Wow, lots in my paper journal I haven’t gotten to yet. Well, nice to have more material rather than not enough, I guess.

So, the riding: up the Sunshine Coast, frankly it’s pretty brutal for a beginner. Cars blowing past (including heavy trucks that can blow you a couple feet off course quite easily), steep ascents, scary descents, rain, and headwinds: these are things that I can more or less take one at a time. Usually I had at least two or three going. (I note that in my paper journal I wrote “12 km after we dock [at Langdale]. That should be pretty manageable & get me there in time for dinner.” Ha ha!)

I got some very helpful advice from Marney at the hostel, mostly in its encouragement as opposed to any specific details. Though I know more about bears and cougars now than is strictly comfortable.

I again split the book’s distances in half. I spent the night after leaving Roberts Creek in Smuggler’s Cove, where I had the campsite all to myself. I had to walk a good bit through land made boggy by some beavers’ industriousness (as a sign explained rather apologetically). Finally, bold, muddy, and resolute, I made camp. Lonely and a bit spooky but I made out all right in my hammock.

The following day’s ride was a raw evil of hills (I’ve been doing a fair amount of pushing my bike), and rain started up as soon as I was off the ferry. And kept going. All night long. And into the morning.

Making camp in the wet is about as awful as it gets. Hands getting raw from trying to tie knots to hang up one’s food bag and putting up the hammock, nothing dry or clean, and even in the relatively dry hammock, everything was clammy. I hate to be a bummer, but that night was miserable. Shouting at the rain to stop was totally ineffective.

But I made it. Some part of me is crying and saying “I can’t do this, I can’t,” and then I’m just doing it. I walk when I have to, I stop often, but I keep putting the miles under my butt. Last night I slept in a proper bed, got nice and clean, and had food served to me. Man, do I ever love civilization more than ever. I’m not sure that was the intended idea, but I don’t think I’m likely to become some fully stoic fellow, impervious to the blandishments of material comfort.

“Ashes,” it says above. I almost didn’t bring them, but in the end took the portion of mom’s ashes that don’t fit into the little urn I have. They’re in a plain plastic bag. I first let some ashes out at Robert’s Creek. I dithered about it a long time, back and forth between doing anything at all, dumping all the ashes, or just some. I was getting more and more anxious, till eventually a wiser voice said “if you can’t let go all at once, let go a little.” That small act gave me a pretty big sense of relief and I wept a bit for all mom and I never had.

I released some at Smuggler’s Cove, and that night had a nightmare that mom was a junkie, with a sketchy new boyfriend, some quiet thug. She denied to everyone that she was using, and I screamed at her that I had seen her rig so I knew she was lying. At some point later in the dream, I declared I was making a circle and I would be the one to decide who was allowed in or not–a literal “boundary.” Some others were gathered there, including my friend Brian, who I invited in, a bit imperiously, while denying mom entry. The curious thing, to me, is how the delivery, and just the feeling of it all, was much younger than my present self. As if letting go and maybe forgiving a little is also letting me make the requests I wish I could have many years ago.

Still not caught up, but one more cafe visit should get me there. Until then!