OMG, it's... COLD!

Absolutely unbelievable! After a particularly warm start to "winter" (even by our standards), where nightime temperatures rarely fell below 16 degrees C, we've had a cold snap. It's actually taken a little adjustment, I've started using leg warmers when cycling for the first time this year. Yesterday morning it was quick hills before work and a temperature that dropped to 4 degrees C at one stage. This morning I headed out for a quick 70km or so around Austinville and Little Nerang Dam, and this time the temperature actually dropped to freezing, 0 degrees! I haven't seen frost for a long time:





It was, however, a chance to assess some of the equipment I'll be using in New Zealand later in the year, where it's likely to be as cold, and wet! The Assos jacket gets five and a half stars (incidentally, I read a review for a Sarah Blasko CD that gave a the same number of stars), it's proven to be $250 very well spent and actually kept my chest and upper body generally very warm. The gloves I bought in Melbourne last year did their job adequately (i.e. I could still operate the brakes and shift the gears), but I'd have liked the fingers to be a little warmer. My feet and ears froze, so I need to look at other options there.

What is also impressive about this area is the way other things flourish, even when the temperature drops to unusually low levels. One would think that when things get that cold, tropical plants might struggle to survive -- especially when combined with record low levels of rainfall as we've experienced in recent months. Not so apparently, as these pictures testify:





Incidentally, yesterday's ride put me over 70,000 metres of climbing for 2005. A century (100 miles) of climbing for 2005 is still possible, but I'll need to move things along a bit quicker than I've been doing. Hopefully riding a century tomorrow will help.