Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 121 - Parramatta to Terrigal

Day:  121

Date:  Friday, 30 October 2020

Start:  Parramatta

Finish:  Terrigal

Daily Kilometres:  90 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  12975

Weather:  Cool to mild and mostly sunny

Accommodation:  Home

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Muffins

  Lunch:  Ham, cheese & tomato sandwich/Beef & chutney sandwich

  Dinner:  Fish & chips/Steak, salad & chips

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Completing our COVID-19-truncated circumnavigation of Australia.

Lowlight:  We're a bit disappointed that it's over.  It will be good to catch up with family and friends, and to sleep in the same bed for more than a night or two, but I can already sense that within a week or so we will wish we were still bike-packing.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We wheeled our fully-loaded bikes through the foyer of the Parramatta Holiday Inn and out the door at 5am to the bemusement of the night manager, and headed north through the dark streets of town.  Initially, we rode along footpaths and through pedestrian malls for a more direct route to the notorious Pennant Hills Road which we planned to follow to the northern suburbs of Sydney.  (With exquisite timing, the NorthConnex tunnel, designed to remove most of the traffic from Pennant Hills Road, opens tomorrow after five years of construction!)

We hoped that being very early might mean there was less traffic, but there were still plenty of trucks and tradesmen.  We clung to the left-hand gutter, riding up onto the footpath for the steeper hills when we were travelling very slowly, and trusted that the drivers would treat us well.  Despite the traffic, it was a beautiful clear dawn and we could hear lots of birdcalls from the trees in parks, gardens and woodlands we passed.

At Hornsby, after about 18km, we joined the Old Pacific Highway, a popular cycle route, for our journey to Gosford.  Our first stop was at a bakery in Berowra, where we met Julie's brother, Troy, who came down to ride the last 60km with us on his road bike.  It was a happy reunion, and we had a good chat over breakfast, before riding north on the very scenic highway, including a long descent to the Hawkesbury River, then an equally long ascent on the other side.  The good weather and social banter helped the kilometres pass easily, and we soon reached a cafe at Mount White where we stopped for a pleasant morning break.

From there we had another long descent to Mooney Mooney Creek and a last long climb to Somersby before rolling down the long hill into Gosford.  It was surreal to be back cycling along very familiar roads, with all of our gear, after four months away.  We bade Troy goodbye with about 7km to go, negotiated one last hill, and then rolled into Terrigal soon after noon and took some celebratory photos at the beach before going home.  The Central Coast has a population of about 350,000 people, but it's a small place, and not really surprising that we separately saw three people we knew as we rode the last 15km.  We must be home!

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 120 - Marulan to Parramatta

Day:  120

Date:  Thursday, 29 October 2020

Start:  Marulan

Finish:  Parramatta

Daily Kilometres:  148 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  12885

Weather:  Cold and raining early, then mild and partly sunny

Accommodation:  Hotel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg & bacon rolls

  Lunch:  Gozleme

  Dinner:  Fettucine carbonara/Ravioli di Zucca

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  After some cold and rain in the first 40km, the rain cleared and we enjoyed a following breeze and long gradual downhill run from the Southern Highlands to the Sydney fringe.

Lowlight:  Dealing with the south-west Sydney traffic in the last hour of our ride to Parramatta.  It was busy and many motorists clearly hadn't heard the "give cyclists a metre" rule.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

It was very dark when we left Marulan at 4:45am and rejoined the Hume Highway which was busy with trucks, no doubt intent on getting to Sydney for the start of the business day.  We rode along in the breakdown lane straining to see and avoid debris and rough patches, especially on the faster downhill sections.  After about thirty minutes, it began to rain, blurring our vision, which was not helped by spray from the passing trucks.  However, on the plus side, we had a following breeze which made a very nice change from the last three days.  It's amazing how much easier the hills are with the wind at your back.

After 26km, we stopped at the Sutton Forest roadhouse soon after 6am and had breakfast.  The rain intensified while we were there and as we were leaving we had a pleasant chat with a truck driver who couldn't believe that we were going to return to the road, and was flabbergasted when we said we had been doing it for nearly four months.  Back on our bikes, it was wet and cold, but our speed was excellent and after thirty minutes the rain began to abate.  There were some exhilarating descents through the forested mountains on the freeway, and the ensuing climbs didn't seem that bad.

We reached the Pheasants Nest roadhouse, much earlier than expected, helped by the last gradually downhill 10km, which flew by, and found a sheltered and dry picnic table for a snack before returning to the busy freeway to continue our descent into Sydney.  By the time we left the freeway, after 120km for the day, it was only 11am and we were well ahead of our expected schedule.  We stopped in at a roadhouse cafe, and celebrated our good progress with a longer than usual lunch break and a delicious gozleme.

From the cafe, we had two hours and 31km of suburban riding which wasn't particularly enjoyable (see above) to reach our booked hotel in the western Sydney centre of Parramatta.  We checked in at 2pm, and were grateful they let us take our (somewhat dirty) bikes up to our room.

After a relaxing afternoon, we had dinner at a local restaurant with Julie's son, his partner, and Julie's granddaughter, who live nearby.  It was a happy reunion after four months.  Home tomorrow!

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 119 - Harden to Marulan

Day:  119

Date:  Wednesday, 28 October 2020

Start:  Harden

Finish:  Marulan

Daily Kilometres:  175 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  12737

Weather:  Cold to cool, mostly overcast and breezy

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg & bacon rolls

  Lunch:  Pastie & donut/Chicken salad roll

  Dinner:  Kentucky fried chicken & fries, ice-creams 

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Our late lunch at the Goulburn bakery, a compulsory and favourite stop on my many driving trips to and from Melbourne.

Lowlight:  None really

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

Another 4:45am start, and as soon as we turned eastwards out of the motel driveway we could feel the cold headwind that was to be a feature of our day, though it wasn't as strong as yesterday (averaging 20kph according to the weather bureau).  Rather than wind, hills were the feature of the day.  According to Julie's watch, we climbed 1959 metres for the day, our highest total for any day of the trip.

