Vanderpants Oz Tour

Howdy readers of this rambling blog

I hope your day has either started or ended well as you read this. Today was a great example of having plans and then it just changes. THAT’S TOURING! -you never know what the day will bring or what country you feel like you’re cycling in…..or something amazing or terrible for that fact. Something is always around the corner to either test your endurance/mindset OR reward you – both are just as good as each other.

We set off from Winchelsea and decided to have a relaxed kinda day and woke up late. Alex was pakced up and good to go before me (as usual) so he went off to the amazing coffee place we found yesterday and picked us both up some liquid gold … loved it! Life was good. We are sooooo close to Melbourne and know that we will make it soon which is a great feeling so instead of getting back on that random dirt road we decided to be tourists for the next few days. Tourists on the bikes around Geelong and then head off PAST Melbourne for a couple days and see what little towns will suprise us like they have and then head back into Melbourne for the ‘official arrival’ LOL. Its good to be ahead of schedule and be able to plan more adventures! I think we are close to having a few more days of time than we expected. We allowed for a few days with injuries / technical problems so look at us winning! PS look at Alex go on his first tour!

Soooo anyway we head off and took all back roads towards Geelong and it was pretty quiet but not as amazing scenery as we’ve been used to/spoiled by hahahaha but we were talking smack the WHOLE WAY for hours we didn’t even notice. The shit get’s so Random that even i’m not understanding what we are saying but I’m still laughing. When Alex gets back home, I don’t know how he will acclimatise to not only getting back into life and not seeing 50 AMAZING different things each day and achieving new goals and new bests and highest climbs and longest distance and wonderful scenery, how the HELL is he going to not swear so much at everything and how is he going to reduce that ‘touring potty mouth’ that I think every town has heard along the way. Some of the things we have been shouting into what we thought was an un populated forrest (just to hear the echo) i’m sure someone has been listening hahahaah. We do unpack real things too ya know but that’s boring isn’t it 🙂 who wants to hear about what we really think about life right – I just like talking smack so deal with it 🙂

Although we have had rain most days it hasn’t been that bad that we don’t dry and it hasn’t pured down really but all in all it’s almost been shirt and shorts kind of day every day – It has made this journey even more fun then it should hahaha.

Ok so smack we were talking when Alex mentioned ‘Hey Adrian why don’t you drone the shit out of that abandoned factory’ (it did look amazing and I was picturing going through windows and machinery) when all of a sudden we heard this weird noise………

It was a Little Cute Joey. He looked a little injured and wanting help. How did he look like he wanted help you say. Well he didn’t actually say ‘help’ however, he was making these uncomfortable ‘where’s mum’ noises. Our hearts just sank. There were fences on either side for a LONG WAY and it was a very industrial area. My first thought was pick him up and release him over the fence to do what nature does best and ‘select the strongest’ – legit my first though i’d be honest however, there was nowhere for him to hop away as we were close to town and it was all industrial so Alex put his brain into action and we googled the closest vet and had a strategy. The strategy was……Capture this little mate (who looked in shock), take my little collapsable bag that would be amazingly just like a pouch lol, wack him in there as it’s on the front of my body, He will love it, then off we go to the closest vet in the hope that they help him’. So that was the plan. I don’t know how to rescue a joey hahaha never had to do it before sooooo the action plan was INITIATED.

Alex walked towards ‘Neil’ (his new name) to corral him to us and also to keep him from jumping to the road, he then hopped straight to me and into my arms. His little Joey arms were literally opening up to jump up to me. He drank a small amount of water but he was clawing at me to get into my shirt so Alex unpacked my bag, wacked it on me and holy shit, he popped in (with only a tad amount of encouragement). After that little push he totally just went into his happy place and rolled around in there, went upsidown and all pretzely with his feet in the air and made some cute slop slop noises and went STRAIGHT TO SLEEP. This made my heart melt to be honest because I knew we were doing something great for this little man….He must’ve been so exhausted. I could only cycle with no hands or 1-2 fingers as the bag wouldn’t go high enough so my legs were banging on him. He wasn’t phased though as I think he is used to being bumped around in his other home that will no longer be 😦 After only a few meters of cycling we saw mummy on the ground and was probably hit by some kind of vehicle so this made me feel a little better and why do you ask? well because I had a thought that we were taking a Joey out of it’s natural environment but this wasn’t the case after I gave it some thought. An industrial are with nowhere to go and the confirmation that mummy was no longer around so we pedalled on with a solid agenda.

Only once did he wake up, stick his head out, boop me in the nose, went straight back to sleep. I couldn’t cope with the cuteness hahahahaha

So Alex found a vet, ushered the way like a beast, yelled out instructions like the leader legend he is and after 30 minutes we made our way to the vet. Alicia at the Bellarine Vet was THE BEST. welcoming, explained everything in detail and let us know what the life of Neil will look like in the future and here it is…….

Neil will be taken to the Wildlife rescue and will be looked after until he grows old enough to be released…..

So Alex and I were chuffed and the emotional journey wasnt lost on either of us. We both said to each other in different ways ‘well, another day, another amazing adventure….will just one day be shit…….NO’ hahahahahah it hasn’t yet hahaha We then just walked our bikes to this lovely little coffee caravan around the corner and sat down to enjoy an amazing 9/10 coffee in Bellarine called ‘Interlude’ LOVELY COFFEE. My little animal loving side of me can rest tongiht – the world is just that little more balanced.

UPDATE ON NEIL – So Alicia called me some time after we dropped Niel off, as we were walking on the Pier with some good news…….She called and said ‘Hi Adrian I just wanted to give you an update on little Neil’ hahahah that alone was cool hehehe ‘Little Neil’ hahahahaha

They xrayed his foot and it was broken but he is in good spirits and eating and will have surgery soon. How cool is that. What a great story

So onwards and upwards we went to Geelong and the rest is BORING bwahahahahaha well, we got into our motel…….went for a walk, done some shopping for little things, ate some shit, walked some more and took some droney drone hahah see I told ya – zzzzzzzzzzz

We are having a day of touring around Geelong unloaded tomorrow and sightseeing some waterfalls and other places so I hope to get my drone out tomorrow – thanks for reading once again and sharing my stories with me – it means a lot. All your comments and messages spur me on that much more. I can’t wait to share more of Oz with you and i’m excited to see so much more. Who knows, maybe I might youtube some tutorials on videos for once hahaha it’s all been suck and see so far. I’m pumped to see what the north and west will uncover too……Goodnight all

see you all tomorrow xxxxxxx