My hope for a wet day came true. It must have rained all night and it was still teeming in the morning. I just focused on turning the pedals over as evenly as possible and on the road just in front of me. When I next looked around, 20km had passed. Water was centimeters over the road at Braunstone and… Read more →
Traveling up north on the train today, I started reading Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia. It quite affected my perception of the new housing development north of Maitland. It was encroaching on old dairy farms, and I had this immediate impression of the estate as a new type of farm, where the farmers are in the mortgage business. The grass comes in… Read more →
I woke up a bit sore, but not too bad, considering. The saddle-sores had lessened, but the legs were still feeling over-used. It wasn’t raining, but the sky was more threatening than yesterday. Not enough to convince me to put on a raincoat, though. There was a decent headwind, and it took me an hour to get to Braunstone, crawling… Read more →
The Coffs Harbour motel was most generous with breakfast. Basically I was given two for the price of one. The woman also gave me a banana, and asked if I wanted any avocados, as they had heaps. I ate everything but the banana, which I saved for the top of the big hill. An inauspicious start to the ride; I… Read more →
The trip up was reasonable. Bobbie dropped me at the station at about 6:15; the luggage people asked what I was giving them for transport, and I said it was a bike – they said OK. At Coffs, I was walking along the station towards the luggage cart and didn’t see the bike bag, so I called out that there… Read more →
I’m writing this from Coffs Harbour, on the start of this year’s Christmas holidays. Instead of having to wander around town looking for an open wireless AP, there’s an Optus connection in the motel room. Tomorrow, I’m on the road to Grafton, followed by Casino and Uki. I probably won’t be able to get online in the next few days,… Read more →
Walkaway by Cory Doctorow
Forgotten War by Henry Reynolds