Let's just skip today

 

Woke up this morning to the sound of rain hitting the tent. It was cold as well. Not a great day for biking at all. I crawled out of my sleeping bag and started to pack up. Packed my clothes, put on the biking outfit, rolled up the sleeping pad and duffel bag all the while figuring out how I was going to get the tent down and in my bag without everything getting soaking wet.

My tent consists of two sections, the tent itself with attached on to the aluminum poles like the tent to the right as well as a rain-fly that goes over the whole set-up. So while still inside the tent, I reached out and detached the tent from the aluminum poles and was able to roll up the dry tent and ground cloth and stuff it in my bag with the clothes. Then with my rain jacket on, I took down the rain-fly and quickly roll it up and stuff it into the tent bag and quickly stuff the rain-fly and poles into the bag, zipped up the duffel bag and dragged it to the covered tarp where all the other bags were being stacked prior to to loading on to the baggage truck.

We have a set of canopies which several of us were standing under sipping coffee, bracing ourselves for the cold wet day ahead (oh remind me about having such a wonderful vacation one more time, yesterday's great ride seemed so long ago), when Emily, our tour leader popped up and asked if anyone would be interested in skipping the day and ride in the truck to Apollo Bay, the day's destination. My hand flew up on 9 others took her up on the offer. Five riders declined and decided to do the ride as scheduled, rain or no rain.

The following day is a rest day and I'm writing this blog entry from the comfort of a motel room with a cup of coffee nearby.  I've purchased an new waterproof rain coat that should help out if we have another day like yesterday.

The weather is predicted to get better for the next couple of days. All the locals are telling us each day, "gee this weather is so unusual for this time of year".

The forecast is improving. It doesn't look like more rain until Thursday. I'm hoping the purchase of the new raincoat will ward off the rain for a while.

Happy Riding,

Brian Cox