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Published: January 1st 2018
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,After packing up tents, muesli breakfast, we set off early, as another bloody hot day was literally melting things around us. Forecast for today, a whopping 38 degrees, with, you guessed it, northerly winds. With these hot headwinds from Hades, we decided to track due west to Langhorne Creek, to lessen the impact of the winds. Langhorne Creek is at the southern end of S.A's wine region. We passed our first roadside vineyard today, offering their roadside goodies at five finger discount. Colin and I tried our luck with a "Quick Pic", the dark purple grapes were plump and juicy, ripe for the picking. Colin just grabbed a bunch and squeezed their juicy goodness into his dry thirsty mouth.
As we were getting ready to leave the scene of the crime, a touring cyclist came flying towards us, with the obvious aid of a massive tailwind. He was from New York City, landed in Perth, trucked across the Nullabor, first day on the bike out of Adelaide. He was bound for Sydney via Melbourne. Some people had told him to be aware of aborigines and wild dogs, who live in the bush and attack people. We calmly assured him that
such was not the case. However we did warn him of the notorious "Drop Bears", that live in trees, and drop down and tear the throats, of unsuspecting campers. Not to mention the "Hoop Snakes", that roll themselves up into a hoop, then roll down the hill, and let go at the last second to strike at same unsuspecting campers in the bush. He sincerely thanked us for the advice, I am sure that we won't be the last to warn him of "Drop Bears and "Hoop Snakes".in his adventures of Oz.
Colin and I were now entering the wine region of the lower Barossa, where we soon came across Bleasedale Winery, a fifth generation winery, offering cellar door tastings. After a ridiculous hot day on the bikes, this could be our much awaited Shangrila, our oasis in the proverbial desert. A place to cool down and savour the refreshing nectar of the wine gods. This no doubt would be the first of many encounters with roadside wine vendors. Like true wine connoisseurs, (although not many travel on treddlies}, we made our grand entrance into the wine tasting arena. I was particularly impressed with the 1984 Malbec. Malbec is
a purple French grape usually used for blending with the cabernet and/or sauvignon varieties, I was very pleased to taste a pure malbec. In exchange for the appropriate amount of cash, Mr. Bleasedale obligingly handed over tonight's dinner wine, presumably to be consumed with a fitting top notch dinner in some exotic location.
Before we departed, our hosts replenished the hot crappy water on our bikes with cool refreshing rain water from their tank. Packing my bottled procurement safely away in my pannier, we hit a very hot road with savage northerly headwinds still menacing us. I said to Colin , If you can guess a number correctly between 3 and 5, its off to the pub, to beat the heat? Colin said "What For". "Thats' it!", I exclaimed, park the bikes, lets grab some coldies and a quick pub meal. So there we were perched on the top balcony of the hotel washing down toasted sangers with icy cold coopers. In this stupidly hot heat it was going to be a long day of Pub Hopping, next stop The grand old Victoria Hotel in Strathalbyn. Another well preserved historic hotel, where we found ourselves once again perched at
the bar for many hours, waiting for the day to cool off a bit, before making a few more ks, to somewhere.
As I was repacking my bike, my trusty bike stand broke, Oh Shit!, but lucks a fortune, bike shop across the road. Refit new stand, unceremoniously discard old stand, that served me well, over many years and much of this country, found itself in a
Strath bin. Too bloody hot to care right now. Around 4 o'clock the afternoon sun was getting low in the sky and it was now a pleasant 32 degrees (Yeah Right!). So once again we set off, with heads and belly's full of cold beer, I don't know how we managed to stay vertical on our machines. Someone once told me, (I think it was me) God looks after drunks and idiots, so we were in good hands, divine intervention, providence, call it what you will, but somehow we rode the 22 kilometres to the little town of Meadows.
After 70 gruelling, scorching kilometres, two wineries, three hotels, we deserved another pub meal and a few rounds of cold ales at the Meadows pub. Too drunk, too stuffed to ride out
of town for bush camp, we decided to wait until the cover of darkness and pitch our tents surreptitiously in the Lions Park, right in town. It was about 9 o'clock when too very weary drunken riders pitched their tents and hit the proverbial sack. No exotic location, No posh dinner, No popping the Malbec. Ah! There is always tomorrow!
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Colin
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Head winds
I’ll never forget those headwinds , forcing us to stop at those blue stop signs to quench our thirsts .