Thursday 14th April, 2022

80km +60m
Moving 3:44, Elapsed 7:03
Avg: 21.5kph, Max 58.9kph

6.30am departure. Although it was going to be a short day, we wanted to get to Adelaide by lunch time.

Williamstown, an hour in, for breakfast at a bakery. Back up the hill a bit to the public toilet.

Stopped to take a photo of a sign to Malcolm Creek Vineyard as a nod to friend Malcolm 😀

By the time we’d got to Kersbrook, (loo stop) we’d left the Barossa Valley for the Adelaide Hills, which is also a wine region, albeit ‘younger’ than the Barossa. People on the DW Facebook page had noted that we were passing through wine country, imagining how tempting it would be to stop in for wine tasting, and were having a bit of fun debating that since the Stoker was technically not in control of the ‘vehicle’, they (ie. me) would have no need to be worried about alcohol limits. To be honest, wine tasting and vineyard tours aren’t our ‘cup of tea’ at all. (Never mind the risk of falling off the bike, I’d get a headache!) It was interesting passing by vineyards that were very familiar South Australian wine labels, but, otherwise, I wasn’t that enamoured of it all – I was more focused on staying safe from the tourist traffic.

I had my sights set on morning tea at Cudlee Creek Restaurant & Tavern, at the top of Gorge Rd. (45km mark.) Reviews claimed that it was cyclist friendly, so that sounded good. Our welcome was less so. “Oh, we have a big group of motorcyclists arriving soon.”
Um… ok, that’s nice, but does that mean you’re turning away all other random customers, or is it possible for us to get a tea, a coffee, and maybe some scones?
It felt like we were inconveniencing them somewhat, but we were there for 40 minutes, and the motorcyclists only started arriving in dribs and drabs towards the end. of the time we were there. My review: a bit of a strange place.

We set off from there at 10:15. A bit of a down/up/down/up before the hoot of a downhill. Marc loved it more than me…(“FUN!”). I was still carrying a fair bit of pothole paranoia from the sad news we had received from home earlier in the ride.

Kay met us near the bottom, and guided us onto and then along the cycle path that ran along the river. It’s pretty cool having locals guide you through the city streets and parks. It means I don’t have to worry about doing any navigating, but can just pedal and enjoy the scenery. Being guided the best way through the streets to our motel – 6k off route – was next-level awesome.

We got to the motel too early to check in, so we rode a block or so and had lunch at a cafe with Kay. She offered to guide us up out of Adelaide in the morning. As a keen local cyclist, she had some big safety concerns about the ‘official’ route up Greenhill Rd, especially on Good Friday, and offered to guide us a up quieter, safer, and extremely popular-with-cyclists route up Norton Summit Rd. Even though it would mean some extra kilometres, we didn’t need any convincing. After that section out of Port Augusta, I was even further in the camp of valuing my life over being ‘true’ to an arbitrary route that has no way of being officially audited for safety and changed. We arranged to meet her in the city centre around 7ish.

We checked in at the motel at 1.30 and got busy. We took off the big frame bag, and other attachments that might get in the way. Then we threw together some walking-appropriate clothes/shoes in the backpack and musette, rode the backstreets 2km to 99 Bikes and left the bike with Daniel as arranged. We had another errand to attend to, so ubered to that, and then back to the motel. We wanted to send some stuff home that we no longer wanted to carry*, but had just 25 mins before Australia Post – a 450m walk away – closed. Marc bolted out with that, and just made it. I set off and met him at the chemist. From there, a 1.5km walk back down to 99 Bikes.

Daniel was a legend. The support and generosity that participants in this ride get from Indipac followers is just mind-blowing, and it still makes me teary thinking back on it. Still amazed at the coincidence that the bike mechanic in the random bike shop Marc rang was really into Indipac.

It was just about dark as we rode back up towards the motel. Better eat – Fasta Pasta restaurant chain would do, locking the bike up outside where we could see it. While we were eating Marc got a call from Daniel. Was this little black tool ‘keg’ ours?

This thing?

Oops. Yep.

A quick ride back down to get it – lucky they were open late on Thursday nights!

We got back to the motel at 7.20pm. Finally a shower! Then getting the frame bag back on and packed up again.

Well, we’d made it to the first city. Huge milestone. It’s safe to say I was feeling pretty conflicted. For me, the only way I’d got across the Nullarbor was by telling myself (and, ok, the whole Facebook DW group) that all I had to do was hang in there till Adelaide, and then I could put an end to this nonsense. (Marc was, of course, the whole time going to himself something along the lines of “wtf?! Well, we’ll see about that!” )

It had been a week since even a ‘Rest Day in Adelaide’ strategy was quashed thanks to the Easter Weekend timing. In that time, though, with the ‘shorter’ hops, wasn’t broken. Backside chafing and pins and needles in the hands had subsided, and I’d resigned myself to the fact that we would be continuing on to Melbourne. I think Marc knew all along that once he got me out the other side of Adelaide we would be going to Sydney, but he would continue to let me say, when people asked where we were headed: “It’s meant to be Sydney, BUT…”