July 4, 2015
Australia's Tidiest Towns: Investigation pending
As you cross Australia you notice that pretty much each and every single little town along the way has taken part in the annual competition to find Australia’s tidiest town. Each town announces its greatest ever achievements in this competition on a sign as you enter it. The signs generally vary in size according to how successful the town has been. ’Australia’s Tidiest Town Grand Finalist 2004, 2005 & 2008’ would be proudly and prominently displayed, whilst ‘Australia’s Tidiest Town Second Round 1977’ would be on a tiny piece of rotten wood hidden behind a eucalyptus tree. But the 4th of July 2015 was a very special day for me, because for the first time I finally reached a town that actually won the whole competition. The fact that it was 22 years ago didn’t bother me in the least, as I’m sure it didn’t any of the 490 proud inhabitants of Lucindale.
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Not that I met any of the 490 proud inhabitants of Lucindale. Its tidy streets were empty, the well-kept park that I stopped to eat lunch in was all my own. I was surprised to see a skate park had been built here, and wondered how many of the 490 proud inhabitants of Lucindale ever made use of it. Certainly none of them were out and about today. Why would they be? It was a nice and sunny Saturday.
Anyway, nothing really happened all day, unless you count deciding that if scaring sheep ever became an Olympic event I’d probably stand a great chance of a medal. With nothing to do but keep training for this hypothetical future sport, and no one to talk to other than farmyard animals it started to become a question of whether my sanity would hold together long enough for me to reach Melbourne. But then I got to the bigger town of Naracoorte, which shockingly enough was Australia’s Tidiest Town in 1994. One can only imagine the uproar this evoked in the Tidest Town Competition. How could it be that two neighbouring towns should win in consecutive years? I suspect there might have been someone from this county with a bit of influence. Or perhaps they just both employed the same very efficient cleaning companies.
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I positioned myself outside of the library in Naracoorte and flipped open my laptop. I planned to use the free wifi to find out if there had been any sort of scandal due to improper match-fixing with regards to the Australia’s Tidiest Town competition during the mid-nineties, but before I had the chance a man came up to me. I can’t remember what he said, but odds are it was “You look loaded down” or “You look like you’re traveling a long way” or “G’day mate.” He was a nice old fellow and we got to talking, and, upon hearing of my nationality, he told me that he’d done a bicycle trip through England himself.
“Where exactly are you from?” he asked.
“Milton Keynes” I replied, “It’s a new city. Built in the sixties and seventies.”
“Oh. I did my trip in the fifties.”
“You probably won’t have gone through it then.”
Mike was cool. Really cool. He told me he was 83 years old, and he was really cool. He invited me to come and stay with him and his wife and daughter that evening. I had planned to press on for another twenty kilometres, but my 231 kilometre day had put me ahead of schedule, and this guy was, as I think I mentioned, really cool. “Sure, I’d love to.”
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I followed Mike’s directions out of town to his house which was situated about four kilometres away out in the sticks. I found Mike waiting for me there. He introduced me to his daughter Winky, who lived in a caravan just outside the main house, and then to his wife Gillian. I believe I might have got Mike in a bit of trouble with his wife, not only for bringing home a stranger, but a vegetarian stranger at that. They had spent all their working life raising animals on a nearby farm. “We don’t really know how to cook vegetarian” Gillian announced, “So how does an Indian takeaway sound?”
It sounded very delicious indeed. And I was able to take another warm shower (two in a week!!!) and once again had my own big comfortable bed for the night. But best of all was the company. Mike was very interested in my trip and pulled out an atlas so that I could show him my route as we sat in the cosy living room around the fire. He told me all about his own bike trip with equal enthusiasm. He’d cycled all over England and Scotland, and he still remembered each and every place that he’d been, after sixty years. Winky sat across the room and chuckled “He can remember all that but he can’t remember what happened last week!” We all laughed. There was a very nice atmosphere. They had all made me feel so welcome. It was really a lovely evening.
Distance completed: 3324km
Distance to go: 486km
Days to go: 4.5
Average distance required: 108km/day
Today's ride: 97 km (60 miles)
Total: 44,205 km (27,451 miles)
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