For our first leg, we rode along the roller-coaster Burley Griffin Way for 50km, watching a spectacular sunrise in front of us and admiring the beautiful hilly farm country, then joined the Hume Freeway for another 10km to a service station at Yass, where we stopped for breakfast.  The Hume Highway is the major road between Sydney and Melbourne, so there was plenty of traffic, particularly trucks, but it is dual carriageway and there is a wide breakdown lane, so riding is quite safe, so long as care is taken at intersections.

From Yass, it was a hilly 84km to Goulburn, and our late lunch (see above).  Even though I drive this section of road a lot, I never tire of the quintessential Australian rural scenery, with rolling hills, tree-lined creeks, and occasional woodland.  The hills (which, funnily enough, you don't notice as much while driving), had us working hard, but the downs allowed some recovery and sightseeing.   We took one break along the way, and our average speed was slow, so it was 1:30pm by the time we reached Goulburn.

After lunch we only had another 30km to Marulan and our booked motel, the first 5km of which was through the regional city of Goulburn.  After that, there were more hills as we climbed into the Southern Highlands, with forested mountains in the near distance on both sides and some lovely rural properties.  To the north, some ominous clouds were building, and thunder pealed as we were checking in at 5pm, followed an hour later by some rain, but we stayed dry all day, which was a bonus.

The pedantic motel owner wouldn't let us keep our bikes in our room (only second time for the trip) and even made a fuss about us damaging the brick verandah pillars when we locked them outside our room, but eventually acquiesced when we promised to be careful.

We bought dinner from the KFC next door (no microwave in our room), and had another early night, happy with our day.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 118 - Narrandera to Harden

Day:  118

Date:  Tuesday, 27 October 2020

Start:  Narrandera

Finish:  Harden

Daily Kilometres:  194 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  12562

Weather:  Cold early then mild, partly cloudy and windy with some rain during the afternoon

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg & bacon rolls

  Lunch:  Pie & chocolate cookies/Chicken salad roll & chocolate cookie

  Dinner:  Chicken parmagiana & vegetables/Southern style chicken & vegetables, apple pie & custard

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Beautiful bucolic scenery as we cycled up onto the south-western slopes of New South Wales

Lowlight:  The headwind made what was already going to be a testing day even tougher.  We were travelling eastwards for most of the day and, from about 8am, we were riding directly into a headwind of about 30kph, gusting higher in places.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We made another early start, leaving at 4:45am, and initially cycled north-east along the Newell Highway, the main route between Melbourne and Brisbane.  This meant that we encountered quite a few trucks, but at night they are rarely a problem, with us seeing them, and them seeing us, from a long way off.  The weather forecast included headwinds and showers, so we were pleased it wasn't raining when we left, after the travails of yesterday, and the wind wasn't too bad.

After about an hour we left the Newell Highway and headed eastwards on the much less busy Canola Way as dawn broke.  It was very pleasant, with the road following a freight railway line and passing through a number of small grain towns, each with silos in the railyards.  Most of the towns had clearly seen better days, with lovely old, but derelict, buildings, though a few were still doing well and we stopped at one, Coolamon, around 8am and bought breakfast, which we ate in a small town park.  In one of the small hamlets, our passing stirred up two dogs, one quite large, who chased along inside their yard barking loudly at us.  This was fine until they reached the end of their yard and both hurdled the fence and pursued us on the road.  I did a lot of yelling and made a couple of aggressive swerves to deter the biggest from getting too close.  Fortunately, he didn't seem too nast, and in the end, gave up the chase.

After breakfast, we continued eastwards on the Canola Way, with the headwind much stronger, and a few climbs thrown in for good measure.  However, the countryside was beautiful with a variety of crops and some grazing land on rolling hills.  Everything looked very green and productive.

We took a mid-morning break on the northern outskirts of historic Junee, having completed 100km of our 190km for the day, but we were slower than hoped, primarily due to the wind, but also the climbs.  It was busier as we joined the Olympic Highway and we had to ride on the narrow road edge, which was rough tar, for safety.  The scenery remained beautiful, despite the continuing climbs, as we soldiered on to the large regional town of Cootamundra, where we had a very late lunch in a bakery around 3pm.  Again, we had hoped to be earlier, but the wind and hills meant we were barely averaging 15kph for long periods.

The last 40km was more hills as we climbed to our highest elevations for the day in the Great Dividing Range (according to Julie's watch, we climbed 1375 metres today).  We had one somewhat amusing episode on this section when we encountered roadworks on a steep uphill, and we kept the single lane closed for an extra long time as we laboured up the hill when it came to our time to go.  By this stage our legs were very tired and we were not in the mood to go faster than a comfortable pace.  They could wait!

Around 6pm, we finally reached Harden (at the top of another long hill, of course), and stopped in at the town supermarket to buy our microwavable dinner, before continuing on a short distance to our booked motel.  We checked in, having our temperature taken for the first time on the trip.  I thought we might have been over-heated, given all the hard climbing, but we passed OK.  We quickly showered, ate and went to bed, knowing we had another challenging day tomorrow.

The reason we are doing long hard days this week is that, having decided to head for home, I worked out a schedule that would get us home this coming Friday afternoon.  There is an event we would like to attend on Saturday, and now some other commitments have been planned for the weekend.  My schedule for the five days of this week was challenging, but doable, but we hadn't reckoned on the unusual weather pattern which has brought strong headwinds, cold weather and a lot of rain (a year's worth in two days in some places) to the eastern states.  It has added a degree of difficulty to our last week of cycling.   However, we are up to the challenge and today, which was likely to be the toughest, is now done.  We have a sense of accomplishment, but know the next two days will also be testing.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 117 - Hay to Narrandera

Day:  117

Date:  Monday, 26 October 2020

Start:  Hay

Finish:  Narrandera

Daily Kilometres:  174 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  12368

Weather:  Cold, windy, overcast and raining

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Trail mix

  Lunch:  Pie/Chico roll

  Dinner:  Pizza, vanilla slice

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Hot showers in our motel room after nearly eleven hours of riding in freezing wet conditions.

