Starting to thaw out now...

Unbeknowst to me, there was a frost going on last night. While I did sleep well, with only a couple of cold toes in the one pair of socks I was wearing when I woke up... everything besides my sleeping bag was coated in white, including the inside of my bivvy tent. Snow cones anyone?

Finally I can tell the war story of a frozen water bottle!

Here are some pictures from the past few days.

In terms of travelling, I'm still only doing between 30 and 50 km a day, but I'm doing a bit of exploring around the place and there is no rush at the moment. Due to late sunrises and early sunsets, it does reduce the number of hours I like to be on the road for.

So far I have had one flat tyre (it was a slow leak to begin with) and have had to adjust the centering/travel of my front brakes (the little screws in my canti brakes needed adjusting). I have cleaned my chain once too.

I'm currently stopped at one spot for a few days as there is a cold front coming through with strong winds on Saturday (tomorrow) so I'm just not going to bother travelling in bad weather if I don't have to. The Saturday morning forecast of "Damaging winds averaging 50 - 70 km/h will develop Saturday morning with peak gusts around 100 km/h" doesn't sound like much fun, as it will likely be somewhat of a headwind if I tried to ride it. I am not camped under any trees! Better get the down jacket and three pairs of socks out.

P.S. One of the great things about bicycle touring is the awesome people you meet along the way. Three people I happened to meet in Dec/Jan when I was doing a ten day tour happen to be touring again at the same time! They are Superbike Goes West and Yve and John. Check out their blogs too!

First post from the road!

So far I have travelled:

• 20 km day one (well, I did leave Melbourne at 3:30 pm...)
• 55 km day two
• 50 km day three
• 40 km day four (today - taking it easy, checking email etc)

As you can see I am really easing into it. No rush! At least my average speed is picking up each day.

Once I got out of Melbourne I've enjoyed some beautiful country roads. Day two was tiresome hills, a couple of which I had to get off and push the bike up. But after those, and for the last couple of days has been rolling hilling hills so I haven't yet had a throw bike down and kick it tantrum. I'm feeling stronger already (just as well).

Today started off with a lot of roadkill - 3 large wombats and two kangaroos where seen in the space of 16 km, and that's just on one side of the road (including one kangaroo hit this morning by the looks of it). :( All these people whinging about wind tubines killing birds and bats need to get some perspective.

Here are some pictures I've taken so far.

Trying to figure out how to strap this wine barrel onto the bike

Downhill coming right up. Yay!

Uh, another long stupid hill.

Foxes!

On the way to staying with some fellow cycle tourists overnight. Thanks very much to Andy and Gloria for their hospitality. :)

Mmm chocolate cupcake

Oh, the places you'll go

Power trip

In this post I go into a bit more detail about what I'm using to charge my electronics while on the road.