It’s a bit over a year since I started cycle touring.

It began with an overnight ride. Then came more days and greater distances. A lap of Kangaroo Island. Battling headwinds in the Coorong. A lap of Tasmania. Crossing scores of dry creek beds in the Flinders Ranges. Meandering along the Murray.

I gained an appreciation of the slow pace. Travelling in the elements. A blank mind.

Travelling in this way let me see animals in variety and quantity that I had never encountered before. Koalas, kangaroos, emus, wombats. Lizards, eagles, falcons, parrots. Cows, goats, seals, snakes. Frogs, leeches, ticks and more. Animals that I don’t know the name of.

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The road provided me with tools that would enable ever more adventurous cycling tours.

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The road provided me with fuel to sustain my cycling tours.

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Loaded up with too much gear and rolling along at a snail’s pace, people seem to view you differently than if you were clad in lycra and screaming along on a carbon steed. Indeed, interaction with people has been the greatest gift of the road.

Whoops and cheers as motorists pass you on a steep ascent. Rolled down windows and thumbs up from Grey Nomads. An excited German recognising my German brand panniers. Nods of acknowledgment from other cyclists. A property owner pausing his garden chores to give me water from his ‘thousand year spring’.

While cycling the Coorong, I completed a 170km day – the longest day’s ride I had attempted at the time. As I stumbled into a bush campground and started to pitch my tent, a smiling woman walked over and handed me a plate full of tacos. Bewildered and grateful, I inhaled the meal and finished setting up. When I regained my senses and wandered over to her camp, I learned that Sandy was on a brief break from a kayaking epic – paddling from Germany to Australia (http://www.sandy-robson.com/).

This week just gone, I was meandering along the Murray river with some friends from Sydney. After passing through Berri, a four-wheel-drive pulled over in an aggressive fashion, not far in front of me. The driver door was flung open and I pedaled towards what I thought would be a spray of abuse. Instead, an arm was thrust out that door, and clenched in its fist, a bottle of red wine. Andrew is about to start a five year cycle journey around the world and he pulled over to have a chat and pass on some of his sponsor’s wine (http://www.thebikeabout.org/).

These two encounters resonate in my mind. The universe reached down to me and said “these are the people and these are the experiences you will have when you leave your routine.”

Anyway, riding a bike is pretty fun.


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