Planes Trains and Bicycle Wheels

I spent my last day in Sydney getting prepped for the ride. There is a tremendously good bike shop here, Clarence St. Cyclery, nearly (but not quite) rivaling a certain store in Belmont MA. I bought some last minute gear there, gathered further information on roads and asked, naturally, about the Tour de France. Clarence St definitely earned props for having a giant plasma screen above the checkout counter with Paul and Phil doing their customary line by line. Robbie McEwen (the Aussie) had won the stage that morning and the replay in the shop (despite being the only who didn't know the result) was nearly as good as being there. While McEwen was chewing up the competition in France, Lleyton Hewitt had just broken through to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, and the Aussies had just recently made octofinals in the W0rld Cup. Australian sport was in good form.

Once kitted with last minutes, I spent the rest of the day at the Sydney Aquarium. Alright, I'm not gonna lie to you. The Sydney Acquarium is bloody cool. The highlight of the place is a giant exposed undersea tank where you walk underneath a reef filled with sharks. And yes, those are great white sharks who are swimming around your head. Your head. I nearly ran out of film. I spent another couple of hours staring down a crocodile and watching an unusually restless platypus who must have had a metabolism higher than Jan Ulrich after the drugs. Even my buddy Rob would have been impressed.

When the day got late, I eventually hoofed it over to the Sydney Opera House for a show (how could I not) and after the mandatory wander of the Sydney opera house pooped off to bed in Coogee ready to catch an early train.

The next day rained hard. I felt mildly guilty about keeping the bike in its box and taking a taxi to the rail station, rather than, say, biking to the station (I did have all my gear packed by this point). But not so guilty that I didn't do exactlythat, justifying to myself that the move was precipitated by not wanting to arrive at the railway station looking like a drowned wallaby. Six dry hours later I was in Tamworth, my last unsaddled transport chugging away, Shania Twain doing a turn on the radio (cliche and quaint at the same time), and the large box marked "fragile" that I'd been carrying around with me to date tucked ungainly under one arm.

By the time I reached the Tamworth station it was already getting on towards dark. There was just enough light yet to assemble the bike, so I did, making a great show of wheels and bolts and wrapping foam on the stretch of sidewalk in front of the emptying station. With the Tarmac fixed up, I looked up the name of the nearest hostel and checked that they had a spare room. They did.

This time, I rode in.