Wednesday 3 September 2104

On Sunday night a woman in my room started coughing and I was a bit worried I’d catch whatever lurgie she had. By Monday morning I was coughing too. Nevertheless it was just a minor cough so I thought I’d got away with it.

That morning I caught the train out to Calbooture, where One Ten Motorcycles is located. Before I left Glasgow the organisers of the Postie Bike Challenge said, despite previous indications to the contrary, that it would not, in fact, be possible for me to buy the bike at the end of the Challenge. Fortunately, I’d come across a website by a guy called Nathan who’d ridden a Postie Bike from Sydney to London a few years ago and he mentioned he’d bought it from this company in Brisbane. I wanted to find out if it would be possible to buy one from One Ten and have them ship it to Adelaide. Joe, the owner, was very helpful but advised it would be cost prohibitive to do it. He might, he advised, be able to get me one if I was prepared to come back to Brisbane at the end of the Challenge and collect it. I’d just have to wait a couple of days while he made some enquiries.

It’s been really hot here the last few days, and because his garage was located in an industrial estate out of town, I had to wait at the bus stop in the very hot sun for half an hour. The jet lag had been hitting me pretty hard over the last few days, but now I was starting to feel I was finally getting over the worst of it. But, as I sat down on the train, I was overwhelmed with tiredness and almost passed out. By the time I got back to the hostel I was coughing quite badly and starting to feel feverish. “Uh oh”, I thought, “think I’m getting a cold”.

The next day I was feeling pretty bad so decided to have an easy day at the hostel to try and shake off whatever bug I’d picked up before the Challenge gets underway on Sunday – don’t want to be feeling dizzy on a motorcycle now do I?

I’d also been needing the loo a lot and when I woke up this morning I could feel my back, in the area of my kidneys, was really sore. Fearing my cold may have gone into my kidneys, I got the number of a local doctor from the girl on Reception at the hostel and was able to get an appointment at 9 am. As I sat in their waiting area, I suddenly started feeling very hot and light headed. “I think I’m going to faint” I thought to myself. Next thing I knew I was being shaken awake by the practice nurse and having my blood pressure taken. Apparently I’d passed out.

The doctor then diagnosed me with a kidney infection and a cold and prescribed some heavy duty antibiotics and some rehydration fluids to clear it all up. So it will be another day of bed rest for me.