Cycle Tour

DAY 1
25th of AUGUST;
We began extended stay with a cycle tour. We'd all been told by our fellow year 9's how terrible it was and so i wasn't sure if i was going to enjoy it. Our riding instructor/teacher people Rickie, Paul and Pete, took us for a scenic ride at about 9 o'clock on tuesday morning. Starting at the shed we rode from Point Turton to West Cowie and then back for lunch which is about a 21km round trip. along the way we passed through Point Turton and some of the countryside surounding it. Riding around we were treated to some of the choisiest weather: rain and buffeting wind. I didn't think the weather was that bad but some of us complained rather loudly: distinctive nasal cries: "it's ryening" "it's windy". Even in the wind and rain the scenery was still really nice, i mean really nice, there were trees and everything. i'm not really one for scenery as you can tell but there were some very interesting old derrolict houses around, we even went in one! In an adjacent shed we found a vintage car covered in dust. Even plastered in grime the chrome of the grill still shone dully.

After a decent sized lunch we headed off into the blustery winds to ride to Warooka and then back to Point Turton. In distance it was 25km but in reality it was much longer the ferrocious headwinds made it so that you always had to pedal, even down hill! The ride up there to Warooka wasn't too bad but the final road back to home seemed endless and we all now call it the endless road. In the wind it was hard to think about anything but the fact taht it was so hard to ride but for the few moments when i stopped thinking about my aching legs and running nose and looked at the scenery i saw beautiful lush feilds with the roiling, raging sky as a backdrop. It was fair good.

DAY 2
26th of AUGUST;

Today was much better than yesterday the wind was better even though for the first half of the day i had to pedal going down the hills. We road the Stenhouse Bay to Pondalowie Return which is about 33km. The road up to the lighthouse was very hilly so it was pretty hard to stay up the front with the really fit guys like Jack Viney and Arata etc but after each hill i thought oh that wasn't so bad and just kept going. Really the ride wasnt too dificult before lunch it was just the neverending hilly bit right at the end of the road going up to the lighthouse which really got me. a

After lunch we road down to the sea where the waves hard worn away the rock so that waves crashed onto a submerged rock shelf where waves come from two opposing directions. After that little detour Paul -one of the instructors- gave us all a challenge: to ride all the way back to the bus in the gears 2 and 8. I and 9 others decided to try the challenge and we began riding along as fast as we could: so fast that we left the rest of the group behind and Paul had to ride after us and tell us to stop- just after we'd rode up a huge hill and were very tired. In hindsight i don't think i could have done the 2 8 challenge if there hadn't been three extremely fit guys riding about 500 metres away; i was always striving to keep up with them and at the huge hill it really helped to think that i had kept up with them and left the rest of our class behind.

DAY 3
27th of AUGUST:

The final day of the cycle tour went really fast! We rode from Brentwood to Edithburg, a 50km ride. The scenery along the way was really special. We rode down a track which ran inbetween roling fields of tall canola plants sporting bright yellow flowers and a dark blue lake. The contrast was quite spectacular! I didn't find it a hard ride at all but it was certainly nice to stop for lunch especially given the suroundings: green fields and shade giving trees.

I did find the road a bit tough as it was really corrigated and really rocky so my derrier was jarred quite a bit, appart from that the last day of riding was ideal!