Adelaide to Melbourne - Day 0

Its great to be underway! As always with these trips it seems, the last few days leading up to departure were manic, and I had a last minute repair needed to replace a cable on my trusted steed, Bianca, to top it all off. All set now however, and to my great relief its stopped apocolypticly raining. I was starting to think I'd need a pedalo not a bike!

I'm travelling to Adelaide by train and had a 5am start this morning, supported by my lovely wife seeing me off at Southern Cross. She's also going to be texting me daily weather forecasts which will be really useful when I can't pick up data reception. Other than that, I'll be on my own and I'm not expecting to see many other cyclists either, especially given its winter time.

Nice views on the train so far, even if it does feel like stepping back into 1970 onboard!

So the plan is to spend today getting to Adelaide, and I'll set off early tomorrow morning. The route starts with a big hill climb out of Adelaide and that will be something of a shock to start with...not really an easy first day with a 1000m hill climb first thing. Excluding water, my luggage weighs about 24kg which includes tent, cooking stuff, a couple of days food + snacks, sleeping gear and winter clothes. I have tried to pack light, and don't have much in the way of luxuries apart from my little netbook I use for writing this. Water will of course increase this weight greatly - so I'll be planning when to pick up enough for each day carefully.

Anyway after the hill climb I'll have a nice coast down the other side before crossing the Murray river by Ferry. Or possibly camping near the river depending on time. To get back to Melbourne in time to be back at work, I need average 137km a day over 8 days. This is less daily distance than my last tour where I pushed out 160 something a day, but I was sleeping indoors on that trip so travelling far lighter. This time round I wanted to do it properly, and am looking forward to the camping and hoping to see some wildlife - preferably of the non-poisonous kind! I'll still probably do a few indoor nights in order to recharge everything, or if there is another weather apocalypse.

Internet access en route will be infrequent...so the blog updates will have to happen a bit later on.