Day seven: Junee to Cootamundra

Saturday July 11, 2009, 73 km (45 miles) - Total so far: 724 km (450 miles)

I managed to sleep well that night, but James had a terrible experience, unable to sleep with a raging fever that had him open the windows to let in the sub zero air outside. We were all quite worried about his condition especially as he'd gotten pneumonia not too long ago when he'd pushed his body a bit too far. After another lazy breakfast and slow packing up period, I went with him to the chemist, where he bought some powerful decongestants/anti flu meds that would hopefully get him through the next few days.

As if sensing our collective vulnerability, the weather gods once again punished us with a strong head wind. To top it off, the route for today had a decidedly uphill bent to it, and I struggled to keep up with the others, especially Jono who was obviously going for King of the Mountains points (and riding in the big chain ring the whole time too!):P

We stopped at Bethungra for a lunch break at the only shop, which everyone agreed was both overpriced and annoyingly lacking in amenities such as toilets and bins. It was pleasing to hear though that we'd conquered the worst of the hills and would have a significant stretch of downhill to enjoy as we made our way to Cootamundra.

Unfortunately going down one of the descents, we had our first stack of the tour. James went over a road mounted reflector at a bad angle and went down in agonising slow motion just in front of me. Luckily I managed to avoid riding over the top of him (that would have resulted in some pretty serious injuries!), but he was in a bad way, having gashed the palms of his hands quite seriously. Our words of helpful advice were understandably pushed away as he performed the hand jerking dance of a man in shock:P A number of cars stopped to see if they could help (something I found very endearing after some very different experiences in Spain), including a doctor on her way to Queensland, who did a far better job than we would have done in bandaging him up.

In light of the injury and his fragile health, we decided to call it a very early day and stop at Cootamundra. I urged the group to go ahead while I rode the 10km into town very slowly and in significant discomfort, wishing that I'd stopped at the rest area just past the crash site. Obviously I hadn't learned much from my previous attempt to lighten my 1kg load of prunes! (They were $2 for a bag and I couldn't bear to throw them out:P)

After liberating myself (what a relief!), I met up with the others at the information centre. We were trying to find out about accommodation options in the nearby vicinity, but the man behind the counter was incredibly unhelpful. After some time, a much friendlier woman emerged and helped us confirm that Cootamundra would be the best place to stay for the next two nights while James and I recovered.

Somewhat embarrassed by the low daily total, I went out for an afternoon ride with Matt Z back up to the hill where James had crashed. It turned out to be a bad decision because the urge to go hard on the unloaded bike was too great, and I was almost in a coughing fit after 10km.