. The forecast highs the next couple of days are supposed to be around 35C (95F). And all the city people will invade the country on Sunday for a week or more of camping and whatever. So my little quiet spot might see people crowd in.

So we’re up at 5am – thanks, Verne, for the wakeup nudge this time. We’re on the road at 5.30am just after first light. We roll down the valley in the quiet as the greys turn into yellows and greens. The air is cool-ish but not nearly as cool as the preceding nights. Yep, with a high of 35 predicted today, it’s good to get going early.

We roll down all that elevation we climbed on Tuesday. We average 30 kph at times (twice as fast as went up); at other times we average 23 or 24kph. There’s no one moving about. It is still and silent. Just my kind of morning. There is noise and movement at one dairy farm, as the cows must be milked, even on Christmas Day. But other than that, the valley is ours this morning.

Once I make it back to the main road, I text Nigel. I told him not to expect a text from me until sometime today, but I know he’ll feel more at ease if he wakes up to a message already on his phone. It’s been five days since I last contacted anyone. My phone pings with emails and messages. No thanks. Not yet. I do not check them nor check the news. Nothing is so urgent that it can’t wait until later today.

We roll on back down the rail trail. A northeasterly picks up not long before Tallangatta and gives us a little bit of a push. Yep, get on home before that wind gets hotter and swaps to the northwest.

I do stop in Tallangatta to eat the last of my food, glug down a litre of water and refill that litre. There’s some movement down the end of the street. It actually looks like the supermarket is open. But I don’t venture toward the people – there’s a wee bit of COVID around at the moment and with the influx of city people for the holidays, I expect there will be a lot more soon. I’m not THAT hungry.

Onwards. My legs don’t feel so bad with more than half the ride done and all that easy pedaling to start with down the valley. Not having 6 days of food and 5 litres of water on-board helps a fair bit, too.

The day heats up. The cars start to come out. Just before Ludlow’s Reserve I see a touring cyclist standing and looking at his phone. I stop to see if he needs help. No, he’s just looking at messages. He’s from Sydney and did some hiking with a mate around Tumut, then they rode to Tumbarumba together. He then did the rail trail there, then he rode down through Tooma to Corryong and then on to Tallangatta for a rest day. Today he’s riding to Beechworth before meeting up with mates for a few days in Porepunkah.  He thinks he’s using the rail trail from Yackandandah to Beechworth, but I warn him it’s not complete yet.

I try to give him some info on what to expect on the way to Yack from Huon and what bits of rail trail I know that are finished. He’s definitely a bitumen rider with no interest in riding any gravel roads or camping, so I don’t have too many suggestions on other routes since staying on bitumen is pretty limiting here.

He tells me New Zealand is great to ride because they have lots of rail trails. Meh… rail trails are okay, but I don’t go out of my way for them. I just use them to connect up other roads and avoid unsafe highways – I wouldn’t ever specifically go somewhere to ride them. I’d rather ride forest roads. Or have roads with adequate shoulders. But they obviously bring in good tourist dollars. Whatever, I hope he made it to Beechworth safely!

I stop to wet down my shirt at Ludlow’s Reserve. It’s getting hot. But there’s still a thin layer of cloud keeping a lid on temps, so for that I’m grateful. The kays slowly shift by. I am not feeling too terrible.

As I ride, I make up lyrics in my head for all the non-Christian touring cyclists bombarded by Christmas carols in December. It’s been so long since I’ve listened to carols that in many cases I can’t remember more than the first verse though. You can see my efforts in the Appendix below.

And then, finally, I’m riding the final few kms. McDonald’s is open in town, but KFC is not. I am surprised, but not surprised, by the length of the drive-thru queue at Maccas on Christmas Day. There’s some traffic out and about, but I cruise through the last roundabout with no need to give way. I then ride up through the 2010s neighbourhood where all the houses are smooshed together. It appears that inflatable Christmas decorations are the thing to have on this street. They all lay in deflated heaps in the tiny front yards.

And then we’re riding up the hill of the driveway and home. I’m pleased with my body today. We have got sooooooo much muscle and fitness to rebuild, but I don’t feel too tired, like I did Monday and Tuesday. Once you get a post-viral fatigue syndrome (e.g. long COVID) or ME/CFS diagnosis , you’ve got that for life, like certain STDs or bad memories from an ex-spouse.

Some people are lucky and can get the symptoms into remission, but it’s always there waiting for you to flick the immune system switch, and it can always come back. So I’ll have to be careful for the rest of my life to not overdo things. But I think this was okay today. From zero kms for two months to 40 kms to 85 kms with some resting in between. I’m okay with it, and I think my body is, too.

We’re on our way back. Slowly. But surely. I have always held on to hope over the past 4.5 years. I’ve been persistent and self-advocated when doctors and specialists gave up on me or told me it was all in my head. West Nile virus, frozen shoulder, bartonellosis, crap gallbladder… we’ve done the rounds of disease and inflammation. But I always knew I could get better, and I finally feel like we are turning the final corner. We are turning the page on that long chapter of crap. Phew!

Appendix: Cycling carols for the non-Christians, southern hemisphere versions

Away in a forest

Away in a forest, foam pad for a bed
The tired touring cyclist lays down her dirty head
The stars in the sky looked down where she lay
She sleeps very deeply after long kays today.

Oh Eucalypt

Oh eucalypt, oh eucalypt
How scraggly are your branches
Oh eucalypt, oh eucalypt
How crooked are your branches

Your leaves, so pale in Summer-time
Still hanging there in Winter-time
Oh eucalypt, oh eucalypt
How unshady are your shadows

Jingle zips

Riding ever so slow
On a really windy day
Over the hills we go
Struggling all the way

Zips on panniers ring
Annoying me alright
What fun it is to ride and sing
A cycling song tonight, oh!

Oh jingling zips, jingling zips,
Jingle all the way
Oh what fun it is to ride
On a long hot windy day, hey!

Silent night

Silent night, full moon night
All is calm, all is bright
Sleep has settled on the girl that rode
As she curls up in her nylon abode
Sleep in exhausted peace
Sleep in exhausted peace

Joy to the world

Joy to the world! The day is done!
Just as you lost your zing!
Let every heart, return to rest
And listen to nature sing
And listen to nature sing
As creatures and insects of nature sing

We three bikers

All the bikers of touring kind are
Used to riding and travelling so far
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following chip-seal tar
All the bikers, All the bikers
…..

Oh rest ye touring cyclists

Oh rest ye touring cyclists
Let nothing you dismay
For all the weather forecasts
Predict tailwinds today
To save us all from crosswinds’ power
That blow us where they may
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy