The Unplanned Rest Day

"Unplanned Rest Day". It sounds so... restful. Pleasant. Unplanned it was. A day... sort of - it was about 24 hours long. Restful? Not really. Brent says you need to allow for a few Unplanned Rest Days in your tour schedule, but when we booked our bus from Marimbula to Sydney a couple days ago, we hadn't done that... Oops.

We cycled to Orbost in Gippsland (which we both love), and were planning out our next move. The next center with any services, Cann River, was about 80km down the road from Orbost. Theoretically, I can do 80km in a day, but I wasn't really comfortable with it, so we decided to give ourselves options - we'd stock up on provisions, and if necessary, camp somewhere on the side of the road halfway. We'd decide that morning if I was feeling up to an 80km haul, or if we'd try to stop halfway someplace.

Orbost was great - it's on the Snowy River. Yep... THE Snowy River. As we rode into town, we found the Caravan Park (Aussie for "Campground") right away and pulled in. The proprietor met us at the entrance and said that he could maybe give us a place to stay, but he'd have to figure out something on the "higher ground" as there were flood warnings for the Snowy and his park is low and right by the river. They were concerned about the lower parts of the park flooding. We got set up with a spot - right beside the clothesline beside the bathrooms (woo hoo) - and ventured into town. Bought the required provisions, and then made our way to the tavern where we decided to have dinner and beers before our next day(s) adventures.

The tavern was great, and the proprietor, Mick, gave a demonstration of sticking money to his ceiling. There's a fan that keeps the bills in place, and you wrap a bill in a coin, then throw it, hard, up at the ceiling. The bill is supposed to stay, and the coin falls back down. If you miss three times, you have to pitch in out of your pocket into a charity they support. Brent tried to film him doing this, and the call came out that to film, you have to contribute, so I went digging for an Aussie fin, while Brent produced a Canadian one. Mick was pretty sure the Canadian one wouldn't stick because it's made of paper - the Aussie ones are made of plastic, but he managed to stick both bills to the ceiling on his first tries. There was a bit of a crowd gathered around watching the whole thing unfold, and as it wrapped up, a woman approached us. She introduced herself as Chrissy and asked where we were headed. We told her of our tentative plans, and she INSISTED that we stop in Cabbage Tree Creek the next night and stay - it is halfway to Cann River. That sounded pretty good to me - problem solved. Chrissy chatted with us for a while and told us about her motor bike club and friends (she had four friends in tow). Chrissy was going to give us her phone number, but then said that it had trouble receiving calls, and what we should do instead was to go to town, stop at the General Store and talk to Jo and Pete - the proprietors - and get them to contact her for us.

The next morning, we got up and had a leisurely breakfast, found out about the flooding was less than expected, but it was enough to close the scenic route to Cabbage Tree Creek via Marlow. Dang. OK, so the scenic route would have been 50km, but the main highway was only 30, so we only had 30km to do that day, which left us with tonnes of time to hang out in Orbost before heading out. We poked around, checked out the flooding, including goes a short distance down the road to Marlow. Finally, at around 1:30, we left Orbost and started our journey to Cabbage Tree Creek. It was a good day riding... or, rather, as good a day as possible on highway. I made a decision that day and told Brent that I just didn't enjoy highway riding. I don't like the traffic whizzing by - I feel like I'm spending way too much of my time frightened. He was very good about that, and we'll explore options where we can keep touring together... "with modifications".

Anyway, along the route to Cabbage Tree Creek, we stopped at a rest stop for a snack, where we were briefly pummelled by a rain cloud that blew in, smacked us down, and then blew right back out as quickly as it had some. The rest of the trip to Cabbage Tree Creek was fine. When we got there, as instructed, we stopped at the General Store and talked with Jo. I introduced myself and said that Chrissy had said she could contact her for us. Jo's response: "Which Chrissy? John-Boy's Chrissy?"... uh-oh. I said "I don't know... the Chrissy that I met at the tavern in Orbost last night". Kind of an inauspicious start. Anyway, Jo gave us directions to "John-Boy's Chrissy's" place, which involved riding up a hill, around the community hall, and then following this secluded, wind-ey, ill-maintained road which had recently had a fire run through the surrounding forest. As Brent and I followed the secluded, wind-ey, ill-maintained road, I got cold feet. I thought, Chrissy had told us she would tell Jo to expect us, which she clearly hadn't done, and since we'd met her in a tavern, we thought perhaps she'd forgotten or changed her mind, or even extended the invitation to be "nice" without expecting us to take her up on it. So, before we reached the place, we turned around and re-traced our steps back to the General Store, discussing our options, including trying to find a place to pitch tent someplace in town where we "wouldn't annoy anyone".

Back at the General Store, Jo said there wasn't really anyplace around we could pitch tent, but then suggested that we could camp on a patch of land behind her store. There was no shower, but she did have an outdoor toilet which we could use. It sounded like heaven so I quickly accepted. As we were setting up the tent, it clouded over and started to rain. Just as we were finishing up and deciding how we were going to cook our fancy peas, couscous and pumpkin soup with spam dinner, Chrissy and her crew arrived and began waving us back up to the store. Her whole gang had come out for dinner. Jo had closed up shop early so that everyone could bring some alcohol for their dinner - Jo's place is unlicensed. We had a fantastic time visiting with Chrissy and crew, and had wonderful steak sandwiches from Jo rather than the concoction we'd planned for ourselves.

The rain rained on and on, and the gals pointed out that we had pitched out tent in the path of the overflow from the rainwater capture tank. Oops. Brent moved the tent over to a better spot, with some coaching from the gals. That night, we listened to the rain and wind tag team the tent. In the morning, I felt like we'd been bitch-slapped all night by a rain cloud, but my trusty McKinnon backpack tent held up well. The rain was not showing any signs of letting up, and riding the next 50km to Cann River sounded not only unpleasant, but possibly treacherous that day. We started discussing options and thought we might catch a bus from Cabbage Tree Creek to Cann River. I knew Countrylink would insist that the bikes had to be boxed, and we didn't happen to just have a couple of bike boxes laying around, so we crossed them off the list. I looked up the timetables for Premier, which we were going to use to get from Merimbula to Sydney in a few days. Their bus comes through Cabbage Treek Creek at 00:45. Brent suggested VLine, so I tried them, but they don't allow bikes on their coaches at all. We decided to wait 'til noon and see if a random generous stranger might stumble into the General Store and offer to give us a lift up the road, and barring that, we would book the 00:45 bus with Premier.

We had breakfast in the general store, and Jo (and Pete, who is a minor player in this story because he's down with a back injury) said it was no problem to loiter on their front porch for the day while we waited for 00:45. The rain rained on, and we talked to a few random strangers, but none with the generosity, or the vehicle capacity, to drive us up the road. Around noon we caved and booked a ride on the Premier 00:45 coach. The rain rained on and we bought a couple of used books from Jo's used book bin. We had lunch in the general store and kept our post on the front porch (covered, of course). The rain rained on. We read the used books and did some Sudoku puzzles, and Brent did some journaling. Later in the afternoon, Edie from Wollongong, a random generous stranger, stumbled in with a bike rack and enough room for us, our bikes and our gear and offered to drive us to Cann River. We considered it, but given that the weather is not expected to let up, and we'd already booked Premier (and made tentative accommodation arrangements in Merimbula), and the weather was supposed to be nicer further north, we declined, but we did get her contact information to possibly visit in Wollongong. We had dinner in the General Store and Jo and Pete VERY GRACIOUSLY offered to let us stay inside the store after they closed at 20:00 to wait for the 00:45 bus. They closed up and went to bed, leaving us full run of their store and kitchen. They even brought us a couple of beanbag chairs to use so we'd be reasonably comfortable. We were REALLY lucky. Brent and I made a foot sandwich with the beanbags to try to warm our feet back up after been cold and wet for over 24 hours, and I slept for a bit with my head down on the table. Thankfully, the 00:45 showed up on time and didn't blow on past (which, apparently, has happened). We piled the bikes and junk on the bus and off we went to Merimbula.

Sadly, the 00:45 departing Cabbage Tree Creek arrives in Merimbula at 03:10. Guess what's open in Merimbula at 03:10? Right. At least it wasn't raining, and we used our map to find a park near the ocean/beach where we set up tent and slept until the sun came up at about 6:45.

The place we'd tentatively booked, Mermaid Holiday Units, was not able to accept us at 3:10 because the unit they had for us was still occupied, but luckily, the folks were out, and we were in at 9:00AM. Best. Shower. Ever. But... no longer in a sleeping kind of mood. That will just have to wait.

Next time I have an "Unplanned Rest Day", I might plan it a little better.