Nerd Em's Adventures
It began as a whisper in October. Bob Seger’s song, “Roll Me Away”, would quietly creep into my head late at night when I’d awaken at 2am. He’d softly sing:
“Took a look down a westbound road,
Right away I made my choice.
Headed out to my big two-wheeler,
I was tired of my own voice.
Took a bead on the northern plains
And just rolled that power on…. Read more
Some call it “The Big Dry”. Others call it “The Millenium Drought”. From 1998-2010, the areas I will ride through on this tour experienced what is considered the worst drought since the beginning of settlement.
In a normal summer, the land in these parts is brown. The cured grass and the stubble of the harvested winter crops give the landscape a rather lifeless look. So it is hard to describe just how lifeless, wilted and dry such a place might look after more than a decade of drought. Read more
he cruel aspect of Australia’s climate variability is that floods often follow droughts. Dorothea Mackellar nicely sums up Australia and its climate in the famous lines from her poem, “My Country”. She writes:
“I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons, I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror – the wide brown land for me.” Read more
In the cool of morning, we head off into a building southwesterly wind. If it is this strong at 7 am, I’m going to get a good push up to Cootamundra today! So much for the light wind forecasts….
I head back through North Wagga and turn onto the Oura Rd. This whole area was covered in waist-deep water in 2012. The road is flat as it travels across the floodplain. The river is a kilometre or so off to the south, though. Read more
Some roads are a joy to ride. They sweep away through sinuous curves, inviting the cyclist forth into a landscape of long, gorgeous views. Other roads are more of a chore. Their surfaces may be poor; the scenery may be dull.
We’ll ride a variety of roads today – none particularly outstanding nor dull. Read more
My quads are sore and fatigued. They are not so politely asking for a day off. However, I refuse for a couple reasons: 1) we’re on the edge of Kosciusko National Park and it’s school holidays so there are heaps of city people out here – way too many people for me; and, 2) I’d rather do a couple short days in the final days than take a whole day to sit around a town I already know.
So off we go down the Snowy Mountains Highway. Read more
The Murray River at Jingellic lies at about 250 metres above sea level. Tumbarumba sits at about 600 metres. So I’m hoping for some good downhill this morning. Read more
So Friday ends up being my rest day… at home, instead of during the ride in Tumut. I do some laundry and I take three naps. Three naps? I really need to get the thyroid levels checked again….
A lot of our ‘luck’ in life seems to do with timing. You might meet the love of your life just days after purchasing a new home on the other side of the country. You might have a beautiful holiday ‘off-season’ on a nice South Pacific island and then return home just a couple days before the island is flattened by a cyclone. Read more