Bairnsdale, 3:10 PM
This morning, I woke up to be greeted by a truly brilliant sunrise, the sound of waves off in the distance, crisp, clean post-rain air ...
... And a flat tire.
Looks like at some point I picked up a 2 inch galvanized nail through my rear wheel.
Let's ignore that for now, and talk about my new friends Meita, Nick and Andrea.
Meita and Nick were both camped out next to me this morning. Meita, a Danish working holidayer, had met Nick at a farm, and they were vansteading it up north to warmer climes, playing it day-by-day. Their setup was so sweet - I ... will not claim to regret the motorcycle life, but oh my a van would be so nice sometimes.
Anyways. I set out to New South Wales around 10:30 AM, readying myself for a full day of travelling, and confidently made it all of 20 feet before realizing the bike's rear wheel was flat as day-old soda.
I limped it about 4 kilometers before I was driving more on rim than tire, and I pulled over into a suburb where I assessed my options very calmly.
I have comprehensive motorcycle insurance, and they won't cover a flat tire? Seriously? The $500 emergency parts supply doesn't actually apply to tires? Why!? That's so dumb! Stupid, greedy -
"No, don't worry," I replied to the insurance agent. "I understand completely. Thank you for looking into it for me."
I needed to get the bike into town. I was about 3 kilometers away from town. Options. Hmm.
Option 3 sounded nicest. So I knocked on some nearby doors. And that's how I met Andrea.
Andrea was a Lake Tyers local, studying up for a public health certificate. Andrea is great. Andrea was super sweet. Andrea didn't have a bike pump, but she did me one better - turns out, her son-in-law ran the local tire shop in town.
She gave me a ride into town, and chatted with her son-in-law for a bit, who offered to lend us a portable tire pump. We drove back to the bike, I re-inflated the rear tire a bit, waved my thanks, and floored it back to the tire repair stop. They weren't confident about repairing a motorcycle tire, so directed me to a place in Bairnsdale - 30 minutes back the way I came.
No. Damnit. Ugh. Ok. Fine. I can do this. I can ... probably do this. Please, motorcycle gods do me a solid.
Hopped on the bike. Waved bye to the tire station. 100 km/h'd it up to Bairnsdale, stopping at petrol stops to refill air along the way, and made it to the repair shop in Bairnsdale!
So, Yours Truly is back in Bairnsdale. Which, after some thought, isn't a bad thing - I headed over to BCF (Boating, Camping and Fishing), and found that they were selling the Darche Ranger Solo+, a swag similar in material to my Dusk-to-Dawn 900, but half the weight and so much smaller.
So much yes. I just posted an ad on Gumtree to sell the Dusk to Dawn, hopefully it gets a bite here soon.
Lake Tyers, 7:48 PM
My tent was stolen.
When I was packing up the bike to head to Bairnsdale, I decided to leave the 13.4 kg swag behind. It was pretty heavy, and I wanted to run as light as I could on the wheel. So, I hid the swag in some bushes and left.
I didn't hide it well enough.
Which, like, fuck. That's $425 AUD worth of swag and sleeping bag that is sort of just gone.
But, to be honest, I'm pretty okay right now.
I'm irritated that I'm out so much money - but, to be honest, it's an irritation I became okay with as soon as it became apparent. It cleans up a lot of things - I no longer have to worry about how to swap this swag out for something lighter, and I don't have to drive all the way back to the Lake Tyers Tavern to camp.
My bike is fixed - not only fixed, but the old, grumpy motorcycle mechanic that threw a new inner tube in also tightened the disc brakes and realigned the wheel for only $120 AUD total.
Stylo runs great.
I've learned some lessons about my life that I want to share tomorrow, and read some Aristotle that I want to talk about, and have some ideas surrounding anxiety that I'd like to share and get your thoughts on.
But for now, tonight, I'm going to chill, and enjoy material comforts while I have them.
