#leftrightrepeat2014

15th March 2014

Well. Today started brilliantly. Woke up in time to watch the sunrise from my amazing spot., went to the General Store, cooked bacon, mushrooms, eggs and porridge for breakfast as dog walkers passed by. Had  a cold shower and left a little bit late, which wasn’t a disaster.

After walking 2km up a track that I thought was a shortcut and turned out to be  direct dirt road to a bush, I turned back, annoyed I’d wasted so much time. I stopped to eat at Kennet River and had a chat with a tour guide from New Zealand who did a lot of big walks too and fully understood why I’d do such a thing. His first question was about my feet, which was nice to actually be asked, the truth was pain and blisters.

About an hour after lunch the sky spread it’s legs, squatted and soaked me. Soon I was saturated and trying to explain to well meaning drivers that I wouldn’t be any drier in their cars now, also I was meant to be walking, yes, walking, no I didn’t want a lift. As the damp set into my boots my feet began to hurt more than ever, but I had no chance to stop anyway, the kilometres just kept coming and coming. I passed a campsite that I was massively tempted to rest up in, it had a sofa room with Blackadder on video, I don’t think I can convert how appealing that was.

I finally got to my campsite in Apollo Bay, where I was given ‘Grog’ (a bottle of JD and Coke) by the owner. I’ve just had an hour long hot shower and my clothes are in the drier. Thinking of cycling back to Melbourne.

Sleep.

12th March 2014

I was meant to wake up at 04:30am this morning; I did. Having heard a downpour over my tent, I stayed in my sleeping bag. I wasn’t meant to do that. I was meant to walk 55km (the longest day of the journey) to Allenvale Mill, but decided very quickly that I wasn’t going to start the whole trip sopping wet for 14hours.

Once up I realised I was in a really shitty mood still. I tried to aid this by making myself a coffee, with the mug that I’d left in Brunswick, which wasn’t quite a good enough excuse to pack up and go home. So I used the chicken soup can from last night, surprisingly still not feeling any happier, I attempted to make a watery, vaguely grey porridge, noting on the efficiency of the new gas cooker as my porridge burnt.

In a dire effort to prevent myself committing suicide I took my poultry flavoured latte and my cold/burnt porridge to the beach (where the final scene of Point Break was filmed). This, thank the lord, worked. Sat there, sipping on basic food (note how my opinion changed), and just watching the sea, as a few early risen surfers bobbed in the waves, waiting for the perfect wave to make them want to get on their feet, I remembered why I was doing this. I need this time to myself, to put myself through a bit of a challenge so I can come out a better person.

I’ve made some rules to keep me almost happy all the time.

1. Stay sane: ⁃ By this I mean, if it’s too much, call it a day. Either get on a bus or take the day off. 2. Write ⁃ I’ve already promised myself to write the journal out in a blog when I’m done, but I’m going to be brutally honest for all to see if it works out. (Mum I got a tattoo). 3. De stress when I can. ⁃ Whenever available I’ll have a hot shower and a good meal once in a while. Because, if you can keep a few luxuries and some hygiene, everything seems better. 4. Split it into 2 legs. ⁃ Do 3 weeks, go back to Melbourne for a week or so and do another 3 weeks. 21 days is a lot nicer to countdown than 42. 5. Meet people ⁃ Go out of your way to talk to people.

So today I actually walked 30km to Anglesea. It ended up being a really nice, sunny day. I walked a lot on the beach, which is a different challenge, but some of these beaches where massive, with 400m between cliff and sea, it was beautiful. When I got to Anglesea I met a guy who was on his second to last day of a bike ride from Perth to Melbourne, at least 3 times the distance I’m doing. It had taken him 6 weeks. I want a bike.

I got on a bus to Allenvale Mill and took another 3km hike to the campsite. There was no one to talk to, it was about 8pm when I got there and there was a school group already there. Nothing major to report. I just had a cider, might have another and got to sleep.