Post # 1 of our 3,000 klm tandem cycling journey

Day one of the Blog, but it’s actually day five of our trip. Apologies for that, dear Bloggies, we have both felt wrecked, exhausted,  knackered and unable to focus on anything beyond a meal and bed.

Now feeling better and ready to get stuck in. We left the security of our Tasmanian twilight home for the incurably wholesome and flew over to the fleshpots of Adelaide on Easter Sunday and spent three days in the relentless pursuit of pleasure with our great friends, Ruth and Pete. Then, on Wednesday 3 April, we launched our trip proper with a very brief bike ride of about 3 km from North Adelaide to the Adelaide Oval where the Adelaide Rotary club meets. They are a wealthy club meeting at lunchtime and running a tight ship so we were allocated 10 minutes for our (25min) presentation, which we just managed. However, not everyone was quite so disciplined and, when the meeting was over, the president apologised that he ran one minute overtime.

We felt our presentation went well but, sadly, there was no actual pledge of money.

We quickly jumped on the bike to head 35km south to our evening meeting appointment in Noarlunga. 

A planned Channel 10 TV interview at the Oval was called off at the last moment because there were no cameramen available. A huge football carnival, Gather Round, got priority over we wrinkly old pedal pushers.

After lunch we cycled south to Noarlunga where we we were to be hosted overnight, and were to give a presentation to their Club.

The ride south through the centre of Adelaide and out into the suburbs was directed by a cycling GPS and was very complicated involving traffic lights about every 150 m. so it took us about twice as long as we expected.
We arrived frazzled and a little late but our host, Sandy, was unfazed, very welcoming and took us to the club where we had an excellent presentation and a generous pledge. Stress over kicking off the ride and arriving late made us pretty poor guests for Sandy.

Next day an early(ish) start to Port Elliot and our next host, Stewart Ellis. That was a much less complicated route and went quite smoothly, arriving mid afternoon at Stuart and Jo’s beautiful house and garden, which they had built only a few years back and was almost entirely self-sufficient. 
Stuart is president of the Encounter Bay Rotary club and he had kindly invited two other Rotary clubs to the meeting, so it was a huge turnout, perhaps 70-80 people. They were welcoming and enthusiastic and I think we were very well received with plenty of questions. Again, a wonderfully generous pledge left us on a high after the meeting and we had a lovely evening chatting with our hosts.

Day Three saw us head off to Wellington around the top of lake Alexandria so, dead flat, dead boring and, with the sparse trees, reminiscent of the Nullarbor. It could even be a tourist attraction - come and experience ‘Son of Nullarbor’ without the inconvenience of driving 1000km. The odd few trees could easily be dealt with - just ask the Queensland government.

Wellington has a caravan park, where we stayed, and the pub and the petrol station, oh, and the ferry across the Murray. We went to the pub for a meal - memorable for all the wrong reasons. The pub was heaving with people because of the footy carnival in Adelaide and also because of huge drag race taking place at Tailem Bend and people watching was fun- surrounded by hard core rev heads. 

We couldn’t buy any food for breakfast in Wellington so we ended up having a pot noodle for breakfast and then heading across on the ferry towards the main A8 south from Adelaide. A very busy road. Lots of trucks and again, flat straight, boring with almost no trees but, fortunately, a nice wide verge. We made good time to reach Tintinara mid afternoon and there discovered that Tintinara is another place forgotten by the 21st century. The motel had nobody in residence to welcome us,  the nearby pub has been closed for some years and the supermarket closed at lunchtime on Saturdays. Oh, and the pillows were like cement bags.

Phil

To donate go to: https://raise.rotary.org/joyce+phil/challenge