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| Maretta and Lynskey - Good to go! |
The Outback Odyssey started for us in Melrose, one of my favourite places. It also started with some of my favourite bike touring people, with our mate Nigel in charge of the deluxe camping. After a somewhat complicated drive to Melrose, arriving a little later than intended, I was very relieved to find Russell, from Bike SA, at the Melrose institute with our packages. Preparations were in full swing for tea by then, so Carl and I wandered off to set up our tent.
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| Mr Carl, ready and waiting |
We had a pleasant surprise when sat down for dinner, finding ourselves seated across from three gentlemen we remembered fondly from the annual tour on Kangaroo Island. Andrew, Ian and Fred were from Melbourne and provided much hilarious commentary as the night went on. They're the type of people that make a bad situation good and a good situation better and they never seemed to take anything too seriously!
The food was awesome, just as good as I remembered from when we at Melrose on the Outback Odyssey two years ago. Pumpkin soup, roast beef with roast veg (the pumpkin was amazing), and apple crumble for dessert. All hot and filling and in good supply. With dinner out the way and a rider briefing that included where there were options to get out on the highway should the going get too tough, we headed off to bed.
The thought was that we'd get a nice, long sleep. As I hinted in my other post, mother nature had other plans. The lightning I saw was just a precursor to a huge storm that dropped 30 mm of rain on Melrose over night. The winds roared above us, but our tent remained still and calm, sheltered by Mount Remarkable.
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| Maretta and Lynskey play tourist |
While sleep was hard to come by, we were at least warm and dry. With bleary eyes we emerged for the day and found that few others had successfully slept either. Breakfast made us feel more human, and it wasn't long before we were rolling out for the day.
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| Goyder's Line |
We were making good headway when we noticed an important monument, Goyder's Line. While there are many reasons why this was important, it's significance to me was that prior to the trip, I had furiously been working on a project, for the Goyder Institute, also named after George W. Goyder. Passing the monument let all the work stress fall behind and the reality of being on holiday set in!
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| Mud |
Unfortunately this relaxed feeling wouldn't last long. Soon we turned onto a dirt road on our way to Wilmington and morning tea. However the rain the previous night had turned the road to slush, red sticky slush to be precise. While riding through it was fun, and good practice for CX, it clogged everything up. After stopping to give things a bit of a clean with a stick, we were reduced to walking on the higher ground on the side of the road until it cleared.
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| Maretta playing in Mud |
We came to a cross roads at the end of the muddy section and the Mawson markers indicated that we should go right. Straight ahead, at the end of a dirt road, lay the highway, gloriously smooth and mud free. Right would take us on dirt all the way to Wilmington, with the possibility of more mud. But it looked dry, and slightly uphill, so Carl and I took a chance and followed the Mawson markers.
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| Happy as a pig in ... |
As it turns out, we made the right decision, the dirt road leading to the highway held more of the same mud. We however, saw no more mud. But we were also lacking in both Mawson markers and maps. For reasons unknown, the set of maps for the Mini-Mawson three did not include one that covered the road from Melrose to Quorn. We had come to a cross roads and had no idea where to go.
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| MUD! |
Fortunately there were other riders to ask. However, in what would soon feel like a comedic movie script, all the riders we found had also just started in Melrose and did not have a map! Eventually we found one rider with a map and headed in what we hoped was the correct direction.
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| Fat bike from Missouri |
Finally we found a Mawson marker and without any further trouble made it into morning tea at Wilmington. The impact of the mud was immediately obvious, riders were trying to wash it off at any available water source. After a cuppa I also gave my drive train a quick rinse, but in all honesty, Maretta had held up well to the mud and, while dirty, was running fine. Other people weren't so lucky and at least one derailleur fell victim of the mud. Another lady, who I tried to help clean her bike, had that much mud that you could only see the teeth of the big ring on a bike with a triple chain ring.
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| Caterpillar Train |
Leaving people to their cleaning, Carl and I headed off. We were mostly on dirt, rolling hills with an overall tilt upwards. The scenery was lovely, though with the delay due to mud, we didn't want to stop for too long. One thing that did stop us in our tracks was a caterpillar train, crossing the road.
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| Guarding the Train |
One last hill and then we reached the lunch stop. Lunch was a bit of a surprise, not the rolls I had been expecting but cold chicken and a variety of salads including a very delicious pasta one. We were definitely being spoilt.
Lunch also revealed that the course had been changed due to concerns over mud. Instead of heading through Richmond Gap, a treacherous trail by all accounts and made little better by the inclusions of wheel sucking mud, we were to head towards the highway. I was relieved, as I was worried that we were going to take forever to get to Quorn!
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| This photo doesn't capture the wind |
My relief was short lived. We enjoyed a wonderful, rolling descent on dirt roads down to the highway, even stopping for scenic photo stops. Then we turned, and the full force of the dreadful wind hit us. We had 15 km to go and our speed was barely above 15km/hr. Conversation around the dinner table would reveal that Richmond Gap had not been as treacherous as thought, and somewhat more sheltered than the highway.
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| Made it |
We did manage to find some people to tuck in behind, but they were few and far between. I felt so guilty for dragging Mr Carl on this trip that I tried to power through, sheltering him from the wind. It was a miserable last section and when we eventually made our way to Quorn, we wondered what on earth we had signed ourselves up for.
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| Smiles of relief |
But good food, good company and a hot chocolate does wonders to restore the morale. Nigel kept us company for tea, which included vegetable soup with barley, and an amazing roast chicken with pumpkin, carrots and beans. Our tent was up, we were clean and fed and tomorrow would be when the "serious riding" would start!
Strava stats here
