Hanging in Wauchope

Today's map.


Talking to the manager, Eric, the next morning, I began to realise what I lucky find this motel had been. I asked about doing my laundry and, rather than offering me the usual same-day dry cleaning that costs a couple of internal organs, he let me wash my gear on site. He even watched over my clothes as they dried, in case it rained. I was feeling so content that I decided to stay there a little longer.

I gave the Rev a bath using the fire hose near my room. The entire insect population of Victoria and NSW was plastered over my headlight and had been baked on by the heat of the beam. Seeing their barbecued bodies smashed onto the glass, I suddenly twigged why the bike faintly smelt of roasting meat after a long day's ride.

Before and after a good hosing.

Next day, in need of more adventure than the motel room could offer, I rode down to Port Macquarie for a look around. The bike, minus all the baggage for this day trip, felt like a superbike compared to its laden state. I had a lot of fun exploiting the lighter handling on the quick jaunt down to the coast.

It was a grey day, threatening rain. The Rev and I pottered along the coastline to the south of Port Macquarie, stopping at a lighthouse on the headland to take some photos.

The wind from the south wailed over the headland and adjusted my normally untidy mop into some kind of hair helmet. I laughed a Tasmanian laugh at locals who complained about how 'freakin cold' it was, until I remembered that I whined about the weather for a full two years when I moved south to Hobart.

I stopped at the only open coffee shop for a flat white and a muffin and copped an ad in the local tourist paper for an interesting concept in caffeination: a Christian internet cafe. The name was pure gold!

I wisely slipped into my full wets before leaving and got completely pounded by a rainstorm all the way home. There is only so much a raincoat can do when you're complicating its job by whizzing along in a storm. By the time I was back at my room, I looked like I'd been fired out of a torpedo tube across the breadth of the Atlantic. It was a great day though. After pushing a little too hard for the last couple of weeks, it was a joy to stay in one place and be a lazy tourist.