The seemingly notorius (but actually glorious) day 16

Ever since our bodies starting hurting on around day 4 we’ve been uttering sentences like “I knew we were gonna be sore, but not this early-maybe day 16 or so”. And “Wait til about day 16, I reckon we’ll be hurting then”, and “Ben, have a shower you friggin stink mate!”. I’m not sure why day 16 kept popping up, but it was the day we kept coming up with as the one when we were expecting to be feeling the effects of the wear and tear on our bodies…So when day 16 came around and we felt really quite fine and able-bodied, it was a great feeling.

We were doing the regular morning thing (having breakfast, getting taped, doing a morning poo, etc) when we got to the last regular job before departing-putting the bike inside Ruby for the roadtrip. Unfortunately when Sam went to bring the bike in, she was missing one key ingredient…the bike. It had been stolen during the night. It’s sad to think the lowlife who stole it would have walked past a 2 metre poster declaring we were on a charity run before taking one of our belongings, worth a few hundred dollars. It put a downer on the morning, as Sam called Edge to tell him his bike was missing. But the show must go on, and we left the caravan park and pulled up to our starting point, which by coincidence just happened to be right next to the absolute best part of Goulburn…the road out of town.

We got down to business and started off with a walk, but after less than a kilometre the strong wind and icy temperatures got us lifting our heels and on the run fairly quickly. Our visitors for the day-my sister Lauren and Jacki’s mum Bronwyn-joined us for several kilometres to see how the boys spend their days and seemed to enjoy themselves. It was nice when the wind died down and the blue skies came out, and fortunately for us, they stuck around for the rest of the day…from 9am or so it was probably the best weather we’d had since leaving Victoria.

We passed through the small highway town of Marulan and continued along the dirty Hume until we reached our set kilometres for the day-a fairly lazy 37kms. To be fair, today had perhaps the nicest scenery on the Hume since Victoria too-it had nice big Gum trees on the medium strip and we crossed lots of nice open farmland, rolling hills and small but serene lakes. However, in terms of the word “dirty”, it couldn’t be more spot on…coke bottles, burger wrappers, cigarette butts and countless types of litter lined the side of the road, the worst we’d seen it so far. Pretty disappointed in the people that would carelessly throw stuff out the window like that…the Hume’s dirty enough as it is people, ease up and chuck it in the bin-disgusting! However the amount of money we've found on the road has been suprising as well-not one day has passed without us finding a single cent. Just quietly, I've been bringing home the bacon in the money stakes each day...$3.81 was my tally today (yep, found a one-center! Woo!) Each time we find a coin we play the "younger/older" game, trying to guess what year the coin was produced. Again, one of the simple ways we amuse ourselves on the Hume. Also quite amusing to see Joel having to concentrate extremely hard as to whether (for example) 1985 means younger or older than a 1989 coin...it's a pretty tricky concept for the kid.

We marked our end point and rolled into Moss Vale to our sweeeet caravan park Moss Vale Village Caravan Park, which the Edge had managed to get us for free for two nights-he told us it was the “Taj Mahal” of caravan parks and he wasn’t far off it. After finding our spot and realising it wasn’t even 2pm yet, we hit up the local pub, where Bronwyn generously announced she would shout us all lunch and drinks as a “donation”, even though she’d already donated. We graciously accepted and enjoyed the first pub meal since that fateful Origin night in Gundagai last week. Thanks Bronwyn! She (and Lauren) then headed back home while the gang went back to the Taj Mahal to shower and relax. The cameo appearances continue, with Ben’s girlfriend Renee-along with friends Emma, Lisa and Chloe having arrived around 6pm to spend the next 24 hours or so with us. She’s getting a cabin however Ben won’t be joining her and is staying in the cove…which is a very smart move on his part because the second he leaves that warm abode…BAM!! I’m gonna strike and be back where I belong.

Looking forward to tomorrow, when we will eventually say goodbye to the dirty Hume!

Cheers

Nick

Getting pumped for another day of Humey goodness

Artsy as

Our supersubs, Lauren and Bronwyn join the boys (and a rare snap of Ben without his phone)

Ruby's dint. Also known as $250 off Ben's credit card (think of the Fly Buys points but!)

The Hume. Bringing mates closer since 1817

Another day another dollar. Trying to scrape together $250 for Ruby in coins found on the road

Pubbin' it up. Thanks Bronwyn!