Day 1. Cairns to Fishery Falls

To say I was apprehensive about this day is an understatement. I have been preparing for it since I bought my bike almost exactly 2 years ago. I woke up at 5.45 nervous and a bit shaky. My panniers were pretty much packed and ready the night before. Everyone saw me off it was pretty emotional. I was actually starting, unbelievable. I was quite surprised how easy it was to pedal as at a guess I think I must be carrying between 20 - 23 kg of luggage! After day one I want to cut that down a bit but over the coming weeks I will have a better idea of what I need and what spends most of the time in my panniers. There is one big issues cycling from Cairns to Melbourne apart from the approx 4500km and that is the regular South Easterly wind. If I am lucky it picks up later in the day and is usually a side or head on wind. Occasionally it starts in the morning. I guess all that cycling on the windy moors helped a bit. Whoops gibbering a bit now. So in the first couple of weeks Iam going to ease into it slowly get use to it and not push too hard. So today started of with a 36.8km ride and arrived at the campsite at lunchtime. Weather for the ride was hot and sunny. Loads of factor 50 was applied. Tent up and by the afternoon and the rest of the evening it was raining off and on. News of my crazy cycle ride soon circulated around the park so had lots of conversations with grey nomads. For those who don't know what they are, I guess they are retired people that either travel around Australia in RVs or Caravan. Or head north to escape the colder weather of the southern winter. Lovely to chat with and always have a good tail to tell. I slept very well.