Lowlight:  Riding along the highway in the morning, we startled some emus, one on one side of the road and four on the other.  They were hemmed in by fences, so began running along through the roadside vegetation trying to stay in front of us for nearly a kilometre, when a car followed by an eighteen-wheeler approached from the other direction.  At this point, the lone emu decided it wanted to cross the road to its mates, right in front of the car, which despite braking, hit it hard.  We dodged bits of emu and bits of car fender as they hit the road in front of us.  The emu was killed outright and the car was damaged, but not immobilised.  We cycled on.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

The weather forecast was not good for our planned 170km day - headwinds, cold temperatures and showers.  As it turned out, it wasn't completely accurate.  Instead of showers we had almost continuous rain!

We left in darkness and rain at 4:45am, to give us some buffer time to reach our destination, Narrandera, in case the going was very slow.  After an hour, the sky gradually lightened to reveal very wet flat grazing land, with a line of trees off to the left, marking the course of the Murrumbidgee River.  We made our first stop at a highway rest area around 6:45am and ate breakfast at a sheltered, but wind-exposed, picnic table.  We were both cold and added another layer beneath our rainjackets before continuing on.

The rain stopped for a little while, giving brief hope that we might warm up, but soon it returned and continued all the way to Narrandera.  After another couple of hours riding, during which we witnessed (and perhaps, caused) the demise of an emu (see above), we stopped at another picnic shelter for a break.  We needed the rest and to get out of the rain, but were both wet and shivering in the cold wind, so didn't hang around for too long, keen to get to our next stop, a service station where we planned to get lunch and get warm.

That hour and a half passed slowly, and I spent a considerable part of that time questioning my reasons for subjecting us both to this wet and cold misery.  It was not fun, and I knew the forecast for the next few days was for more of the same.  My answer was that it is just one day in our lives, that once we get warm and dry it won't seem so bad, and that it is an experience.  But, at the time, this reasoning was cold comfort.

Eventually, we reached the small service station and persuaded the proprietress to let us eat our purchased lunch inside at the tables (reserved for truck drivers only).  It wasn't heated, but at least it was out of the wind and rain.  Julie's face was literally blue as she hugged her hot chocolate, trying to warm her body, and we were both still shivering, shaking the table as we ate.

Nevertheless, we didn't wait there.  We just wanted to get to Narrandera, 59km away, and to our motel room to doff our wet gear and get warm.  We set off into the continuing rain and headwind along the puddled highway, cringing for an icy blast as each eighteen-wheeler passed.  Nearer Narrandera, the countryside became a little hilly and there were more trees, as well as some orchards and vineyards.  We had a very brief stop at another picnic shelter with 15km to go, then rode into the historic, but very wet, Narrandera at 3:30pm.  By 4pm we were both showered and in dry clothes, satisfied with our day's effort, but not relishing the thought of a repeat tomorrow.

Julie put our wet gear in a drier, we dialled the room heater up to its maximum, and later bought take-out pizza for dinner.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 116 - Hay

Day:  116

Date:  Sunday, 25 October 2020

Start:  Hay

Finish:  Hay

Daily Kilometres:  0 (click here for Julie's Strava and photos from our walk)

Total Kilometres:  12194

Weather:  Cold, windy and sunny

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Scrambled eggs on toast

  Lunch:  Scrambled eggs on toast & donut/Peanut butter on toast & muffin

  Dinner:  Tuna mornay/Beef satay, ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  None really

Lowlight:  None really

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We had a good sleep-in then, after a breakfast of scrambled eggs cooked by Julie in the microwave, we walked from the motel down to the parks near the Murrumbidgee River and found the Bidgee Riverside Trail which took us alongside the river past some pieces of sculpture, explanatory signs about local history, and the small sandy town beach.  The sun was shining and it was very attractive and peaceful, but there was a chill wind.

We returned from the walk via the town's residential streets and some lovely period houses and gardens before traversing the length of the very quiet main street, which also included some historic buildings.

After lunch in our room, we took it easy for the rest of the afternoon (though Julie did go for another walk), conscious that we had some hard riding ahead of us in the next four days.  Later we had dinner in our room and watched the NRL Grand Final on TV.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 115 - Balranald to Hay

Day:  115

Date:  Saturday, 24 October 2020

Start:  Balranald

Finish:  Hay

Daily Kilometres:  132 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  12194

Weather:  Mild, raining early and overcast

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Curried egg & lettuce sandwich/Chicken & cheese sandwich

  Lunch:  Lamb Yiros

  Dinner:  Chicken & chorizo paella, ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  The last hour of riding, flying along with a tailwind, outrunning the heavy dark rain cloud we could see looming behind us, and knowing we would have an early finish followed by a day off was exhilarating.

Lowlight:  The first hour of riding after leaving the motel at 5:40am was pretty miserable. Darkness, steady rain, endless puddles and a mild headwind all conspired to make us think we might have been better to stay in bed.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

Although we had a relatively short day in prospect, just 132km to Hay, we decided we would still get up at 5am and aim to get to Hay in time for lunch there.  There had been long periods of steady rain during the night, and it was raining as we prepared to leave.  A quick check of the weather radar indicated that the rain was likely to last for a couple of hours, then clear.  We gave momentary consideration to postponing our departure until the rain stopped but, having woken early, we just wanted to get going.

We pedalled out of town on the very wet road and were soon in total darkness as we crossed the Murrumbidgee River.  Our route for the next four hundred kilometres will follow the river upstream, though we will only see it occasionally.  We can remember fording it near its source in Kosciusko National Park eighteen months ago when we were hiking the Australian Alps Walking Track.

