What a stormy night. Our little cabin was rattling last night as the wind howled and the rain poured in showers. It was quite cosy, although when I initially woke up about 6am it was pretty cold. Dad got up and turned on the heat pump. It was still very dark so we didn’t rush to get out of bed, my good intentions of getting up for a run were cancelled in favour of keeping warm in bed, but it just seemed to be getting colder so I eventually got up and checked the heat pump and in the dark Dad had turned the thing onto the air conditioning mode and the machine was pumping out freezing cold air! Perhaps it was a strategy to get me out of bed.
We had showers and some breakfast in the cabin, then packed and headed off to find a Doctor for some antibiotics. Dad’s leg has been tender for that past two weeks or so since he initially dropped his bike in Tom Price and the stand cracked his leg. The second drop in Perth didn’t help and he has had a lot of swelling and tracking bruises. Yesterday he was getting more pain than usual and this morning there was tenderness, warmth and erythema (redness), this all equals cellulitis, an infection that needs treatment and so off to get a Doc to look at it (one who is registered in this country and has drugs that is). We were at the medical centre along with a queue of people at 8.30, and Dad went into join the queue in the waiting room. His caring son left him there and headed to McDonalds to have a Coffee and hook into their free Internet.
After a while Dad had been seen and given some antibiotics and given instructions to return if it worsens (sound advice) so we went to fuel up and head south. Got talking to a guy at the Petrol station who was fuelling up his Mazda 6 car. He was interested in how far we get out of a tank of fuel, then told me that his Mazda, a company car that is almost three years old and had done 750,000 km. Yes 750,000km! I said “it must be out of its warranty by now?” “No it is still covered for another month or so and Mazda are very proud of it, I drive between Mt Gambier and Adelaide every day in it” he replied. I said “Have you ever thought of moving closer to your work?” but no he collects milk samples and delivers them to the lab. Do the maths 750,000 in three years is 250,000 per year which is roughly 5000km per week which is 50 hours per week averaging 100km/hr if that is possible. That must be some sort of record. The car looked immaculate, but must be pretty worn out, apparently they have not offered much as a trade in.
We drove into the worst weather that we have experienced on the trip so far. It was still very windy, with occasional heavy showers, and it was quite cold. Most of this is OK on the bike. We had our Thermal liners on to keep the cold at bay and heated grips putting some warmth into our hands, and if you keep the speed up on these fully faired bikes the rain hardly touches you as it all gets blown over your shoulder, but the wind is a bit problematic. Once again these bikes handle the wind very well due to the aerodynamics of the fairing, and their weight, but this was seriously gusty side wind strong enough to be knocking branches off the trees, and up rooting tumbleweed type plants. It was reasonably intense trying to keep the bikes on the road and the road trains added to the challenge with the blast of wind from them every now and again. Saw a couple of Pelicans flying off despite the wind, they are very big birds.
After a couple of hours we stopped to have a cuppa and a warm up with a pie. Dad asked the shopkeeper if the pies were any good, he replied “I wouldn’t look like this if they weren’t!” Grabbing his ample abdomen. “we had better have two then” “you sit down young fella and I’ll bring them over”. He was a good sort. After a cuppa our spirits were up again and back into the wind we went. Arrived in Mt Gambier and fuelled up as the tanks were empty. We headed into town once again to have a warm up cuppa. While warming up in a café we realised that we would have to stop here as the next town is into Victoria and Dad has a winning Lotto ticket in hand in the South Australia Lotto which is drawn tonight, so we would need to come back to pick up the cheque. We also have reached a point that we will get to Melbourne in one day, so on balance we decided to stop even although we have only done 375km. Dad also needed to get his leg elevated to give the best chance of the infection clearing. Of course the inclement weather had nothing to do with our decision.
Found a Motel in town and settled in. I replaced the bulbs in my headlights to try to get them working but to no avail, it will be a visit to the auto-electrician back home. We went down to the local RSL for dinner. The RSLs are similar to RSAs in NZ, but are open to all and all of the ones that I have been into (2) have been very well appointed restaurant with excellent quality and value food. Had a good feed and a couple of beers and then an evening keeping warm in the motel. It is the first day of the trip that I did not get my camera out, will have to make up for that on the Great Ocean road tomorrow.
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