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| Just made it to Mundubbera... |
Made it to
this nice little town at about noon today after 80km of hard riding. I did 100k for my second metric century, and I should hit at least 100k today as well. I could say something like "I'm really getting into a groove", but that would gloss over the fact that my ass hurts. A lot. So here I am in the Mundubbera Hotel pub, which is the only place with wifi. Oh yeah; they have cold beer and it's heavily airconned. What more do you want?
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| Cultural activities in Monto |
Yesterday I spent the hot hours in
Monto, and I met Laura; a Canadian who is out seeing the world. She graduated from university a few years ago and spent some time teaching English in Seoul, which she said was super easy to do and a reasonably lucrative experience. "Lucrative" in the sense that you're not gonna get rich, but you can make enough money to have a place, eat, have some fun and save a bit. After she got tired of that, she hiked the
Camino de Santiago, met a few people, and then came to Australia on a working holiday visa. She picked strawberries for a while and decided to hang out in Monto and wait tables while she saved up some money. In a few weeks, she's headed to the Netherlands to stay with a friend she met on the Camino until ... well, until she gets tired of it I guess.
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| Giacomo in Manto |
And then there was Giacomo, who was tending bar there in Monto. Giacomo is an Italian who decided life is too short to slave away in the operations-management job he had back home, so he came over to Australia on a work visa, bought a Land Rover and is now tending bar long enough to save up enough money to go on his next adventure; some music festival near Brisbane.
Sarah, Bekah: Are you listening?
I camped about 25k south of Monto last night, and this morning this very grizzled but friendly guy named George May drove up to talk to me. George owns 50 head of cattle on 500 acres nearby, and he was turning the cows out on the side road to get some good grass. This area of Australia is in the middle of a drought, so grass is getting scanty. George has lived in his house for each and every one of his 76 years, and he seems fit enough to go another 50 or so with no issues. He told me he used to walk to the school in Mulgildie (which no longer exists), but he remembers that the school was particularly hard to find, because he seemed to lose his way a lot! :-)
Time to get back on the road....
