(written by Nancy)

Lovely night’s sleep in a warm and comfy bed – hard to beat that on a bicycle tour! We had breakfast with John and Cath this morning (including espresso!) and said our goodbyes after a few more bike-related conversations. Thanks again you guys for a great stay!

We were aiming for Guyra today – a short day but we wanted to stop off at the local bike shop in Armidale to see if they might have a seat that would work for me. We headed off into town just before 9am to make a stop at the Armidale Bicycle Center. The bike shop was pretty nice and they did have several women’s seats so we chose one and the shop guy put it right on for me. Unfortunately no two seats are the same so I have whole other set of calluses to develop – may have a bit of pain for a few days…. I am sure that Dave and I had a conversation about whether I should get a new seat before we left Sydney but for some reason he can’t quite recall it now…  At least there was some lovely fall colours in Armidale to distract me.

After the bike shop we headed over to the Daily Ritual, the coffee shop recommended by Cath and John. It was a nice little shop with good coffee and pastries. Of course we had to partake to make sure we had enough energy to get the long 40k or so to Guyra. We finally set off from Armidale about 11:00 – I could probably get used to hanging out in coffee shops in the mornings reading the paper and drinking coffee before we set off but I expect that we won’t have that luxury very often.

We rode the New England Highway the whole way today. The shoulder wasn’t too bad and traffic was pretty good. The ride was pretty non-eventful – we had a bit of up and down and then there was a pretty good climb up to Black Mountain. From there it was relatively flat into Guyra – the town sits at 1330 meters so it is relatively high up.

Not too far from Guyra we saw two other touring cyclists going the other direction – of course we had to stop and chat. Ryan and Lisa are from Boulder Colorado and have been on the road for about 12 months. It was fun to talk to them – they obviously had gotten quite good at travelling the road, camping and carrying minimal gear. Our bikes looked like beasts compared to theirs. But they were in good spirits, which is nice to see after such a long time on the road. They mentioned they had camped in the showgrounds in Guyra so we filed that info away for later use. After exchanging details we headed off in our opposite directions. You can follow their blog at http://www.changinggearstour.blogspot.com/.

Based on John and Cath’s suggestion when we rolled into town we went to Jojo’s Café and met the owner Colin – what a character he is! We had some great egg and bacon rolls for lunch (sorry, we forgot to get a picture) and then were treated to a viewing of Colin’s awesome bike collection. You would never guess looking at the café from the outside but Colin has the most amazing bikes and bike parts – super high end bikes stacked in a room at the back of the café, which he sells to customers that find him through word of mouth. He gave us his details so that if we needed anything along the way we could contact him and likely he could source it for us, if he didn’t have it already. It was quite a fun lunch and it’s great to know we have someone to contact to help out with bike parts, etc. if we need help.

We headed to the grocery store to pick up supplies for dinner and then thought we would check out the showground camping situation. There was no one around initially so we looked around to see where we might camp and what services (water, toilets, etc) were available. While we were looking around Bob, the showground manager/caretaker, showed up and said that while technically camping was no longer allowed, we would probably be okay to camp seeing that we were on bikes. Then, he kindly offered us camping indoors in the ‘birdhouse’ – the little house that is used when they display birds when shows are on at the grounds. It is pretty clean, has power and lights and some chairs and feels pretty cozy – it will be nice to be inside if it rains tonight, as it is threatening to do. Bob even opened up the showers and turned the hot water on for us to take a shower – all of this for $12!

Dave is cooking dinner right now on the stove out on the porch – spaghetti with sausages and sundried tomatoes. We have some great rolls from the local bakery, with a brownie to share for dessert. All in all, a pretty good day!

And yes, not to worry, we will use our tent again – camping is on the schedule tomorrow night at Glen Innes. We are getting pretty cold temperatures at night up here – I think it is supposed to get down to around 10 for the next couple of nights so we might have to dig out the beanies and warm socks for sleeping.