What an amazing way to complete our tour!
Rolling up to the Rotunda in central Adelaide to ride our final leg, we were overwhelmed with the turn out! There was at least 50 people to greet us with lots of love and hugs.
As mushy gushy as it sounds, it warmed our hearts to see so many familiar faces and to meet new ones.

We were overjoyed with the turn out – and excited to see a number of unicycles roll up to ride with us. It was INCREDIBLE to see you all! I don’t have the words to express how much it meant to us when we rolled up and everyone cheered and clapped our arrival. I was so touched by this.

Even the sun was out to shine and welcome us home.

The welcome home rabble mob rode to the beach and onto Glenelg, where there were more family loved ones and friends new and old to cheer us home.
Hehe – we felt like chickens on a rotisserie as we rotated for the camera snaps before getting on with the party.

And what does one do at the beach on a sunny day?…

ICECREAM!!!
One of our friends, an insanely fast unicyclist called Ian McSpeed shouted us icecream.
As we enjoyed our delicious creamery treats, more friendly faces turned up for OMG-you-didn’t-die hugs.

By the end of the day, at least 100 people had come out to welcome us home.

We stayed at Glenelg for hours, just soaking in the day, the trip and the fact that our bums will be sitting on soft surfaces, we will cook fresh market vegetables, we can see loved ones any time and we can look back and know, through the good, the fun and the tough times – we made it!

Waking up this morning, it felt like we were going on a wild field trip. We met up with our great friends Gray and Bonnie early in the morning. The night before we arranged to ride the stretch into Adelaide with them. Giving them full responsibility as expedition leaders, they came armed with maps to navigate a scenic (as little traffic as possible) route, back to Gray’s house, ready for the final ride tomorrow (Sunday 11am at Elder Park rotunda.)

The urban desert

It was a beautiful way to enter Adelaide. We avoided main roads, we rode tasty bike tracks that led us to adventure playgrounds and we stayed on back streets all the way to Gray’s house (who lives just out of the city).

Tonight we sleep up, ready for tomorrow’s final ride, which will be joined by old and new friends, as we all ride to Mosley square, Glenelg.

See you tomorrow!

After packing up and leaving our glorious little train carriage,we set foot on the road and met Lachy and Tate, from AdelaideNow and The Advertiser.

They arrived, full of ideas for ride by shots, photos and angles.
We rode a sludgy dirt road, to capture the fluffy clouds in the background. We happily rode the sludgy dirt track, we happily took time out of our ride to talk and be snapped by Lachy and Tate, but when Tate wanted a happy tabloid shot of Suede and I holding hands – I think Suede vomited in his mouth a little.
But we did the happy holding hands shot, which Tate told us his boss LOVED and wanted to run in the paper. I could literally see every part of Suede’s body curl up in disgust (Hehehe).
But Suede got them to film using his video camera, so they were forgiven.

They also put their trust in Suede, giving him their super dooper expensive camera to do some filming while we were rolling with heavy traffic flying past on the main road.

Cameras were swapped back to their rightful owners, and we bid Tate and Lachy farewell and were about to hit the road when a car started beeping and waving madly at us. Out popped three familiar faces – friends of ours (that’s how close to home we are! Best hugs ever, Ronnie, Tracy and Madie!) After hugs and catch ups we started rolling.
This was by far one of the HARDEST roads of the trip. Heavy loud traffic that keep there steady 110km pace, zoomed past us less than a metre away. I won’t lie, I was a trifle twitchy.

The road was so bad, we were forced to walk the last 2km into Gawler. But a cabin was waiting and ready for us in Gawler Caravan Park, kindly donated to us by David, who is a big supporter of charity events such as ours. What a warm way to end the day!

At the very start of this year, Sman and myself took our unicycles on a 4 day tour that weaved us through some great trails in Clare Valley. We talked of possibly returning to the area on our way back home from Darwin… And that’s exactly what we did.

Once we get our gear packed in the mornings, we often sit somewhere nice and plan our day over a drink. The problem with towns like Clare is that their nice places are far too nice for a speedy departure. The cafe we sat at was warm, it was raining outside, and Sman had discovered banana chai tea.

Thankfully the rain eased and Sman could continue her ramblings on banana chai recipe ideas while we rode. We headed towards an old train line converted to a bike trail: The Riesling Trail.

The last time we rode this wonderful trail it was summertime, dry and hot. This time it was autumn, drizzling and lush; perfect for riding and lunching.

Our late start meant we cut our Riesling Trail picnic short and kept pushing on. The scenery was full of yellow leaved vineyards, the air heavy with burning hardwoods from fireplaces, the ground crunchy with pine needles, and since the trail is cycles only, not a roadtrain in sight!

The trail ends far too quickly and we’re back on the main roads. We’re racing the sun again to make Riverton before dark (and more importantly before the store closes), and we make it the nick of time.

Our host in Riverton is Ivor, who owns the now closed Railway Bed and Breakfast. He was expecting us to arrive earlier and was just about to head out looking for us when we arrived and laid his fears to rest. He very kindly prepared one of the converted railway carriages for our most luxurious night on this trip. We often talked of having a night in a fancy B&B at the end of our trip and we are enjoying every moment here.

Leaving Gladstone we rode south into the (what I thought was freezing) cold head wind.

We stopped at Georgetown, 11km (that felt like 100km) from Gladstone.

Talking to Suede about how cold it was and how far it felt like we had travelled, his puzzled expression told me the experience of our morning ride was very different.

I was SLOW! I was finding it hard. It had taken us well over an hour to do 10km. With another 70km to Clare and the time reading 12 noon, there was no hope to make Clare. I felt rubbish! Recovering injuries and energy levels have been slowly growing issues. Throw in a day of strong head winds and getting rained on and these problems quickly surface.

