Melbourne to the Blue Mountains

It was after the heat wave hell day. After one person was taken by two others to the hospital. After two Oteshalings laid sobbing on the floor. Scooped up by Candice, taken to a bed and fed electrolyte gels. It was after the next day’s debriefing. The sharing of what riding 68 kilometers in such oppressive heat had been like for each of us. It was after a community presentation of our skit, “Morning of Choices.” With the sun in our faces as we shouted our lines from a stage. To an audience scattered too widely across a large stretch of lawn. After we danced to another group’s puppet performance of “the Whale Wash Song.” It was when we were running across all that grass. Playing “hug tag” and “red rover red rover.” Showing off non-cartwheel skills and handstands where we couldn’t keep our feet in the air. We were happy. In my memory, I see us all smiling. Giddy. It was then. I took off running. Hoping to perform a perfect cartwheel. Something my body hadn’t done since I was seven. It went astray. I landed on a bended knee, in front of Be. Now I was almost her height, and on that warm, sunny, late afternoon, such a landing seemed suitable for only one question.

“Will you marry me?”

Without much pause, her hands came up to her mouth and she shouted, “Yes!”

Yes. I stood up, hugged her, her head next to my chest. In a quick conversation of who would take who’s name and who would be the Mrs. it came to be understood that we would take the name of our respective stuffed kids. Ew and Mr. Sheep. Mr. and Mr. Ew Sheep.

Nearly four and a half months since that fateful summer day, I found myself looking out a window, past an abundance of blurring gum trees. Straight ahead through the small window of the carriage door, I could see Goat’s bike seat. And when the door flapped Open. Shut. Open. Shut. from the jostling movements of the train, I saw the bright yellow Ortlieb panniers. A comfort that Goat was still standing. And that that image, those things, were mine.

“Birds came on the train.” I looked over at Paul, a mentally handicapped young man who’d followed me around the platform and now the train.

“What?” I asked.

“Listen, you can hear birds on the train. Down there.”

I turned around, but couldn’t see the budgies that chirped and tweeted in some downstairs part of our part of the train. I looked back at Paul and we both smiled.

“Only one more stop till Springwood. Our stop,” he informed me.

Only one more stop till Mr. Ew Sheep. A giddy wave of excitement swirled around my mouth, down my throat, and spread into my shoulders. As the train approached Mr. Ew Sheep Station, I went to Goat, de-wedging her from the bike area where I’d wedged her 1.5 hours earlier. The train halted. Doors opened. People eager to come on board backed up, letting me and the bike out. A look to my left. A look to my right. “Mr. Ew Sheep!” “Eeee!” She hopped towards me and I hobbled towards her. Hugs happened and then I went back to say goodbye to Paul. Then another hug with Mr. Ew Sheep and we made our way up to the surprisingly busy street. We picked up two hot chocolates and a piece of “chocolate mud cake? No, carrot cake. No, no, chocolate mud cake!” We arranged ourselves on the concrete alongside some benches. Happy. Launching into stories from our recent trips. Mine. Around Tasmania. Up and down hills in seven weeks. Grey nomads and dozens of friendly people. WombatsRUs gifts and the joys and sorrows of traveling alone. Hers. Nearly 2.5 months cycling from Port Augusta to Darwin. Early morning rides and middays spent in makeshift shade shelters, hiding from the heat. The limitless horizon, red sand, blue sky. Darting between rare clumps of trees, hoping not to be seen as they rushed into the desert, away from the highway, searching for a suitable nighttime camping spot. The joys of traveling with such an amazing friend. The exhaustion that occasionally came, having so much ground to cover. I listened and shared delightedly. Be slid the remaining ¾ of cake to me, saying it was mine, she was recovering from the flu.

I told her how I was supposed to be on a month long sugar free diet. After returning from Tasmania, I succeeded in going 2 weeks without giving in to any sugary temptations. Oteshaling Tash and I had a 36-hour break that got only a little bit out of hand. Homemade pavlova and carrot chocolate chunk cake with homemade icing. Dumpstered Lindt chocolates and overly sweet cookies. From there, we decided a month without sugar might cure us of such overly indulgent cravings. One week into it and I was lured. Offers of ice-cream and tim-tams abounded at Ron and Lola’s house in Albury. But I persisted. Denied all offers. “If I can make it through Ron and Lola’s tim-tam trap household, I can get through anything without sugar!” That’s what I really thought. But a voice in my head without a name whispered, “But You Haven’t Started Cycling Yet.” “Shh,” I insisted.

That was before Ron and Lola drove me to Yerong Creek. Before I spent 6 days cycling North, than East to the foot of the Blue Mountains, where I could catch the train to Mr. Ew Sheep. Before I was met with infuriating headwinds and persistent non-down pour days and nights of rain.

The trip never had a definite plan. After discovering that I couldn’t extend my working holiday visa, a new list of priorities put seeing Otesha friends at the top. That meant getting to Sydney and the surrounding Blue Mountains to reunite with Mr. Ew Sheep. After receiving a letter from Ron urging me to consider visiting, I boxed up Goat and hopped on a train. Albury was on my way. Three and a half hours after saying goodbye to Melbourne and letting views of farms and trees and fire remains whir by my eyes, I said hello to Ron and Lola. Nearly two months since I’d seen them as the toot tooted past me in their caravan on the highway out of Hobart. Since we’d shared one last cup of tea. Since Ron stuffed two last tim tams into my hands.

