Rejuvenation

Sometimes it's amazing just what a trip away can do for you. Regular readers of this page would, of course, be aware that I have just returned from two weeks riding around Eastern Victoria. It's quite amazing the diversity of riding experiences that one can cram into that time. I'm in the process of uploading photos and so on, and those should be revealed in the coming days. However, what really stands out right now are the events just after the tour "officially" came to an end.

It's quite strange really, because yesterday at one point was looking quite frustrating. First of all there is the fact that I pick up a mystery flat on the flight home (or possibly in the last 100 metres or so before Melbourne airport). Then QR are running a three-car train (i.e. one less carriage than normal) from Brisbane Airport back to the Gold Coast, which is quite ridiculous, when you consider that this is both their busiest service, and has the added hindrance of traveller's luggage cluttering up the place. To top it all off, the train terminates at Helensvale due to track conditions (I normally get off at Nerang, a station later), leaving me with 25km of boring suburbia to negotiate when I really wasn't in the mood.

However, the ride home somehow turned out to be extremely enjoyable. For one thing, the sea-breeze cooled the temperatures slightly, and for another, after two weeks away, the suburbia didn't seem quite so annoying. I guess the complete change of scenery for a while gave it a "new" feel, and one which was a pleasure to ride through. Of course, there were the usual Gold Coast morons to negotiate -- at one point I held back from approaching a roundabout by my new instincts, and saw two of them very nearly collide -- and the idiot who caused it had the hide to abuse the other guy. However, none of it bothered me. I just seemed to be in an eternally blissful state.

It's hard to understand exactly how I got this way. I can only guess that previously I was carrying around some mental baggage, which I must have ditched to lighten the load on the Great Alpine Road. I just hope I've learned my lesson this time, and that perhaps I can continue on, impervious to the trivialities that seem to upset so many and cause so much unnecessary stress.