It was decided – we had to get a ride. But in a quiet town, with little to no one passing through, who? None other than Patrick the postman, that’s who!

What a ride! It was like a secret postman’s insight tour. He explained not so common facts of the land we passed, we saw the backstreets of his post route and he pointed out fancy letterboxes on the way. He even told us of the weird and wonderful things he delivers in the post (including sedated honey bees).

This was by far better than any tour bus I’ve been on!

He dropped us half way to Clare.  When we made in to Clare, were pretty quick to get settled.

The postman saved the day!

Today was pleasant. It was freezing, it was windy – but we ended the day in dry clothes!

The stretch from Melrose to Georgetown has towns dotted every 15km or so. This means tasty warm coffee shops and supermarkets every hour or two.

We passed through a town called Laura. When I saw the town’s sign, I instantly knew I could live a very happy, fat Life here. For the sake of the ride we had to steer clear of the icecream factory (it could have well been our kryptonite!)

After watching the gusty winds and threatening skies for long enough, we left Laura and headed the 16km to Gladstone.

The people in Gladstone are warm! Within 10 minutes of setting wheel in town, we already had a new friend called Chrissie and a place to stay.

After talking to everyone we met in the street (and getting a donation from each person), we headed to Chrissie’s place.

Riding to Chrissie’s house, we had another offer for a place to stay. This town is lovely!

At Chrissie’s we met Garry, her husband and Maggie, one very sweet hearted dog.

We were taken to our pad for the night, a motor home, complete with a fan heater!

We joined Chrissie and Garry for tea and were dished up a hearty pasta dish with rich sauce.

Fed, showered and blogged by 7.30pm. Delightful!

We’ve met many wonderful folks and stayed in lots of great places during this tour – it’s been a amazing journey. The flip side of this coin, however, is the difficulty saying goodbye or leaving the place. This morning was such a time.

We stayed in Melrose at our friends Hugh and Kyoto’s last night. Warm fire, laughs and hot meals (and ice cream, too – they’ve been following this blog, haha!). But this morning it was time to leave, even though we were putting it off and lying in bed listening to the rain pelt down on the tin roof, trying not to think about their offer to stay another day…

Eventually we dragged ourselves out, said goodbye and rode to the nearby Melrose bike shop, Over The Edge to say farewell to them as well.

Melrose is known as the mountain bike Mecca of South Australia and the guys at Over The Edge run the best bike shop I’ve ever seen. Better still, the manager Jake rides a loaded big wheel uni better than anyone we’ve met so far!

Their shop has a roasting fireplace and comfy couches where we pretended to look at our maps and other excuses to bask in the fire warmth a moment longer, watching the driving rain outside.

So with the cold rain and wind outside, and all these warm people and warm fireplaces, it won’t come as surprise that we didn’t get on the road until 11:30.

We had an hour of light showers until the heavy rain set in. Riding in strong wind or heavy rain is a grind, and doing both at the same time quickly makes you miserable…

Too wet and cold to continue, we found an unused council shed and did what we could to dry off and warm up, winning back our lost smiles…

Keen to take the muddy Mawson trail from Quorn to Melrose today, an early start was in order. Annoyingly I stepped in spilt peppermint tea, so I spent a chunk of ‘getting ready’ time drying out the minty mank smell.

A beautiful Sunday morning. I have noticed throughout our time spent on the road, Sunday mornings are the BEST for traffic free joy!

On the main road to Melrose, we reached the turn off to the Mawson trail. We were enjoying the quiet main road’s views and sealed surface so much we decided to for go the wet lumpy clay of the Mawson trail.

The sky looked a little threatening in the morning and by the time we reached Wilmington (the town between Quorn and Melrose), the gusty winds and chilly rain set in.

Our soggy shoes wasted no time scuttling into the only deli in town. Our droopy rain soaked bike shorts plonked down onto the deli shop’s seats and they didn’t move for 2 hours.

Many deli foods later, we left the shop knowing that in 20km, we would be at Hue and Kyoko’s house (friends of ours). This meant dry clothes, warm bed and happy dry people, in dry clothes, smiling their happy dry smiles.

Arriving at Hue and Kyoko’s, Kyoko opened the door and greeted us with hugs, towels for showers, a toasty fireplace and the smell of AMAZING vegetable curry warming on the stove. Kes, their son then turned to me and said “sman, we bought icecream”.

This small sentence was enough to warm me instantly. We sleep well tonight!

We have spent so long on the flat Australian centre that facing the looming Flinders Ranges was a little daunting. I’d forgotten what mountains are like, and after a few minutes of steep uphill riding, it was clear my legs had forgotten too. Mountains are steep.

The road winds its way up into the southern Flinders Ranges and the scenery is nothing shy of a postcard. The road and train line weave together up Pichi Richi Pass between steep rock faces and lush greenery; a strong contrast to the dusty rolling plains we have been used to.

We’re still getting used to looking at the map and marveling at how towns are never more than a day apart… No more needing to carry 3 days of food.

The wind was strong and gusty – the 50kmph kind – which meant slow going and tricky riding with lots of leaning to match the gusts.

Tomorrow we ride 60kms of the renowned Mawson bike trail, a trafficless treat we’re very excited about!

Seeing as ALL our clothes have the strong odour of chicken crimpy in a biscuit (we stored all our clothes in with some chicken noodle flavouring), we decided to vinegar the hell out of them in the wash. It worked a treat! We now walk down the street with confidence!

We were able to score some warm opp shop finds and some bargain bread at the foodland. (Small delights such as this make our day).

Tomorrow we begin riding in the Flinders Ranges. Our toughest hill riding on the tour so far.