Wednesday April 30, 2014

I wake up without an alarm clock at about 6:15 am.  Sometimes it is the change in light in the tent that indicates it is morning, mostly I wake up because of the birds singing. This morning the Kookaburras woke me.  It is a great way to wake up so naturally.

This morning as I wandered over to the tree where my bike was leaning against, I noticed a big male kangaroo not 10 feet away watching me. Graeme had warned us about the males, so I kept the tree between me and the roo and carried on loading the bike.  It decided to ignore me and proceeded to graze, but keeping a watchful eye out on me.

Our ride this morning followed the river again only this time it was on the other bank.  Not so many houses for sale on this side.  We joined the highway at the 20 km point and spent the rest of the ride on the highway.  Again the shoulder was variable and coming into Nambucca Heads was the first time in 5,776 kms that a driver deliberately tried to run us off the road.

It was a narrow stretch of highway and no shoulder, the two cars behind us slowed down and the transport behind them honked his highway horn at them and at us.  As he passed us he didn’t move over at all and drove on the white line.  Ralf was behind me and shouted a warning, it was quite scary but fortunately he wasn’t going very fast because the cars in front hadn’t picked up speed.

I had all these thoughts going through my head:

• I wish I could catch up with him open his door and schmuck him in the mouth (because a 5’ nothing 115 lb English woman can take on a big truck driver);
• Give him the finger;
• Waggle my little finger at him to show him what a little prick he was; and,
• A number of other “road rage” things.

Then I realized that here I am cycling around the world, enjoying life and that poor bugger has to work.  It made me feel a lot better to realize how lucky Ralf and I are to be doing this and doing it together.

The funny thing was where this incident happened the Town were in the process of building a cycle lane and not 100 metres down the road we were able to join a perfectly paved cycle lane all the way into the Town of Nambucca Heads.

The people at the Information Centre were once again very helpful and we were able to find a good campsite.  Again this one didn’t have any facilities but the cabin was reasonably priced so we stayed in a cabin, which had a hot plate, microwave, fridge, kettle and toaster.  We needed to do a load of washing, but shortly after we settled in the heavens opened and it rained all afternoon.  We did take a short walk into the Town and got some groceries, but didn’t see much else of the Town because of the rain.

Tomorrow we have a short day to Boambee, another warmshowers host, just outside of Coffs Harbour.  We don’t have to check out of the cabin until 10:00 am.  We can have a lie-in or get up and have a wander around the Town.  There is some kind of sea-wall with art on it, we may see that before we leave.