The last few days I spent much of my time riding on washboards (ironically my bike got dirty) on some of the most unforgiving climbs and downhills I've ever encountered. That's right, I went through pretty much deserted country over a gravelroad that at times was pretty rough.

Starting in Omeo, where I asked around if the road was suitable for a bike, and if I would find running water along the way, I set out for a three-day journey through nothing but mountainous countryside. As soon as I hit the gravel I cursed myself for choosing to go this way. On a fairly steep downhill I had the choice between gravel on one side of the road, or a washed out other half. I didn't want to be too uncomfortable, so I chose the first. The gravel turned out to be so deep that I wasn't able to control my bike, so I did what I learned to do: don't break and hope you don't crash. I survived, and knew that it wasn't going to be a walk in the park.

After hours of climbing and sliding down (luckily the road was much better after that first event) I started to worry about the second issue: water. My map showed a few creeks and rivers, but all of them had been dry thus far. Coming down yet another hill I finally ran into a 'river': a waterstream not wider than a meter, and only 5-10cm deep, but the water was flowing and I filled up my bottles.

I set up camp at a campsite, where a family had already started making a fire. Asking about what was waiting for me, they weren't too positive: they thought that it'd take me at least three more days to get to Jindabyne. Not just that, but they also said that from Suggan Buggan to Jindabyne (which was 80km) it was 'all uphill'. At that point I had found out that, as with most Ozzy advice, I had to take that with a grain of salt. Still they were worried, so they gave me apples, mandarines and a cake.

The second day started the way the first had ended: a pretty tough climb up to the highest point on the road (1470m), followed by a bumpy downhill. After reaching Suggan Buggan, which is nothing more than a historic school house, and another place to resupply on water, I waited for that big uphill. After 20km of hilly country I realised that there was no 'all uphill' from Suggan Buggan to Jindabyne. The guy that camped at the same site that night confirmed that. He seemed a lot more reliable, telling me that I just had a long climb up to the sealed road, 25km from Jindabyne. It was going to be a tough one though.

He was right. I had to climb from 200m to around 1300 and at an average of about 8%, and having done the equivalent of riding up from the sea to the summit of Mont Blanc in the past four days, and the fact that the road quality was the worst of all three days, meant that when I got to Jindabyne (in the anticipated three days and with plenty of food left!) I was tired enough to allow myself a rest day (I already had one before the mountains, but that was because I was getting my wheel respoked). And by rest day I mean forcing myself to do nothing, I almost got on my bike this morning to ride to Charlotte Pass and climb Australia's highest mountain, Mt. Kosciuszko, which rises to a humongous 2229m. Since the weather doesn't look too promising for the next week, I'll skip that and leave it for next time.

I'd rather go with the wind and head down to a little warmer weather, hopefully accompanied with not too much rain. I've found out that some seams in my panniers are letting loose, meaning that I'm not 100% waterproof anymore. I'm not too happy about that, as they're supposed to last for a lot longer than just 10,000km of riding... Anyway, I'll find a solution to that as I have been finding solutions to all my problems so far, so don't worry about me getting wet!