It was quite miserable riding early on (see above), and we weren't expecting to be dealing with a headwind, but as the cloud-covered sky lightened, so did our mood.  There was very little traffic, just a few eighteen-wheelers in the first hour, so we could choose our line on the road to minimise puddle spray.  The country was flat and treeless, the southern fringe of the Hay Plains, claimed to be one of the flattest places on earth.  Julie's Strava record for the day shows our elevation stayed between 70 and 90 metres above sea level for almost the entire 132km journey.  The humidity had cleared with the rain, so we could see a long way to the horizon, which seemed to emphasise how low were the clouds, in all shades of grey, covering the skies.  You almost felt like you could reach up and touch them.

Traffic had increased, and we tensed and gritted our teeth for the cold shower we were blasted with whenever an eighteen-wheeler passed by (in either direction), but the rain held off and the wind gradually swung behind us, making the last half of our journey quite pleasant.  We only took two breaks, at 64km and 103km, both at picnic shelters in windswept highway rest areas, so made good time for the day and soon after noon we were crossing the Murrumbidgee again, this time into the town of Hay, a regional centre.

Our motel kindly let us check in early, and we quickly showered and walked up to the town bakery, getting there just before it closed, and bought some lunch which we ate back at the motel.  There followed shopping and laundry, microwaved dinner, and then watching the AFL Grand Final (= Superbowl) on TV where, sadly, my team lost.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 114 - Buronga to Balranald

Day:  114

Date:  Friday, 23 October 2020

Start:  Buronga

Finish:  Balranald

Daily Kilometres:  156 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  12062

Weather:  Mild, humid, overcast, with occasional light rain

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg & lettuce rolls

  Lunch:  Chicken, cheese, tomato & lettuce rolls

  Dinner:  Lasagne/Spaghetti bolognaise, ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant 

Highlight:  The weather conditions for riding were much better than anticipated.  The weather forecasts issued both last night and early this morning contained warnings for heavy rain and strong winds, so we were anticipating a miserable day, with 155km to ride.  However, we only encountered periods of light spitting rain, barely enough to warrant donning a rainjacket, and the winds were relatively light and neutral in direction.

Lowlight:  None really

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We expected miserable weather today (see above), so set off apprehensively in darkness at 5:40am for our 155km ride to Balranald.  We carried our supplies for the day, since, although our route took us close to the town of Robinvale, we could not use it for resupply as it would have required crossing the Murray River into Victoria, and we wouldn't have been allowed back into New South Wales without quarantining (we could see the police checkpoint from the Robinvale turnoff as we passed by).

There were vineyards and orchards early on, but then it was mostly Mallee woodland - red sandy soil, small gnarly eucalypts and low scrub - on both sides of the road.  We reached our planned breakfast stop at 54km without encountering rain or headwinds and decided to take advantage of the conditions to go another 15km to the next rest area before stopping around 8:40am.

As we were getting ready to leave, it began spitting with rain and we put on our rainjackets, though the humidity was high and we were soon sweating.  We rode 35km to another highway rest area in the spitting rain, skirting the hamlet of Euston and passing the Robinvale turnoff en route.  Around those places, there were some more vineyards and almond orchards, but before long we were back into the Mallee woodland and then some sheep grazing country and the occasional grain field.

At our next break, we decided it was too warm and not raining enough to warrant our rainjackets, but we hadn't gone too far before the rain intensified enough to make us stop and put them back on.  Despite the Sturt Highway being the main route between Sydney and Adelaide, traffic was relatively light, and we often had extended periods during which we had the road to ourselves, which is always enjoyable.  As the light rain continued, we ended up riding 45km to our final (lunch) break, a little further than planned, so that we had a rest area with a sheltered picnic table.

It was then only 15km to our motel in Balranald, reached about 2:30pm, after a comfortable and better-than-expected ride.  The balance of the day was the usual showers, shopping and recovery.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 113 - Renmark to Buronga

Day:  113

Date:  Thursday, 22 October 2020

Start:  Renmark

Finish:  Buronga

Daily Kilometres:  145 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  11906

Weather:  Warm and sunny

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg & lettuce sandwiches

  Lunch:  Beef, tomato & relish sandwiches

  Dinner:  Bangers & mash/Chicken pasta bake, ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Being allowed back into New South Wales (NSW) without being required to quarantine, having transited through 100+ kilometres of COVID-stricken Victoria on our way from South Australia (SA).   The NSW government says on its website you can only travel from SA to NSW through Victoria by private vehicle along the Sturt Highway, which is what we did, but we doubted they expected to see any cyclists.  The NSW police were mildly amused and bemused by our arrival, and we were sent to another checkpoint to fill out a form and have our ID checked (by a policeman who turned out to be from our home town of Terrigal), but all was fine and in 15 minutes we were on our way.

Lowlight:  The flies, when we stopped by the road under a tree to have lunch, were of plague proportions.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We were both awake at 3:45am, perhaps in anticipation of crossing back into NSW today, and decided to get up and on the road early.  I also hoped, fruitlessly as it turned out, to see the Orionid meteor shower which was supposed to be visible between 4am and 5am.  We got on the road at 4:30am and rode south-east out of Renmark after crossing the Murray River again.  Although the sky was clear, the meteor shower was supposed to be visible in the northern sky, that is back over our left shoulders, so it was a bit hard to keep a close watch.

It was cool, though not cold, and apart from a gradual climb away from the river, the riding was easy in the darkness, made even better by very little traffic.  We reached the Victorian border as the sky was lighting the east and we were then treated to another beautiful sunrise as we traversed the arid woodlands of the Murray Sunset National Park.  While the rising sun was low, we had some concerns about our visibility to vehicles, mostly trucks, approaching from behind, but fortunately the road edge was quite wide and rideable, so we stayed there and had no problems.

We stopped in a roadside rest area for breakfast after 50km, where it was still cool, though you could feel the temperature rising by the minute.  After breakfast, a mild headwind sprang up, slowing our progress a little, as we passed through vast fields of wheat and hay, interspersed with scrubby sandy woodland.

