Hanging out at the beach right now. Its nice here. But to many people. You don't get to sleep to the sound of waves. But to the roar of generators and tv's. All the caravan crowd.
Hoping to move on soon to somewhere more peaceful.
On fishing- i felt sorry for the live bait and was letting it go. Stopped fishing after that. Tried to talk some of the other people into letting their live bait go without success.
I'll eat beans.
I'm off. At Rollingstone now. Going fishing tomorrow.
Riding after so long an absence was tough. Way out of condition. Lots of sore spots right now.
The GoGetter bags are to big i think for touring. Too much stuff in them. To hard to handle when full. And there is the temptation to fill them. Will give it longer while i think what to do about them.
Wheel arrived back yesterday. Wow. It took 2 weeks to get to Rohloff. One day for Rohloff to do their magic, and 4 days to return. (I can't figure out how Australia Post works.) I didn't waste any time putting it on and going for a spin. With 75kg load - no problems. Didn't have a 120kg load handy to try with that, but I'm confident that its sorted.
Going to hang for a few more days. Promised to fix a laptop and am now waiting on a hard disk to arrive. It should arrive Monday (fingers crossed) so that I can leave here by the end of the week.
Road side stall, in the middle of banana fields, selling: bananas. You think the bananas are from the local fields? Nope. I, and I wasn't alone, was thinking they where, but I arrived early one morning and met the guy restocking. Not so local bananas after all. He has a route restocking several road side stalls each day. Ripened bananas from the store room. I recall that he said the bananas did come from somewhere in the Far North Queensland area, but not the near by fields.
Still, your getting better value than the large supermarket stalls. I wonder how it pays though; The bananas sell at $2/kg. He has to buy them from a farmer, pay transport to get them to the store room, the store room running costs, costs of driving around stocking the stalls. How does this work to be economical to sell for $2/kg?
Bicycle shorts: I don't use padded shorts, but the el cheapo KMart 'cycle shorts' also called gym wear. Recently was forced to actually buy a new pair, rather than finding a second hand pair. Lots of stickers on the product: "Moisture wicking fabric". Cynical me, checked the labels of the new versus the old; both the same 95% cotton, 5% elastane. Marketing!
Rohloff Tensioner arrived today. Its a much stronger item then my last tensioner, and it gives a lot more chain wrap around the sprocket. My last tensioner feels like a tired rubber band compared to the Rohloff one. The Rohloff tensioner comes with spacers to adjust the alignment; so the wheel on the tensioner ends up directly in line with the sprocket. Two new SRAM 9 speed chains, bit of playing with the length to get the jockey wheel in the right location according to the docs, and I was done. Short ride about all is good. Throw 120kg on the rack and same problem.
I had talked with Rohloff Australia about this before, so packed up the whole wheel and posted it off. Lots of bubble wrap around the hub, with tape to keep it on. The wheel was left on also to help the rim. I was surprised Australia Post would would handle it. Glad they did. If the item is too large to sent via AusPost , your in for a job finding someone to send it. I found that none of the courier companies up here - TNT, IPEC would just take a parcel off you -> you need an account first. Obviously your not going to have one unless your sending parcels regularly. One guy suggested checking with the buss companies. Yep, buss companies handle freight. With an extra $9.90 for courier delivery at the other end. So if your stuck - check out the busses.
Since I'll be sans bike for a few days, got the spray can out and touched up the paint job from my brazing efforts.