Vanderpants Oz Tour

Distance: 89.37 – TOTAL so far – 2,352 km’s

Avg Spd: 15.9

Max Spd – 68.1

Saddle Time: 5:37 – Total Saddle Time – 147 hrs 42 minutes

Elevation: 1200 meters – happy with that

Quote: To the mind that is STILL 0 the whole universe surrenders. I need to learn this one – mine never shuts up hahaha

Song of the Day: Eddie Vedder – Hard Sun – it was hot today and it was relevant haha – Tis album and the movie is one of my favourites

Album of the Day: Damien Rice – O – irish folk singer and man can he play the acoustic well.

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Hello readers – thank you once again for reading my blog. I know I mentioned it before but it does really help knowing that you’re out there reading it. It gives me motivation to ot only share my experiences and thoughts with you all but also to keep on blogging to create a diary for myself in years in to come so THANK YOU. OK, onto today. What an amazing day it was. It was a good day but also had to say goodbye to Davo which sucked but it was time to hit the road again after a few good tours and lots of laughs. Today again was all rainforrest, hills and two really small towns but it was so much more than that. It was rivers, sweat, elevation, smells, the two engines firing nicely all day, the singing, the coffee, the birds everywhere, the heat, the campsite (which is awesome), the amount of food, the convo with a bicycle tourer who gave me some great tips (we exhanged about ten tips each). One of them was an app called ‘Komoot’ which I would highly recommend for any trail runner or cyclist. It does navigation as well as elevation and you can slide the elvation scale to see where the hills are at what point and it’s way more accurate than google maps. I got a lot of confidence today because I grossly miscounted the elevation in my prior days. I did think in the back of my mind that my legs were much sorer then the 800-1100 mtr days and I was right. komoot (and my garmin which I turned on today) was about 400 mtrs more than google maps. That made me feel much better as the 800+ vert I was doing each day here was MUCH more.

I was a little ummm not worried but slightly concerned that the vert was hurting me more than it should but this makes it all better. I was doing between 1000-1500 every day for a few days there and about 800-900 each day before that. It showed when after a long day in the saddle I had a final climb of 5km’s between 4%-14% and I said to myself ‘SELF…….let’s smash this’. Normally I need to stop every 500 mtrs or so but I did the whole 5km’s (500 mtrs vert) all in one shot and boy did that give me more confidence today – i’m really hitting my stride.

That brings me to the bugs. I’m getting used to the types of bugs here. not that I know their names but I know what they look like. Their names are stingy one, bitey one, lovely one, harmless one, colourful fast one and last but not least the big MOFO of a boieng 380 – The Eurpean Bumble Bee. I see them coming from a mile away on the bike and I know which ones to duck and which ones not to care about. One today was coming for me and I was like….oh that’s the harmless one no need to move and BANG straight into my mouth….I was like….’CRUNCH….SPIT…..Continue on’ hehehehehe. it’s ok – it was only the species ‘harmless one’. Regarding that fatso….I know his name now because I asked a park ranger. He said they are attracted to anything blue…….this makes so much sense now considering i have THREEEEEE BLUE SHIRTS hahahaha bloody bastards.

I mean check this shit out – you can hear them coming from a mile away…get away from my hot chips you bloody fat, stupid bodied, stupidly named bombus terrestris, unbalanced body to wing ratio’d ugly hairy buzzwank.

Ok – i’m not scarred I promise……What is super interesting is how different the ceco systems in Tasmania are comparing the east to the west coast. One day I was on the beach with a cool breeze and the next i’m in the rainforrest getting eaten alive by mossies, attacked by bombus wanka and enjoying the beaturiful tropical wilderness – it’s vastly different ad the stories and history that come with both sides have been really interesting.

So the day was awesome actually for so many reason and it ended even better – check my campsite out below. I have two more days in Tasmania before departing back to melbourne and the route will have to be planned a little more due to the road closures and fires which is really sad. I’ll have to find a way….somehow…..


Vanderpants OUT!!