They treated me like “their daughter.” Touring me around town, sharing breakfasts, morning teas, lunches, afternoon teas, and dinners. I scanned over my New South Wales maps. Toyed with my options of how to reach Sydney. Bike? Bus? Train? Bike. Via the busy Hume Highway? Via hills and mountains and Canberra? Or going wide, to the west, via the Olympic Highway, Junee, Cootamundra, Young, Cowra, and Bathurst? After talking to Oteshaling Julia in Canberra and discovering that the next week wasn’t the best time to come for a visit, the cycling the ‘snowy mountain highway’ in winter plan was scrapped. The Hume Highway, main freeway hub between Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne, was never a place I wanted to cycle. Even before the warnings and the ‘its too dangerous’es. So I chose to go inland. Despite the reprimands from multiple elders at the monthly dinner bash at Ron and Lola’s retirement village. A red-faced me being introduced during the welcoming speech.

“Today we have a visitor, Kelsey Maloney, from the United States, cycling around Australia.”

Even though, technically, I am in no way cycling around Australia. Only here and there. After food and sing-a-longs, two men came up to me. Shook my hand and said, “Welcome to Australia!” and wished me luck. More than one lady glanced at me then shook her head. A man with a large nose, an impressive amount of gray hair, sat across the table from me.

“I don’t mean to be patronizing. But, you are a little girl. Yes, you are a grown woman, but you’re a little girl. And you should not be cycling on your own.”

Maybe the man didn’t know. That was patronizing. Ron was drunk, leaning in on the conversation. Most of the people in the room with me were drunk. Maybe the large-nosed man too. Empty bottles of wine on every white table-clothed table. Not me. I sat there quiet. Kept breathing short, deep, calming breaths in and out of my nose. Kept being po-lite. My head spun. My thoughts and anger were loud. Fear mongering. Some men and some women. Wanting to keep me hidden. “Safe.” From all the “nasty buggers out there.” I know, I knew, there are always people who will disapprove. People who’d think it was safer to drink, smoke, drive, and laze their life away. I was not scared. Did not let his own fears infect me.

A day later, I hugged Ron and Lola goodbye. Clipped my feet in and pedaled away. Grinned at the light breeze against my face. The sun and the cows and sheep I passed. A hopeful beginning to six days in a row of constant cycling. Sixty-six percent of which I cannot accurately describe as enjoyable. First three days into an aggressive headwind. On the second day while eating lunch, I caved. A Lindt chocolate ball and ½ of a fair-trade milk chocolate bar. I did not feel guilty. Just knew, cycling and no sugar diets were not a thing I wanted to be doing.

The next two days brought much less wind, and much more rain. Plus an increase in the size and quantity of hills and a craving for peanut butter and pizza. The fifth day of riding, 106k’s from Cowra to Bathurst, started slowly. Even though the road appeared to be flat, or even sometimes downhill, I could not gather any momentum or speed. Somewhere in that first third of the ride, a tantrum escaped me. Pedaling as hard as I could into a brick wall, shaking the handlebars and aggressively squeaking Mrs. MooCow while screaming, “WHY AM I GOING SO FUCKING SLOW?!?” Immediately embarrassed, I glanced around, relieved that no farmers stood watching me at their farm gates. I finally decided to let the mysteriously sloped road win, and accept Granny Gear and Stewie as my only friends. Luckily, I had added motivation to get through the day. A warm house to go to in Bathurst thanks to Gary and Kim and warmshowers.org. It was here that I would ask Gary, a former nurse, about my swollen right ankle.

“Tendonitis!” he said.

“Tendonitis?”

“Have you been pedaling in too hard of a gear at all on this trip? That will do it right away.”

Immediately I thought, “No way! I wouldn’t do that,” but then I saw myself several days earlier, frustrated with the wind and screaming, “come onnnnn!” and pedaling as hard as I could, refusing to drop into a lower gear.

“Hmm, I can be stubborn sometimes.”

He recommended anti-inflammatory drugs and rest. Two-three weeks. I couldn’t sit still that long even if I really tried! I turned down his offer to drive me all the way to the train station at Lithgow, instead accepting a 25k compromise lift to O’Connell. Then I only had 50k’s of back roads with hardly any cars and only a gazillion hills to traverse to get to Lithgow. I tried to keep my left leg from over-compensating too much as I half-cursed my decision to ride. And I thanked the biking gods for keeping Goat upright as I zoomed down a monstrous hill at 75.8 km/hr. Upon reaching the Lithgow train station, I resigned myself to resting for at least a week or two, allowing my leg a chance to heal and giving Goat and me a break from each other.

Sitting in the fading afternoon light with Mr. Ew Sheep and chocolate cake made the exhausting past 6 days swirl around in my head with a lable of 'worth it.' It was a 40-minute walk back to our resting spot for the weekend in the Blue Mountains. After cooking up a feast with the seven other people at the hosue, we snuck into a room intending to sleep. Instead, we giggled and talked until 230 in the morning. And to think, I've always said I never wanted to get married!

the ride to lithgow

tash with goodies from our 36 hour break from our sugar free diet

mr. ew sheep with an awesome individual we found walking down the street. in a onesy!!