Vanderpants Oz Tour

Well well well – I told Alex that I will DEFINITELY lose the drone somewhere along my trip and today was the day……..GUTTED! So early on in the piece as well. So there we were….just finished our coffee and about to do a drone fly over the bridge with the ‘track me’ function on. Stupid me (it’s my fault) didn’t think about the overhanging lights on the bridge. There we were cycling over, drone tracking beautifully, I sped up and we went down the other side of the bridge and the drone normally gains a bit of height to keep us in the picture and that it did, however, it doesn’t have incident detection from above so it lifted and BOOM….hit the top of the pole and down she tumbled down into the Bass Straight never to be seen again. We just looked at each other in complete silence and shock. It took us a while to work out what actually happened but after sitting down for a sad face coffee near the ‘crash site’, it dawned on us that the above is exactly what happened. So lesson learned. When tracking, ensure there’s nothing ABOVE the drone. For ages the drone tracked me though forrests with so many more obstacles but never did I speed up causing it to lift quickly, they were all slow manouvres. No use crying over spilled milk…..lesson learned, onwards and upwards. Adrian will purchase another drone tomorrow as – WE WILL BE SUPER CLOSE TO MELBOURNE (the actual goal of this whole trip) and it all starts again. This time, I will buy insurance which I didn’t know until today, covers a one time incident like this. Will I change how i’ve been using it ………………………. NO hahahah I’ll still do everything APART from tracking….if there’s anything above the drone whilst tracking – just fly it somewhere, sit it there and hover and film……DONE!…….The things we learn (at a high cost) hahahaha. Alex was just as gutted as me because we both cycled pretty quietly for a while afterwards with a few “Man that sucks” thrown in at random times.

So unfortunately there is no amazing drone footage today and the shots are terrestrial. Having said that, we only took a few nice roads today and there wasn’t much to see actually. Half highway, 1/4 off road and 1/4 secondary roads. Alex and I are two days away from Melbourne….YEWWwwwwwww what an accomplishment. We cycled over 60 km’s today and after the death of droney, we rode a few dirt roads to hit the highway and we BOMBED down into town sitting at 30 clicks which is awesome for loaded bikes. Alex had the directions up today and at one point I asked him how long till the next left to which his repsonse was ‘left at the shearing shed’……I was like ‘yup got it’ and that’s how it is sometimes hahahaha I LOVE IT.

Not only the Drone loss but also something else made us a bit quiet today and after talking about it, it was that this is almost ending and the last two days including this one will probably be hum drum get it done no fancy sights to see kinda touring (it might not be) but today was and our minds are on the ‘next thing now’. We are still making the most of it but it feels like we are just going to bomb into Melbourne and the sights are now just highways and towns which is still so awesome however, after reflecting on ‘our mood’ that is the reason why I think. We are still upbeat but I really don’t want this to end but like all good things, they always do. So Alex and I are making the most of the towns we see until we hit Melbourne and BOOM WE MADE IT….YAY

1,350 km’s so far and so much of that was offroad – bloody crazy hey….there’s a lot more to come but this has been an AMAZING little adventure. One of my most enjoyable to be honest and I know Alex shares that feeling.

Having said that, this will be my second to last blog for a couple weeks I am going to take a short break and visit some friends and family and then i’ll be back………Drone purchase tomorrow, one last blog then it’s Redlegs and Vanderpants signing off for a while and I’ll post up on instagram when i’m back on the road heading north SOLO….holy shit….SOLO time – it will be a change that’s for sure – I will have to adapt back to talking to myself again hahahaha. The few things i’m looking forward to (and slightly uneasy about) will be right up top North with all those remote roads, the vast distance between towns and what it takes to stay prepared and safe on the bicycle, road trains on the nullabor and also completing Munda biddy Trail (1,000km’s all offroad from Perth to Albany) https://mundabiddi.org.au/ . Apparently, it’s supposed to be pretty tough and i’m not scared but I do think about the toughness required to complete these things sometimes. If it didn’t scare me a little (just a little) I don’t think I would actually be doing such a huge adventure. I want to be challenged with these things – some part of me wants the hardship and see how I handle it and conquer those things. I’m hungry for it. I’ll regret saying that hahahahaha. Alex absolutely wants to join me at some points through the tour too, which would be amazing. But I understand his plate is as full as it gets but am crossing my fingers we can tour again together!

So stay tuned for Droney Two (any new possible names for Droney Two will be welcomed please) because if I name it AND get insurance, better luck will be bestowed up on me right 🙂

See you tomorrow (or the next day when I blog) for the FINAL POST of us hitting our goal I can’t bloody wait – i’m so impressed at the big man for getting this far – so impressed………**waves** byeeeeeeeee