Jul/091
Day 33 – Straight Day (78 miles)
Today was pretty windy, we had however got up quite early and were ready to leave town at 7.30. We quickly stopped at the post office for Chris to see if his mobile had come in yet, It had – good times!
As we pulled away from the post office, I went to clip into my pedal and half of it fell out! – Bad Times!
Seems like every time we get to a town with a bike shop, my bike breaks. I guess it could be worse if it decided to break in the middle of nowhere! After deciding not to get a service from the extortionate bike shop and deciding not to buy there $180 “only set of pedals in stock” I was left with very little choice! Only problem was, it didn’t open for another hour or so. The others decided not to ditch me – I think now that they know the advantages to drafting behind me the lazy sods don’t want to ride on their own!
We went back to Skaets, the same place as yeserday, for some breakfast then hit the bike shop at 9 when they opened. On the way there, Chris’ chain fell off again, looks like they didn’t actually do the work that they charged him for!
I looked at the pedals and didn’t fancy paying $180 so I started to look around the shop, I noticed a set of pedals on a show bike and asked if I could buy them? The owner wasn’t too keen, I guess he was banking on me being an idiot, but after telling him I would rather cycle 300 miles to the next bike shop with only one and a half pedals, than pay $180 he agreed to sell me the show ones. still set me back the best part of $90! It’s an expensive hobby this cycling malarchy.
We finally set off into a strong headwind for 20 or so miles. We stopped at this town to refill our water as we now had a 58 mile dead straight, dead flat road with nothing but farmland on it!
If there was no wind or even better, a tailwind, I could imagine this stretch being quite fun but with a gale force sidewind trying to throw us off of the road, this became very boring and tiresome indeed!
We rolled into our destination, Larned at about 3 pm. Not bad after the late start. We headed straight for the outdoor swimming pool but on our way was stopped by the local church Pastor. He offered us to stay in his church. A roof and a fan definately beats camping out here so we took him up on the offer and said we would pop round after our swim.
The pool was awesome. It was clean, big and even had a slide for Callum! After about half an hour in there, we were getting cold so decided it was time to go to Church.
The pastor was a really nice guy. So much so that he got Callum thinking about becoming ordained himself. Although i’m not too sure that the church would appreciate Callum’s reasons for joining – a free house and a cushty lifestyle.
We had been reccomended a restaurant called Roosters, so we got directions off of the Pastor and headed there. Turns out that it was a dive. After walking just to the porch, me and Cal realised this, didn’t like the smell and decided that Pizza hut was far more appealling!
We ate a pizza each and a couple of plates of salad, with the exception of Chris who doesn’t like salad, vegetables, fruit or pretty much anything else that doesn’t look like a chocolate bar or a burger. I think he is really a yank at heart!
We were all pretty tired after dinner, Callum went for the now customary restuarant dump and we headed back to the Church, via the petrol station so that Chris could buy a milkshake!
We got back, Chris found the grand piano in the actual church and set about playing songs that i’m not too sure are appropriate in a place of worship. Turns out the Pastor was really cool and didn’t mind in the slightest. The Pastors wife came over with some DVD’s for us to watch and me and Chris sat around playing on the internet.
Callum had gone missing for a while. We later found out from him that he had gone to the balcony of the church to try and crank one out. Unfortunately he couldn’t do it with Jesus on the cross staring straight at him so he settled down in the nursery, surrounded with kids toys and books instead.
We watched some of Wedding Crashers and went to bed around 10. Late night for us these days!