TUESDAY 28 SEPTEMBER
Teeth really paining me and spent morning ringing around for dentists as the heat built up in the forest!
Decided to cycle to Grafton and train it to Lismore to get there for a dental appointment the next day. 2.5 hour ride or so to Grafton on the freeway. Circa 36km.
At Grafton. Had to dismantle bicycles almost completely to get into a box to go on the train. Took wheels off trailer. Boarded train. On arrival in Casino, coaches were available to take passengers on futher. Choatic. No system. We and bikes just go there. Arrived to stay with Paul and Gemma at a house surrounded by trees with possums up there.
Chris
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I was really challenged in the morning. Chris initially wanted to head back to Bellingen to the great dentist he had found there especially as he had given Chris his last treatment for free! I totally understood this but with that meaning a full days ride south back the way we had come and maybe no appointments available in time for us to get to Lismore I tried to suggest an alternative. With no appointments available in Bellingen this is what we needed to do. We had to look at options so Grafton being the closest city made sense. Chris got some suggestions but everyone in Grafton was booked up except on option around early afternoon on the Thursday, the evening we were due to hold a symposium in Lismore 80 km away! We booked this but this didn't seem so workable so we contacted our contacts in Lismore to get them to call all the dentist there and see what was available. While we decided to head to Grafton anyway and see what happened with the reasoning that we could cycle to Grafton then catch the train & bus to Lismore & if needed borrow a car to get Chris back to Grafton and back to Lismore for the event if needed. This also allowed Chris to also take up any appointments that become available in Lismore.
Riding off from Nature Philosophy late morning as it started to get hot and humid in the sun we decided there was no rush so got to have an amazing swim in the secluded water hole in the creek surrounded by lush forest with all the residents and teachers. Heading off from this we found ourselves racing the approaching rain again as we tried to get to the petrol station before it hit. Got caught a bit but missed most of it while we had lunch at the service station. Its funny how even riding back the 2 km from the turn off back to the service station was a mental challenge for me! Once we left the sun was hot and strong so the ride into Grafton really showed that we had moved away from the sea and had definitely moved into a more tropical / northern climate.
By the time we got to Grafton Tony had called us to say that someone had canceled an appointment at a dentist in Lismore the next morning so Chris was sorted! Thankfully we had decided to train and bus it on!
Trains in NSW suck! WT#! Why is it that to take a bicycle on a rural train in NSW (& to Melbourne or Brisbane from Sydney as the trains are NSW trains) passengers must disassembled their bikes (even if only one station).and put it into a box! This meant taking off both wheels, both pedals, one pannier rack & my saddle! Dam was I furious & I lost some spaces! Especially as we were only going 2 stops! It was sort of understandable seeing as the 2nd stop was by bus but still this has got to be one of the most anti bike rules we have come across and absolutely makes it less likely for people to catch trains as well as use bikes in rural NSW. That said the station people said that they go through at least 4 boxes per week with cyclist using the train. What it says to me is that there could be at least a doubling of the numbers of cyclist using the train from that station alone if they chose to find an alternative way to house and manage bikes in the future. As the trains are often not full it seems that they might well be advised to see how they can encourage people rather than discourage them! Roland
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