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Minutes before the accident
Minutes after the accident
Look, and you can see the road carved into the side of the cliffs.
Right now I am living in Melbourne with a refugee Arts Factory family in the trendy and tidy suburb of Carlton. The townhouse belongs to my [relatively speaking] long term friends Claire and Kayla. Also living there is an American girl from NY and a girl from New Zeland. The city life is not for me. I prefer the outdoors any day man. I have been in Australia for 36 weeks, and these last 2 have been the only ones lived indoors. I miss the tiny ants attacking my bare chest as I sleep. I miss the paranoia of "did I zip my tent up? Oh god, brown snakes are going to get in and attack me when I am not expecting it!" I miss falling asleep to the ocean waves crashing and a distant djembe drum playing into the night. That's all a bit of a strange dream world now, something that I may not have back ever- or for a while anyway.
I tried to get some of that back over the past few days by my new favorite obsession. Cycle Touring. While Tara [Tasmania cycle partner] was in Perth, I asked to borrow her gear and touring set up on behalf of my new matey Tim from England, and she said go ahead. So, with two bikes and about 350 miles of incredibly hilly and windy roads ahead of us, we took on one of the world's greatest rides: THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD.
Ascending and descending a 1000' (in elevation) hills became our life for 5 days. Whipping around S-curves like F-1 drivers, and pumping it up dirt tracks to look out points was our daily grind. The road is known for its cliffs, narrow roads and thrilling "driving experience." Lets just say that plenty of people were enjoying themselves VERY close to us on our bikes. At one point my jacket got ripped off my rear rack and sucked into my wheel, bringing with it a thick bungee cord and my galvanized steel bike lock. Uh oh. Well, as predicted, the chain snaked its way through my spokes-- snapping 2 completely in half-- and coiled up around my rear gear cassette. My wheel locked up, jack-knifing me across the highway at about 30mph. I somehow lucked out and managed to land on my feet - but I can't say the same for the bike. I picked up the mangled mess and lifted it over the guardrail to inspect the damage.
After about an hour of repairs and problem solving that even McGuiver would be impressed with, my bike was rideable 'enough' to get us to our campground that night. Using 2 cloth band-aids, a piece of twine from IKEA, my leatherman and a half a bottle of lube I managed to get the chain to unknot, straighten out and actually glide through the rear derailleur. The gears clink and jam and stick in every setting except for 2 of the 24 available, but at least I could still ride the thing. I wrapped the broken spokes around themselves and tied off the jiggling bits. The band-aid proved itself and stuck to the hub quite nicely securing a 2’’ portion of a jammed spoke from freeing itself and jamming my gears up. Ooo, what a mess. I also had to loosen my rear brakes out to about an inch of the rim on either side of the wheel because of the massive amount of uncontrollable wobble I was dealing with. So on the steepest windiest road of my life, I am riding a jalopy of a bike with 30% of my normal braking capacity and the sensation of constantly riding over tiny speed bumps. Great.
Despite that minor glitch, that day turned out to be fantastic. We hugged the coast for nearly 50km with the salty spray from the Southern Ocean’s turquoise waters cooling us all the way. We rode through a natural eucalyptus forest inhabited by hundreds of kola bears and camped next to a kangaroo family in the bush. Exhausted by the 65km ride of terror, Tim and I ate about 4lbs of pasta, about 500 grams of dark chocolate and a giant order of French fries from town. We made a fire as the temperature was dropping to the nightly average of about 35degrees Fahrenheit, and sipped on the Queens’s favorite: Earl Grey tea (Tim’s English, remember?).
Now, I am indoors, again—trying not to spend my last $10.25 that has to last me for 3 more days until I depart to Los Angeles. I leave Melbourne, Australia at 10:30am on Saturday the 18th, and arrive in LA at 10:30 on Saturday the 18th. Strange. Going to go home for a while, save up- live with my family- and head back out to Asia and New Zeland hopefully in under a year. Signing off on the blog for now. Peace.
