May 1st, 2011
Meningie to Strathalbyn
Distance: 104km
Total distance: 2398km
It was still raining when I woke up. Spent my morning checking on few sources of forecast on TV and online, all predicted its going to be raining all day. I had an internal debate on whether I should stay for another night at the cabin or ride in the rain to Strathalbyn, about 100km away. Two hours later, I decided to go ahead with riding. Told myself that this is merely a rain, not a storm or anything worse. Besides, I was prepared with rain gears. Off I went at 9.20am.
Riding in the rain was kinda fun, minus the traffic. The traffic was what worries me most. Today I observed something disturbing for cyclists riding in the rain and foggy condition. I noticed motorists tend to give me very little clearance, presumably trying to minimise the risk of colliding with the oncoming traffic by not overlapping the opposite lane. As a result, several times a vehicle overtake me with 1-metre clearance or less running at 100kmh. That’s the last thing you would want when riding in the rainy and foggy atmosphere. Anyhow, I managed to just kept riding non-stop for about 47km until I reached River Murray where I took a free ride on a ferry to cross the river. A chap approached me while on the ferry. Apparently he built trikes (faired ones) for schools for the trike competition Pedal Prix! I think he did that quite some time ago as he was checking out my GT3 and commented that this is a fine piece of engineering. This model has been around for close to 10 years!
Had a quick lunch at a petrol kiosk in Wellington before continuing to Strathalbyn. The ride so far has been quite flat, at times I was able to maintain above 20kmh for an hour or so. There was no shoulder from Wellington onwards but it may be a good thing. The road was smooth, unlike the shoulder this morning, it was rough. It was even harder to ride on a rough shoulder seeing that the driving road next to it was smooth. Nearing Langhorne Creek, I rode pass several wineyards, must be nice to ride here during a sunny day. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the grapes scent along this stretch. By the time I reach Langhorne Creek, I was only 14km to Strathalbyn. I wanted to get a drink but the general store was closed. Small towns like this usually won’t have any business opened on a Sunday. For some reason, me left toes become numb, too moisty perhaps? My supposedly water resistant shoe cover wasn’t able to withstand the 6 hours of continues exposure to the rain, hence my soaking wet socks.
I finally reached Strathalbyn at about 4pm, made a quick enquiry at the info centre and head straight to the caravan park. As soon as I entered the park, it appears the rain has finally stopped. So I opted for a tent site, anyhow their cabins were full. The ground was all wet, but hey, at least it stopped raining! And I can finally see a bit of blue sky. Took a nice and long warm shower shortly after. It was the most awesome shower I’ve ever had for a while! There was still a bit of daylight after I came out from shower so I took a ride into the town centre to check out the historic buildings and also to look for food. They have a very nice garden in the middle of the town. They even have Woolies, I use this as one of the indicators of how big a town is. A big supermarket with no competitor, a couple major petrol stations, and no giant fast foods. I reckon the population is about 3000.
Just checked Wikipedia, it says 3894, well, not too far off! After touring in Australia for a while, one tends to develop this skill. Now I’m really hoping the forecast of mostly sunny tomorrow is pin point accurate. Since I’ll be doing a long climb across the Adelaide Hills and apparently the scenery there is fantastic.