Kiwi and I finally got around to tackling the Tunnel Bay ride yesterday. Decided to roll following an extended route, riding via White Beach, Mount Spaulding, Stormlea to Tunnel Bay with a sidetrip to Shipstern Bluff. Sounds easy on paper right? Not so easy when ground truthed, there were hills, ALOT of BIG hills. Very early in the day I came to the realisation that my current physique is not compatible with singlespeeding… I was walking often. I was swearing often. I was wishing for lower gears often. Having never ridden this route before (or researched it) I was expecting to get lost, which suprisingly didn’t happen. Miracle? Possibly given my previous track record. Highlight of the day? A swim at Tunnel Bay. It was about 30c, so the dip brought the near boiling blood temparture back down to an acceptable level. We shared the beach with a very dead whale calf. He smelt fairly bad but was worth getting up-close-and-personal with just to check his baleen. Awesome teeth rig those whales have. Lowlight of the day? Sprinting 500m at days end to avoid being eaten by an 85kg dog! Years of track training came to the fore as I spun my 32×22 gear faster than and egg-beater set on high to escape those gnashing jaws!! Don’t think we’ll exit via that route if there is a ‘next-time’.