After another 30km, we stopped for a break in another roadside rest area.  We had the option of stopping at a store in the tiny hamlet of Cullulleraine, just a few kilometres ahead, but we had decided it was better not to enter any stores or other businesses in Victoria as we transited so we had a better story to tell to the NSW police at the border, if asked.

Our last break, for lunch, under a tree by the road with 30km to go, was spoiled by the flies and we didn't dally.  By now the country included some huge vineyards to accompany the vast grain fields, and there were orchards and more signs of civilisation as we approached Merbein South and then the city of Mildura.  It felt a little strange, pedalling through the Mildura urban area, to see everybody wearing facemasks, which are compulsory now in Victoria unless exercising or eating, or in private homes/vehicles.  For nearly four months, we have been passing through areas where there is no COVID and few facemasks.  We had purchased a facemask each in Adelaide, in case we had to stop while passing through Victoria, but as it turned out we reached the "mighty" Murray River, and the NSW border, without needing to stop in Mildura other than for an endless string of traffic lights.

We crossed the river and border without much difficulty (see above) around 1:30pm and rode a short distance further to our booked motel in the small town of Buronga.  It was an early and welcome finish to a day during which we travelled through three states, and we are now in the home straight.  I later rode 1.5km to a supermarket to buy dinner and supplies for tomorrow, given it will be another day with no resupply options, and we had a quiet afternoon.

Later, we microwaved dinner in the communal kitchen of our motel, which also serves as a hostel for fruit-pickers, and had an early night.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 112 - Pinnaroo to Renmark

Day:  112

Date:  Wednesday, 21 October 2020

Start:  Pinnaroo

Finish:  Renmark

Daily Kilometres:  146 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  11761

Weather:  Cold early, then mostly sunny and mild with occasional spits of rain

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg & lettuce sandwiches

  Lunch:  Chicken schnitzel & mayo sandwiches

  Dinner:  Fish & chips/Hamburger & chips, ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  None really.

Lowlight:  None really.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We left our motel around 6:30am on a cold and sunny morning and made a short  detour through the centre of Pinnaroo to have a look around.  Our impressions were that it was a well-kept little town and that large scale agriculture was the main local industry as there were huge machines in sales yards and repair shops.  This was confirmed as we headed north and saw vast crop fields stretching as far as the eye could see on low hills on both sides of the road.

Further along, there were fewer fields and we saw more and sandy and hilly woodlands.  Some of the latter were in conservation areas but, to my uneducated eye, it was hard to determine why there were crops in one place and arid woodland in others when the topology seemed to be the same.  Maybe fertiliser explains it, or perhaps land-clearing regulations.

We rode the first 70km without a break to the tiny hamlet of Browns Well, where there was a tiny picnic area/campground, a few shuttered old buildings, a few houses, and not much else.  Seventy kilometres without a break is a bit longer than we usually like to go for our first leg of the day, but if we have the option of a picnic table and/or toilet block we'll usually ride a bit further (or shorter) to take advantage of that.  And, even though it was further than we would have liked, it's always nice to have put a big dent in the day's mileage by breakfast time.

From Browns Well the country continued to be a mix of crops and sandy hilly woodland until we got closer to Loxton where we started to see orchards and vineyards.   There was a long stretch of roadworks on this section and we got to know another traffic controller.  We also had the driver of an eighteen-wheeler pull his rig over to the side of the road in front of us and wave us down for a friendly chat about where we were riding.

In Loxton, another well-kept town, with 104km done for the day, we stopped for a snack in a park and then followed the out-of-sight Murray River eastwards for 20km through irrigated orchards and vineyards to another sizeable town, Berri, where we crossed the Murray and found a service station and some sandwiches for lunch.  From there, we had an easy 18km to the regional town of Renmark and our booked motel.  On the way into town, along an attractive tree-lined avenue, Julie commented on how many roses were blooming in the beautiful gardens of houses, and we later found out that this is the Renmark Rose Festival Week.

We checked in around 3pm, and did the usual showers, shopping and relaxing before walking down to the town centre to buy take-out for dinner (no microwave in our motel room).  We took the opportunity to have a look at the attractive riverside on the way, and then ate our food back at the motel.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 111 - Bordertown to Pinnaroo

Day:  111

Date:  Tuesday, 20 October 2020

Start:  Bordertown

Finish:  Pinnaroo

Daily Kilometres:  132 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  11615

Weather:  Very cold early, then mild and sunny

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg & lettuce sandwiches

  Lunch:  Chicken schnitzel & mayo sandwich/Chicken & avocado sandwich

  Dinner:  Tuna mornay/Fettucine carbonara, ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  As we rode out of Bordertown in light fog we saw a fog bow, or white rainbow.  A rare sight, to me, anyway.

Lowlight:  It was very cold this morning as we left under clear sunny skies in light fog, and our fingers and feet were soon frozen.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

As we had a relatively short day (~130km) planned, and the overnight temperature was forecast to fall to 3°C, we decided to leave a little later.  This proved to be a wise move, as it was still very cold at 6:45am when we left Bordertown after stopping in at a service station to buy drinks and sandwiches for breakfast and lunch.  There were no places to resupply on today's route, so we needed to be self-sufficient.

The clear skies and layered fog across the farmland as the sun rose was a beautiful scene, despite the cold, and although we were soon riding in the fog, it wasn't thick enough to make us feel unsafe in the light traffic.  After a few kilometres, we turned north off what was the main Melbourne-Adelaide highway to follow the sign to Pinnaroo, our goal for the day.  For the first hour it was very cold riding, particularly where the roadside trees cast long shadows from the rising sun.

It was noticeable, the further north we rode, that the roadside trees became smaller and gnarlier, the farmland more open, and the soil more sandy.  There was little traffic and for long periods we had the road to ourselves.  We stopped for breakfast around 9am, and although we had warmed up, we sought a spot with some sun.

