We’re not alone in having had our 2020 plans kicked to the kerb.  In our case, it was a month-long tandem tour in Europe (Prague to the Adriatic), with flights locked in, and most of our accommodation loosely booked (with, thankfully, mostly free cancellation options.)   Today we were supposed to be riding out of Salzburg and heading up into the Alps.  *sigh*  (I’ve never been to Europe, dammit.)

Given the tragedy of so many deaths around the world, you can only be (cautiously) thankful when so far, we’re ok, as are friends and family.

Marc has ‘forced’ leave for all of September.  We’ve waited to make sure there’s no regional transmission up our way, and decided it’s going to be ok to do about a one-week tour from home. And then we’ll get stuck into the never-ending renovations!

Plan B (also extensively planned and plotted) was to head north from home, inland via Kyogle, over the border, then east to the Gold Coast.

Bzzzt. Queensland border closure!

So we’ve opted instead to head south, taking backroads where possible, exploring places we’ve never had the time to check out.  Almost local.

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Something I have neglected to do in the past is to acknowledge the traditional lands on which we will be travelling, and will try to put that right from now on.

We’ll start out from home, on Gumbaynggirr country, which extends from the Clarence River in the north to the Nambucca River in the south.  At Macksville, we will cross over into Dunghutti country (also written as Djangadi, Dainggati, and other variations) which encompasses most of the Macleay Valley around Kempsey.

I feel increasingly sad about the reality of how this continent was colonised. I don’t know any different to being ‘Australian’, but I acknowledge that this land belonged to the indigenous peoples who never ceded it.

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We’re leaving early next week, and I’ll add each day’s ride route to a map in a separate (pinned) post, as well as attempting a blog post each day, internet access permitting!  We’ve also just decided to leave the laptop at home this time, so we’ll see how we go. Plotted routes downloaded onto our gps devices in advance, and blogging/ride mapping just on the phone.  It’s doable.