stats. Today 24.88km Trip total 599km
Typical last-day bike ride foolishness. Bicycle NSW want everyone to ride into the final town in one big mass. Nearly everyone has the feeling that the ride ended last night, and most of the riders just want to get it over with and head home. There’s the usual bunching up on the roads, and then being herded into a holding area on the outskirts of Cootamundra to wait in the sun and get gradually more and more annoyed. The ride is re-organised with all the odd bikes at the front — the tandems, recumbents and unicycles — followed by the colourfully dressed teams, then the rest of the rabble. Once all this is complete, the actual ride of the last two kilometres is a mixture of highly-stressed low-speed riding while attempt to avoid running into others or being run into, and the amusement of being cheered by people lining the streets as though we’d just completed some marathon event, and not just finished a week-long holiday.
Once in Cootamundra and at the finish point, everything quickly degenerates into a mad scramble to pack bikes, find bags, farewell friends, change clothes and get onto busses. It’s always depressing in a way, mostly because of the way it just all seems to fall apart….
At least on this ride I had my own transport. It made a big difference being able to pack at my own pace and get leisurely into the car. I’d offered a lift to Melbourne to a number of people, but too late in the week so nobody took me up on the offer. Half an hour before I was about to leave, Charlie Farren came and asked me if I’d be able to give her a lift to Wagga Wagga — she had intended to go by train but it would mean a three hour delay. A quick check of the maps showed that it wasn’t much of a detour, probably the same distance overall, just down the Olympic way rather than the Hume highway.
After a pleasant drive and interesting conversation, I dropped Charlie and her bike off in Wagga just as the people she was meeting arrived for their Sunday social ride. I then managed to get lost leaving Wagga, detoured around a few times before getting back onto the highway. Two in the afternoon and I was on the road and heading back towards Melbourne….
Home around seven-thirty to a disappointingly empty house — after nine days away I’d just have to wait a little longer to see Jo.
Tiredness was overcome by laughter as I ventured into the kitchen and saw the sink full of washing up — Wednesday evening’s SMS had said:
When are you coming home? The sink is getting full.
…but at the time I had thought she was joking…
She has been busy though, either that or the vacuum-cleaner fairy dropped in for a visit. I got stuck into the mighty mound of washing-up while listening to the Go-Betweens Bright Yellow Bright Orange — a recent arrival that must have appeared in the last week.