On resuming, we entered the Ngarkat Conservation Area, where scrubby arid country stretched out as far as the eye could see both sides of the road with the occasional sand dune visible.  It was quite a contrast to the countryside of the previous day.  We have seen quite a few squashed skink lizards over the past week, so it was nice to encounter, at one point, two live ones on the road.  To give them a chance of a longer life we stopped and, after photographs, shepherded them off the road.  They moved very slowly, probably because they were cold, so it's not surprising we see so many squashed ones.

After another break by the roadside, it was getting warm enough to strip down to our T-shirts, the first time for a few days, and we continued the pleasant undulating ride through the Conservation Area, stopping occasionally to admire the view, although there were no really high points.  Around 1pm, we exited the Conservation Area and entered a rural landscape with huge fields on low rolling hills.  Shortly after, we found a nice spot at a field entrance, with just 30 kilometres to Pinnaroo, and had an unusually leisurely lunch on a very pleasant day.

The last leg, which included a long stretch of roadworks (and the usual chat with a traffic controller), passed quite quickly and we reached our booked motel in Pinnaroo at 2:45pm.  There are police vehicles here, no doubt connected with the COVID controls at the Victorian border, just a few kilometres away.  The COVID outbreak in Victoria seems to be almost under control (just one new case yesterday), and there is lots of news chatter about when restrictions there will be eased further and what this means for travel from there to other States, but no firm commitments. Unless something changes in the next 24 hours we will be turning for home the following day.

There is a large service station next to the motel and, after showering, we bought microwaveable frozen dinner from there, along with sandwiches for tomorrow's breakfast. There was then time to relax before dinner and an early night after a very pleasant day.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 110 - Mount Gambier to Bordertown

Day:  110

Date:  Monday, 19 October 2020

Start:  Mount Gambier

Finish:  Bordertown

Daily Kilometres:  186 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  11483

Weather:  Cold and overcast

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Quiche, donut/cupcake

  Lunch:  Chicken & bacon melt sub

  Dinner:  Chilli con carne/Chicken parmigiana & vegetables, ice-creams 

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Around noon, we turned off the busy Adelaide-Mount Gambier highway onto the relatively minor road to (the imaginatively named) Bordertown.  The traffic noise was replaced with the loud primeval screeching of squadrons of white cockatoos and the less cacophonic high-pitched cheeping of flocks of galahs, seemingly following us along the road lined with magnificent old eucalypts.

Lowlight:  The highway out of Mount Gambier was busier than expected, with plenty of trucks.  We had to stick to the narrow road edge, often rough bitumen and barely six inches wide, for safety.  The scenery was good, but most of our attention had to be on the road.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

Given we had 180km+ to ride today, we made an early start, riding north out of the dark Mount Gambier, accompanied by a surprising amount of traffic, at 5:15am.  It soon became apparent that the highway was the route of choice from Mount Gambier and south-west Victoria to Adelaide, meaning that we had plenty of traffic for the first 125km on a road not kind to cyclists (see above).

On the plus side, there was a following breeze, the road grades were gentle, and the rural scenery interesting.  Initially, it was mostly lush grazing country but, as we neared Penola, where we stopped for breakfast at a bakery, there were vast vineyards and many familiar winery names (even to me).  The vineyards continued the other side of Penola for many kilometres and then became less frequent, with more grazing country and some crops.

We reached Naracoorte around 10:15am, with 102km done, and stopped at a service station on the outskirts for a snack and to buy lunch for later consumption.  While stopped, I booked accommodation in Bordertown, our goal for the day, having heard nothing about changes to New South Wales regulations for entrants from regional Victoria following the latter's eased COVID-19 restrictions today (read yesterday's blog).

After Naracoorte, the surrounding lush rural countryside became a little hillier, though the cycling remained easy, apart from the volume of traffic.  We were happy to leave that traffic behind when we turned off the busy highway to take a relatively minor road towards Bordertown.  Suddenly, apart from the birdlife (see above), peace and tranquility reigned.  There was little traffic and the wide roadside easement was a forest of magnificent eucalypts, later joined by prolific grass trees.  With 40km to go, we stopped for a picnic lunch on a patch of roadside grass, before continuing on to little Bordertown, the birthplace of the famous Australian, Bob Hawke, where we arrived about 3:45pm.

We stopped in at the town supermarket to buy some snacks and drink, but didn't buy microwavable dinner because the motel had said our room didn't have a microwave.  Of course when we got there, 1.5km outside of town, our room did have a microwave.  So, after unloading the bikes I rode back into the supermarket and bought some frozen dinners.  Not a big deal, but not something I needed at the end of a long day.  Just one of those travel hiccups.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 109 - Mount Gambier

Day:  109

Date:  Sunday, 18 October 2020

Start:  Mount Gambier

Finish:  Mount Gambier

Daily Kilometres:  17 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  11297

Weather:  Cold, overcast and windy

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Scrambled eggs on toast

  Lunch:  Fish & chips/

  Dinner:  Spaghetti & meatballs/Chicken pops & vegetables, apple crumble & custard

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Umpherston Sinkhole was an unusual and interesting sight.  A sinkhole (collapsed limestone cave) was developed in the late 19th century by a wealthy landowner as a sunken English-style garden, then fell into disuse before being restored in the late 20th century.  It was unique, like a terrarium nestled in a hole, with creepers forming a curtain around the sides and lawns, paths and exotic plants at the base.

Lowlight:  None really

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We had a day off in Mount Gambier today, partly as a rest and partly to await the scheduled announcement about the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in Victoria.  We are only 32km via our originally intended route from the Victorian border, but we don't want to go into Victoria, which has been fighting an extensive second coronavirus wave, unless we can get back into New South Wales (NSW) without undergoing two weeks of self-funded hotel quarantine, as is the case now.  [One hundred metres from our motel is another motel, temporarily-fenced and guarded by police and military personnel, with a row of neatly parked civilian vehicles outside, which we presume is the compulsory quarantine site for people entering South Australia from nearby Victoria.]

