Aussie Bicycle Tour, East Coast

It’s been a tough couple months. Lily and I are on better terms now than we were, but there’s still a lot of hurt in here.
One of the things I keep thinking is, What have I learned?

I’ll be damned if I am going to have gone through all this, and still be the same person I was before! After all the meaning of life is to Grow – towards the light.
It’s hard to contemplate, though. While there are many things I have learned from Lily, I need to remember who I am, who I want to be. I need to walk in the center of my life. So am I to become more like her? She’s fast, so fast in her life, and I have been so slow. Now I find myself asking: “Is it better to be fast?” I like to question myself; if I feel “sure” of something, you can bet there’s opportunity to challenge there. But the break-down of this marriage… shit. It’s got me feeling pretty lost. Maybe questioning everything is questioning too much.

I had some time out in the country. Carolyn helped me process things a lot, and there’s nothing like physical labor to distract your consciousness.
But one thing I think I may just be comfortable with admitting the possibility of, is that I prefer to be alone.
I like “alone time,” and not just an hour here or there between “together” times, but huge chunks of the stuff, gigantic swaths of calendar days where I am by myself. Where getting into a “zone” can happen naturally, and where if there’s a worry about someone else’s needs or desires, it is truly peripheral.
Perhaps I condemn myself to isolation by admitting this. “Be careful what you wish for,” they say, so maybe I’ve just signed up for a lifetime of loneliness. But believe me: it’s been a lesson a long time coming. And it’s been a long, long time since I had any time to myself like that. In fact, the last time was… bicycle touring. In Africa, before my accident in Egypt.
Hm. Should’ve guessed it.

It’s definitely time to push down pedals again.

Carolyn was once telling me about her “100 Days to Fitness” program she used to teach in Vanuatu. They say if you want to make (or break) a habit, it takes 21 days. But if you want to create a lifestyle, it’s not gonna stick unless you stick to it for 100 days.

I like the sound of that, so I’ve decided to do a 100 day bicycle tour, and try to make it healthy for my future.

The lifestyles I’ll be creating are Fitness and Writing.
I’ve made a schedule of stretching, meditating, upper-body strengthening, and physical therapy, for every day of the week. (And that’s apart from cycling 60 miles every day…)
I’ve made a schedule of writing, journaling, letters, and yes, travelogues. So expect to see some updates here, hopefully also with photos.

I have also set up a tour tracker, much like we had for our sailing trip, with an internet map and waypoints:

Click here to TrackMyTour!

Tonight I take the ferry from Melbourne to Tasmania, and tomorrow morning I’ll hit the ground rolling.
The rough plan is to tour around Tasmania for a couple weeks, then return to Melbourne for a bit. Then up to Sydney, and spend a couple weeks with Jess and Duncan, of the yacht Alliance, some very good friends I made on the sailing trip. Also, I will try to learn to surf! I am after all in Australia. Then up to Queensland again, possibly as far as Cairns.
After that I am not sure. We’ll see how many days of the 100 are left.

I plan to be back in the USA in September.

So here we go again! Wish me luck!

And thanks to you, for reading this.

With Love and Joy,

Charlie