Day 11: Semi-rest Day Failed

March 26th, 2011

Tumut to Batlow
Distance: 35km
Total distance: 682km

Okay, so today was meant to be a semi-rest day. My sore muscles had gone from bad to worse since Wee Jasper. I was tempted to take a full rest-day but I thought I should do shorter distance for a day instead that would provide some form of relief for my legs. Well, didn’t quite work out in the end. But I’ll come to that later.

The caravan park was just next to Snowy Mountains Highway so it was quite noisy even at night, and last night I also heard a few people snoring, but thanks to my tiredness, I had no problem sleeping in this condition. The temperature though, was freezing cold. I didn’t have a thermometer with me but I have a feeling it dropped to below 10 degrees. Woke up a couple of times due to coldness felt on my face. I had to submerge my whole head into the sleeping bag. How I wish I had some kind of portable tent heater.

When I came out of the tent, it was all fog above the river (caravan park was next to a river). I was so thankful to have a private bathroom, so naturally, I hung out in there for a while until the temperature rises. While I was packing up, I spoke to Jim again. With my Camps 6 map, he showed me where are the interesting places to visit around the area. He was born and raised close to Tumut so he’s very familiar with places around here. He recommended me a couple of rail trails, one of which was in my planned route, a rail trail that runs from Beechworth to Wangaratta. He described how exciting it was to ride on the rail trail so I decided to follow his suggestion. After bidding goodbye to Jim, I checked out, sharp at 10am since after that time it’s counted as additional day. Here I was thinking that today’s 30km ride to Batlow is going to be a piece of cake, probably going to take me no more than 2 hours of riding. While checking out, the caravan park staff asked me where I’m going today. When I said Batlow, she raised her eyebrow and told me that it’s going to be uphill all the way. I was crushed, there goes my supposedly semi-rest day.

As I was pedaling out of Tumut, I felt a much greater soreness on my thighs and knees. This is not good. I was quite tempted to head back to the caravan park and stay for another night, to have a REAL rest day. After riding for about 10km, there was a good mixture of up and down, it wasn’t that bad afterall, even though I was pedaling at a snail pace due to leg soreness. The “fun” kicks in after 20km, a hill that eventually lasted 10km with not more than 4 brief downhill stretch. I stopped numerous time at this stretch, for food and water and to avoid the heat from the strong sunlight under the tree shade. It was unusually sunny that morning with clear blue sky, but changes quickly to cloudy sky in 3 short hours. Again, while I was doing the climb, several cars gave me the encouragement honks and waves.

As I was entering Batlow, I see nothing but apple farms, heaps of them. It was then I remembered the caravan park staff told me that I’m going to see lots of apples in Batlow. In my final 5km, I was bombarded by swarms of tiny flies. I have flies all over my shirt, glasses, face, tights and on my trike. I had to becareful not to open my mouth. Where did all these flies come from? Could it be from the fruiting apple trees?

I reached the caravan park after a mad 4.5 hours, that was a brutally long time for only a 30km ride. First thing I noticed at the park was an unusually high number of same age group campers. I was also surprised to find the tent site prices here are quite cheap. I’m so gonna stay for an extra night! I can hear my legs happily agreeing to that! According to the caravan park owner, it’s apple picking season now, which explains so many young adults here, most of them are foreigners. Spoke to one of them, he’s from Namibia and came to Australia with a few mates for a working holiday trip. I had a feeling that I’m probably the only non-fruit picker in this caravan park.

My trike received heaps of attention as usual. Don’t know if it’s a good or a bad sign, anyway I usually engage my trike alarm when I’m sleeping, just in case, you never know. Right after setting up my tent, it was still quite early in the afternoon so I went out to check out the town. One thing that is of most obvious to a touring cyclist here in Batlow is that they have one of the most hilly town in Australia. I had to use my mother of all granny gears when riding from the caravan park to the town. I saw an IGA! Okay good enough. Went back to my campsite to shower and finish my unpacking before returning to IGA to get some food. Tonight’s dinner menu was chicken nibbles with Thomson seedless grapes. Of course I also bought a couple of the local royal galas.

Since 5pm, someone has been playing a race car game in one of the huge tent, and I also saw a couple of people using their laptops, this kind of activities can only be seen in caravan parks inhabited by the 20’s and the 30’s. I still haven’t come across any touring cyclist at any of the places I’ve stayed so far. I wonder if I will ever bump into one during my entire trip. I am currently sitting in the tent now listening to classical hits on FM and thinking what I should do first for tomorrow. I will be doing mostly washing and trike maintenance.

Once the sun was down, it gets really cold. I had to wear double layers of clothing. I just came back from the toilet and when I looked up into the sky, I saw the most awesome thing ever. It was the biggest pile of stars I’ve ever seen in my life! I can easily see hundreds of thousands of stars and could possibly work out where the milky way is too. Reflecting on my day, I am quite happy with my performance today despite the relatively short distance. The caravan park owner told me I have ascended 500m from Tumut to Batlow, no wonder my legs are hurting so much!