Day 48: Dramatic Roll Into Adelaide

May 2nd, 2011

Strathalbyn to Adelaide
Distance: 72km
Total distance: 2470km

Only 70km to ride today but I have a feeling it’ll take a long time. Adelaide Hills will be the reason why. But on the bright side, the weather this morning looks promising. Looked like the rain has stopped for good. The road out of Strathalbyn was kind of cruel. I was faced with a long and steep uphill. It took me 2 hours to merely cover the 14km to the next town, Macclesfield, where I had an early light lunch of milkshake and Arnott’s biscuits. The road after that continues uphill with very little downhill, and this goes on all the way to Crafers, a further 35km. But not before I passed some of the most picturesque road I’ve ever ridden!

The beginning of the long climb
Beautiful views like this neutralised my uphill suffering
Another skill I picked up: Food packaging from giant fast food usually means a major town is nearby
One of the few cyclists I saw today. I can imagine this being a popular cycling route for roadies due to nice sceneries and good climbs
Another beautiful scenery
Nice deco!
Macclesfield is a quiet little historic town. You can tell by its peaceful surrounding and the vintage fonts
Light lunch of milkshake and biscuits at Macclesfield

After Mylor, I took on a small road called the Aldgate Valley Road, on the recommendations of a cyclist forum. This 5.5km was truly a joyful climb! It wasn’t steep and the road runs next to a creek. The shady and colorful trees, the singing birds, and the road half-covered with autumn leaves all made this the most enjoyable climb ever!

My favourite road for climbing!
Autumn riding as how it should be 🙂
The houses here have some of the most colourful trees I've ever seen
Picturesque!
I was riding next to this creek for most part of the road, it really is very beautiful
Was wondering if the creek is privately owned, then I saw this
First time seeing a fence built entirely from tree logs!
Still on Aldgate Valley Road, there's always something there to distract me to make my climb painless

After Aldgate, I followed the short 2km road to Stirling but it was narrow and the traffic was heavy. So I hopped onto a shared footpath that led me to Stirling. The footpath had some of the most insane steep path I’ve ever seen. At one point I loose traction when my rear wheel was on a paint strip, had a momentary panic there.

Stopped for a toilet break at Aldgate
A random art next to the bike path to Stirling
Surprisingly the short 2km bike path from Aldgate to Stirling was quite a pleasant ride, minus the steep slopes!

There wasn’t a direct road from Stirling to Crafers unless you use the freeway but bikes are prohibited. So I checked my GPS and found a small road across some residential area. Again, here I met some crazy steep climb. When I finally got to Crafers, I was a bit lost trying to search for the bikeway to Adelaide but with a bit of luck, I eventually found it. I wish there were more signs there!

Starting point of the bikeway from Crafers to Adelaide, but what follows was positively confusing
So here it goes, it starts with a road so wide that I hardly think this is a bikeway
And this cleared up the confusion about it being a bikeway or a road
Suddenly an active road runs on the left hand side
And the dedicated bike lane merged with the road! Note there's no shoulder here

Here comes the scary part. The 10km downhill road from Crafers to the tollgate was downright insane and spooky. It was so steep I was extremely nervous riding down the whole time. This is the equivalent of the downhill road from Genting Highlands in Malaysia. When going downhill, I passed some roadies doing the climb and they looked like they are strugling much! That gives you an idea how steep the road was. Also, the 50km of this morning’s ride was almost entirely uphill, and the subsequent 10km downhill from Crafer to Adelaide would bring me back to a similar elevation I started at Strathalbyn.

Scary downhill ride! O_O
Doesn't seem like its gonna end soon

Anyway, the downhill continues after the toll gate straight into the CBD but I branched off to a city ring road and found a bike path. The bike path was quite pleasant until it brought me to a cemetery. What the heck? A cemetery in the city was weird enough but a bike trail that runs across a cemetery too? I continued riding into the north-west suburbs of Adelaide and finally reached my friend, Mun Khin’s place (my host in Adelaide).

Another scary section of the bike way. I need to cross a six lane highway here. No traffic lights at all
A cemetery? What the heck!?
A dramatic ride to end Leg 2! It's all over now, phew!

This officially marked the end of Leg 2 and we had a fantastic Malaysian meal at Kopitim in chinatown! Thankfully I had no leg sore this time, so I’m hoping to stay for a few days here in Adelaide to have a look around at this foreign city. If all goes well, I should be starting Leg 3 on the coming weekend!

Its a nice feeling to be back in a city after 2 weeks living in rural areas
A stroll at the city's chinatown
Mun Khin, a great pal and my host for Adelaide!
Malaysian food!!! I've been craving for this every single day since leaving Melbourne. Om nom nom nom
This will be my home for the next 5 days 🙂

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