Day 453 | Nglang Boodja shelter: lots of manhandling the bike and some laying down on the job

38 km | Heading west total: 16,319 km

A day of wrestling the bike up sharp hills and I must ashamedly admit, laying down while still in motion due to trying to be way too clever in making a little film about riding one handed on the great single track through the Crooked Brook Forest.

My biking is a generally solitary occupation but all of a sudden I’ve come over self conscious thinking of people reading these daily entries.

Man, you have to fill them in day after day with something so it doesn’t turn in to breakfast was dot dot dot, then there was a hill, etc. I did this. I did that.

Jen has left a message in my, umm, message board making me somewhat nervous as to what I have written out here.

“Your blog was stumbled upon by accident, I was looking for information on cycling around Oz and I didn’t know that by clicking on your link I would be spending the next few hours reading 374 odd pages of what is – for today anyway – the best travelling account I have read. I’ve lost count of how many times I laughed out loud and felt goose-bumps tingling. No, I’m not trying to flatter my way into your pants. At 34 I’m four years away from the requisite 38 and in addition have no maternal stirrings whatsoever. And by your own admission your penis is small. While it is clear that you are doing a sterling job of providing your own counsel, as a suggestion perhaps when you feel up to it you should target women in their forties or fifties who have got all of that out of their system? “

I hadn’t thought there would be people skiving off work for hours on end giggling secretly to themselves. (Fortunately I maintained a certain decorum with some of the tales. It’s possible to reveal way too much in the semi-anonymity on this worldwide communication system.

As for that “joke” about size, you know of course that condoms only come in one size: extra large.

OK, sometimes I suffer from excessive modesty.

Thanks Jen for your sensible advice, I’ll bear it in mind, at least while sober.

On the other hand anyone who spends a year biking across Australia on deserted desert tracks may not always act on advice in the most appropriate way.

34, huh?

I can wait.

Unless you are actually some hairy middle aged bloke in some cabin in the Tasmanian highlands.