So, we slept in late, ate Julie's microwaved scrambled eggs on toast (delicious), watched (me) the Sunday morning current affairs programs on TV, and then rode our unloaded bikes to two of the local scenic highlights.  Firstly, we cycled up to the rim of The Blue Lake, a water-filled volcanic crater dating from just 5,000 years ago.  It was very impressive with sheer walls descending to the mirror-calm 70 metre deep lake, which apparently changes colour at different times of the year.   The rim trail also gave excellent views over the very green rural countryside and the large town of Mount Gambier.  We rode the 5km lap, stopping at various points to admire the views and take photos, before descending through the centre of the historic town and pedalling out to the Umpherston Sinkhole.

The Sinkhole was unusual and spectacular (see above), and we locked our bikes to a pole (which we later realised had a base plaque saying it was a heritage gaslight pole!) and descended into the exotic garden for a look around.  It was lunchtime by the time we left, so we rode back to our motel via the local fish and chip shop and supermarket.  After lunch, Julie did the laundry while I watched Australia get trounced by New Zealand in the second Bledisloe Cup rugby match on TV.  It's called division of labour!  Later, we returned to the supermarket to buy some microwavable dinner and other supplies, had dinner in our room, and had an early night.

Victoria did announce some easing of restrictions, but not enough to allow us to follow the coast through Melbourne back to NSW.  However, restrictions in regional Victoria, which already has looser restrictions, were also eased and there's some chance NSW might change its regulations to allow regional Victorians to enter NSW without quarantine.  In the absence of such a change, we will head north tomorrow, paralleling the Victorian border, for three days and then cross into NSW and head for home.  If NSW favourably changes its policy regarding entrants from regional Victoria in the next couple of days, we may turn eastwards and at least ride some of western Victoria including the Grampians and the Great Ocean Road before heading home.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 108 - Robe to Mount Gambier

Day:  108

Date:  Saturday, 17 October 2020

Start:  Robe

Finish:  Mount Gambier

Daily Kilometres:  137 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  11280

Weather:  Cold, mostly overcast and windy

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Apricot bun & donut/Sausage roll & apricot bun

  Lunch:  Chicken, bacon & cheese met sub

  Dinner:  Pulled pork & rice/Lamb rissoles & vegetables, apple pie & custard

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  On the road out of Robe, foam whipped up on one of the small lakes by the wind blew across the road.  Out on the highway, we were buffeted by the raw south-westerly, straight off the Southern Ocean, under a gloomy heavy overcast with occasional spits of rain, as we rode past dunes and across flat farmland.  It was elemental and invigorating ….. at least for the first hour or two.

Lowlight:  There were no easy kilometres today.  The cold blustery wind was either across us or against us, and never gave us a break.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

As usual, we both groaned when the alarm went, this morning at 5:15am.  It's always hard to get out of bed, but once we do, we each fall into a routine that generally sees us packed and on our bikes in 30-45 minutes.  There are never any groans when we start riding, just a pleasant anticipation of the day ahead and what surprises it might hold for us.

We rode out of Robe at 6am, aiming for the the small resort of Beachport, 52km away, for breakfast.  It was cold, gloomy and windy (see above) as we followed the coastal dunes to the south-east. Initially, it was flat with a mix of coastal vegetation and farmland, but further along we encountered some gentle hills and rolling green pastures.  Near Beachport, the country was more open and the cold wind fierce.  We stopped to look at the resort's wind-whipped ocean beach, before riding into the town along a bike path which passed a surprisingly well-patronised, but very bleak, caravan park.  It was hard to imagine what outdoor activities the holiday-makers could have on their menu for today.

We bought breakfast from the deli/newsagent on the tiny main street and ate it at an outside table, shivering in the wind.  We didn't hang around and rode back out of town around 9:30am, bound for Millicent, 32km away.  This area is known as the Limestone Coast, and the white rock could be seen in small outcrops and in bare patches in some of the fields.  Despite the wind and cold, the increasingly undulating countryside was varied and attractive, populated with plenty of well-fed cattle.

Millicent is quite a large town, but looked desolate today, with the cold wind whistling down the very quiet main street when we arrived at 11:30am.  We bought a snack for morning tea, which we ate on an exposed bench outside the Visitors Centre, as well as a sub which we carried with us for a later lunch.

After Millicent, pine plantations became a common feature, which was good for us, because they had a dampening effect on the wind.  We had one final break, to eat lunch, on an exposed picnic table by the road, before cycling the remaining 30km to Mount Gambier, our goal for the day, which we reached about 2:45pm.  It is a large town, and it took a little while to get from the outskirts to our motel, during which time it began to rain. Fortunately, the rain abated and we checked in, very pleased to have finished the day and to get out of the elements.  Although not a huge day, kilometre-wise, it was hard work, offset by varied scenic interest.

After showers we walked to the nearest supermarket, 600 metres away, to buy dinner, and got caught in a light rain shower on the way back.  After a microwaved dinner, we (well, me, anyway) watched the football finals on TV, enjoying the warmth of our heated room on a very wintry evening.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 107 - Policeman Point to Robe

Day:  107

Date:  Friday, 16 October 2020

Start:  Policeman Point

Finish:  Robe

Daily Kilometres:  148 (click for Julie's Strava and photos and here for Robe sightseeing)

Total Kilometres:  11143

Weather:  Cold and overcast in the morning, mild and mostly overcast in the afternoon.

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Ham salad roll/Cheese salad roll

  Lunch:  Pastie & donut/Sausage roll & vanilla slice

  Dinner:  Bangers & mash/Chicken Kiev & vegetables, ice cream & chocolate pudding

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  The morning riding with Coorong National Park on one side and grassy farmland or dense coastal forest on the other.  We only got glimpses of The Coorong (lagoon) itself with much of the ride through a tunnel gnarly malaleuca forest that opened occasionally on the left side to reveal low hills of grassy farmland, some of it almost golf course-like.  It went on and on, bringing home how vast and isolated this area is.  As a bonus, we even saw three emus.

