NIGELS BICYCLE JOURNEYS

After a restless night at Donnybrook Transit Park (continual heavy traffic through town) 😪 I pack up and head briefly onto the South Western Highway. Unfortunately, for Donnybrook there’s no bypass 🛣️ So the South Western Highway is that, a main highway for heavy haulage right through the centre of town. It doesn’t stop!  As with most towns I’ve cycled through in Aus, there’s invariably a respectable skate park. Not as good as Manjimup‘s, but nerveless, good anyhow!  Within 15 minutes I’m onto a B road and heading towards Boyanup. This road follows parallel to the South Western Highway. And what a difference! As it’s approaching the festive…

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As the weather had taken a slight turn for the worst at Karta Burnu (slight drizzle!) 🌧️ I took the opportunity to have a couple of rest days. It’s a lovely place as very quiet and good memories from last year! As with any time here, its customary for me to make myself a brew with wild Fennel. With it you get the aniseed taste and add a tea spoon of sugar, it’s a extremely good brew. Fennel ⚘ is widely cultivated, both in its native range and elsewhere, for its edible, strongly flavored leaves and fruits. Its aniseed flavor comes from anethole, an aromatic compound also found in anise and star anise, and its taste and aroma are similar to theirs,…

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Leaving the ever popular Sid’s Camping, I first stop at the Hollowbut Cafe for a bacon 🥓 and egg 🍳 bap, and one for the journey too! You can’t have enough bacon and egg baps! The first 10 kms or so is rolling tar (road). Pleasant way to head off with a stable surface under foot. Then, I’m turning right, straight onto soft sand!  Sir Issac Newton’s third law of physics: for every action has an equal and opposite reaction! – Delightful rolling tar, soft 🏖️ sand! Selfie time on the River Road Bridge. As with any selfie, it takes forever…

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After cajoling a few supplies at the local 🛒 IGA (supermarket) I head towards a hut that was closed on my North to South cycle due to an anticipated, large, prescribed-burn. Reached said hut by midday. Only after passing abeam and then noticing one almighty, large, Tiger Snake 🐍 Fortunately, it was as idle to observe me, as I was of it! Pretty much most snakes are like that, can’t be bothered and just slope out the way! But, from…

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I’m back on the start line for the Munda Biddi Trail … again! I’d no plans to return and cycle 🚵‍♂️ the trail … again, but when you’re back in the UK for 10 months, the idea of fleeing back soon becomes a plausible dream! Last time it was ‘North to South’. What is the Munda Biddi Trail I arrive in Albany 🏛️  Pronounced ‘Albany’ in Australia but it’s pronounced ‘Allbany’ where I come from! Or it’s merely how I pronounce it! Anyway, confuses the b’jezuz out of the Aussies when I say ‘Allbany’! I’m dropped off in ‘Albany’ for early afternoon. The trail head starts at the old railway…

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