DETOUR TO BYRON BAY

The ride through the southern part of the Gold Coast was surprisingly enjoyable considering the amount a traffic that was blasting down the highway next to me.Thankfully there are lots of bike paths to follow which put me well out of harms way and into a game of dodge the pedestrian.It never surprises me just how many people are out and about getting fit on the Gold Coast and it was no wonder a couple of American backpackers I met in Surfers thought that Australia must be the fittest place on earth.I had to remind them that this was a very unusal thing for Oz and that we had actually overtken the US as the fattest western nation on earth.That said,I was treated to some very appealing sights on my way south as I passed park after park full of groups of super fit women following the orders being barked at them by various personal trainers and coaches.Very nice.After some serious picture taking and stops to admire the many awesome beaches on the way to Coolangatta I finally made my way to the place I had been looking forward to,the New South Wales border.I had lived in Kirra just north of the border at Tweed Heads in the '90s and used to cross nearly every day on training rides but never before had I treated it as so sort of milestone.Today though was different,the trip through Queensland had been such a long one and I felt that I was now actually making some progress on my huge trip.
Just as I started my ride through Tweed Heads another cyclist pulled alongside and started chatting to me.He had a touring bike but no panniers attached and I found out that he was a local who had done a lot of trips to different parts of Australia in the past.It was great to talk to another cyclist for a while and it was he who gave me the best news I had heard for ages.Apparently NSW does not have the same backward attitude to cyclists as Queensland and I was actually allowed to ride on the freeway heading out of Tweed Heads toward Ballina about 100k away.This would save me the hassle of riding the secondary roads that followed the beach suburbs to my east.I used to ride those roads in training and they are very narrow and not the best quality.The freeway on the other hand was pure bliss.Two lanes wide with a huge breakdown lane for me to ride on and the best bit,smooth,smooth roads.Yippee!!!
I fairly flew down the freeway assisted by a strong tailwind and marvelled at the difference that a chane of state can make in the quality of the roads.Mind you I had experienced a similar thing but in reverse the previous year when I rode around eastern provinces of Canada.The roads through Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were fabulous but as soon as I reached Quebec,crap!!I now think of Queensland as the Quebec of Australia,they even talk a little differently up there as well.The plan for the day was to ride until I was just outside of Ballina and camp for a total of around 130k but things didn't go to plan.Over the last few ride days my feet started getting really sore.Those of you who are cyclists know what is feels like but for those who have never experience "hot feet" the pain can be unbearable.At it's worst it can feelas if someone is driving needles through the balls of your feet and can be caused by many things.I think my problem was that my shoes were starting to lose their support and when you combine that with the extra work I was doing now that my fitness was returning the balls of my feet were being put under more stress than they had when I was just "spinning " my way down the road.Whatever the reason,it hurt a lot.Hurt to the point that every 5k or so I had to pull over and take my shoes off.It was at one of these little stops that I spied a sign that indicated the turn-off to Byron Bay was only a few short kilometers away.Oh well,nothing like a trip to Byron to cheer someone up.So I mounted my bike again and rode on to the turn and made the 6k trip into the hippie/yuppie beach capital of Australia.






I entered Byron Bay having not been there for around 12 years and was not surprised to find that the development was huge.Instead of the sleepy little village that I remebered, this place had turned into a full-on tourist mecca.To be fair though,it still does have a small town feel about the place it's just that there are thousands of people feeling it.That's okay though, I soon found out that you don't have to go to far to see a whole lot of " there's nobody around" and the fact that this was the off season meant getting a bed was seriously easy in this normally full town.


The few days I spent in Byron Bay were great.I got to share a room with a 55year old ex-elite cyclist who was very interested in what I was up to on my trip.We talked for ages about cycling and even got up each morning to watch the "Vuelta" which is Spains version of the Tour de France on the tv.Paul also filled me in on an interesting statistic when he told me that in the over 30 age group here in Byron the women outnumbered the men four-to-one.Apparently if you join the local singles club and are a half decent specimen of a man you are consided quite a catch.I'll have to keep that in mind when I'm trying to decide where to live after this trip is done.
Apart from chatting with Paul for hours I did get some constructive excercise done and managed a couple of runs and a couple of swims in the very frigid(for me anyway) surf.I did overdo the whole hill and stair running combo when I decided that it would be good to run around the Cape Byron Lighthouse each day.I'm guessing it was the downhill running and the stairs that killed my legs not to mention the stupid excursion climbing up a steep cliff to find a short cut that almost ended my days.I figured that it wasn't such a big climb when I looked at it from the beach but as soon as I was about two thirds done I remebered that I don't like heights and suddenly being 20 meters up a crumbling cliff didn't seem such a great idea.My far came back real quick and I was almost panicking but just kept my eyes on the ground in front of me and not on the beach below.I did manage to scramble to the top but not before I left a lot of my shin attached to the rock face.I didn't even know that I'd cut myself until some random runner pointed it out to me about ten minutes later.Some seriously big early morning storms and spending too much time chatting with Paul after watch the cycling on the television kept me in Byron for an extra day but I'm glad I was delayed as it gave me a chance to see that I had finally recieved some donations for the kids at Athletes in Kind.I was beginning to wonder if anything I did made an impression on anyone at all and too see some of my friends from the triathlon world in Nth America chip in some cash cheered me up no end.I also recieved an invitation to participate in a charity ride across the USA in 2011 with a fellow cancer fundraiser and triathlete Jason Sissel who is the founder of Endure to Cure,a charity that raises money for pediatric cancer patients at a numer of institutions in the US.To me that was a huge boost and I certainy hope to be able to join him in a couple of years to help his cause.
There were also another couple of potential trips on offer from two people who had heard of my trip.One was from an adventure company in Bali who expressed interest in my blog and my trip and since I will be there in December I figured that I must get myself in touch with that crowd.The other came from the membership of Slowtwitch.com,the worlds largest triathlon forum.One of the members kindly offered to ride with me on a trip around his adopted home of Taiwan.Now that would be awesome!!I let him know that should I be in the area and time and finances allow,I might just be up for it.For now though I had this part of the trip to worry about and it was with much regret that I had to drag myself out of a comfortable spot in Byron Bay and back out onto the highway to continue the long trip south.