March 18th - to Talangatta

Well today started out different than the others.  It started raining about 3 am with a heck of a downpour.  And it just kept on raining.  We were supposed to head out at 8 for the day but it was pouring at that time.  The decision was made to delay the start until 10 due to conditions supposedly improving.  Well they didn't...

My roommate and I waited.  Ten o'clock came and it was still pouring rain.  No one announced it was time to head out, so we waited.  The maid came to our cabin at 10:20 to clean the room for the next inhabitants of our cabin.  We told her to come on in, we would get out and wait with the others down in the kitchen camp area.  The maid said...  the others?  the others left more than a half hour ago.  OMG, everyone had gone and left us!  

My roommate and I were left in camp!  The directions had been changed to a different route because the off road would have been rough to navigate in the mud and water.  We knew the new route, kind of, by the morning riders meeting instructions.  So off we headed with a general understanding of where we were to go.  The rain was pouring and the wind was gusting, a wonderful start to a cycling day.  We shot out of camp and started booking at great speed to try to catch the others.  Mind you, they had at least a 45 minute head start.  We rode through the driving rain that stung like needles in your face.  We pedaled fast as the gusts of wind would blow us sideways moving us out into traffic by a foot or two per gust.  Oh what a wonderful ride it was!  Strangely though, it really was a wonderful ride...  It was fun even in very adverse conditions.

We finally caught up to the others as they were leaving the first town on our route.  

    The winds had blown down trees and littered the road with debris.

    The skies were threatening withholding their fury periodically for short bursts.

    Then they would open up on us or deliver to us huge gusts of 30+.

    Finally at the lunch stop a glimmer of hope shown with a slight diminishing of the onslaught.

At lunch we were cold and shivered.  We were completely soaked with a cold win cutting through us.  The temp was 50 degrees with a much lower wind chill.  😬

We made lunch a very short stop and got back on the bikes to warm up with the exertion.

The good news we finished the ride and the sun came out long enough for us to set up our tents.  Thank you Mother Nature.

After the tents were up and the bike cleaned up, a very hot shower was taken.  The hot water felt soooo good.  Once all the activities were done to have a place to sleep for the night, the rain started again.  😩

Tomorrow is to be a better day!