Lowlight:  We were dive-bombed by magpies several times during the day.  Having read that a Victorian man had been hospitalised earlier in the week after being attacked in both eyes by a magpie, there was a certain tension as the birds repeatedly swooped, but we survived unscathed.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

Although we had a relatively short 140km day planned, the forecast was for a cold day with headwinds and we were a little apprehensive about how hard the day would be.  We decided an earlier start was required, though not too early given the forecast temperatures.  Accordingly, we were on the road soon after 6am in chilly conditions (feels like 5°C, said the weather app) to find there was a headwind, but not as strong as feared.

We rode for a little over two hours along the edge of the Coorong National Park enjoying the remote coastal area's views and forests (see above) before stopping in a rest area for breakfast.  It was somewhat protected, so wasn't freezing, but was cold enough for us to decide to leave our extra layers of clothing on for the next leg.  We split the 50km to the town of Kingston SE from our breakfast stop into two with a break in another chilly rest area.  The country was becoming more rural, but there remained a long line of high sand dunes to our right, beyond which was the ocean, and there were still ponds, lagoons and wetlands around.

At the outskirts of Kingston, reached a little before noon, we made a detour through the small town to the coast where we had a look at the grassy foreshore reserve with no discernible beach and the relocated (into town) Cape Jaffa lighthouse.  We didn't hang around, and returned to a bakery we had seen on the highway for a nice lunch made even better by the heated interior where we dined.

We thought we might need to break the remaining 46km into two legs given the wind was still blowing, but it wasn't too bad.  Initially, it was through flat verdant farmland, but became hillier closer to Robe with some vineyards and pine plantations.

Robe is an historic small port (with a foreshore monument to the thousands of Chinese gold miners who landed there in the mid-1800s before trekking to the Victorian goldfields) which has become a popular beach resort.  We stopped in at our booked motel at 2:45pm, unloaded our bikes, and then spent an hour riding through town and around the adjacent cape known as The Tip on a challenging little bike path admiring the jagged limestone coastal cliffs and offshore rock formations.

Back at the motel, we did the usual showers and shopping before eating a microwaved dinner before watching some televised football and retiring.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 106 - Murray Bridge to Policeman Point

Day:  106

Date:  Thursday, 15 October 2020

Start:  Murray Bridge

Finish:  Policeman Point

Daily Kilometres:  133 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  10995

Weather:  Mild and overcast in the morning, overcast and windy with some rain in the afternoon

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg & bacon rolls

  Lunch:  Ham salad roll/Chicken salad roll

  Dinner:  Pizza, chocolate pudding & cream

Aches:  Nursing a troublesome right hip flexor

Highlight:  Riding alongside The Coorong, the famous and internationally recognised 130km long lagoon system/wetland formed as part of the Murray River estuary and separated from the Southern Ocean by the long stretch of sand dunes known as the Younghusband peninsula.  In today's weather, it looked wild and unforgiving, with the shallow lagoon whipped into whitecaps, the dunes separating the ocean from The Coorong indistinct in the rain, and pelicans struggling to make headway and maintain formation as they flew overhead (it was the location for the movie, Storm Boy).  It seemed remote and inhospitable, with just a few fishing shacks in sheltered hollows, a couple of sheep stations, and the small town of Meningie, but apparently it was the most densely populated area in Australia prior to European settlement.

Lowlight:  I got stung by an unseen bee on one of my fingers while riding.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We had a relatively easy 130km planned for today, with a couple of towns en route and a light following wind forecast, so we didn't hit the road until about 6:45am.  We started by riding through the regional town of Murray Bridge and crossing the Murray River on the long bridge which, because of its narrowness, did not make it easy to stop and take photos.  We stopped on the eastern side and Julie ran back on the narrow pedestrian path, still wearing her helmet, to take the required photos.

From Murray Bridge we had a pleasant morning ride across rolling green pastures under cloudy skies paralleling the river to the small town of Tailem Bend where we bought some breakfast at a roadhouse around 8am.  We turned off the main Adelaide to Melbourne road soon afterwards, towards The Coorong (see above) and the small holiday town of Meningie.  Shallow lakes, sand flats, and marshy areas began appearing in the lower lying areas, while the higher ground remained green pastureland.  Near Meningie, we reached the broad expanse of The Coorong with the sand dunes separating it from the ocean visible in the far distance.  When we reached the town, we found a bakery where we bought sandwiches for lunch today and for breakfast tomorrow, along with a morning snack which we ate in a pretty foreshore park.

Soon after leaving Meningie, at around 1pm, the weather took a sharp turn for the worse, with a vicious cold south-easterly headwind springing up to make cycling very hard.  Our speed dropped, but time wasn't an issue as we only had about 40km remaining for the day.  We stopped for a quick lunch at an exposed little picnic area overlooking the windblown Coorong around 1:30pm and then struggled into the wind for the last 18km to Policeman Point, our destination for the day.

Policeman Point is no more than a windswept couple of houses and a tiny hotel-motel in the middle of nowhere, but it was a welcome sight to us and we checked in at 3pm and shortly after were enjoying warm showers in our room.  The rest of the afternoon was spent trip-planning and relaxing, after which we bought dinner at the pub and had an early night.  I think we are the only people staying here.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 105 - Adelaide to Murray Bridge

Day:  105

Date:  Wednesday, 14 October 2020

Start:  Adelaide

Finish:  Murray Bridge

Daily Kilometres:  82 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  10862

Weather:  Very warm and mostly sunny

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Huge Italian breakfast

  Lunch:  Ham, cheese & salad rolls

  Dinner:  Bangers & mash/Chicken pasta bake, ice-creams

Aches:  My hip flexor has been quite sore today 

Highlight:  Meeting up for breakfast with friends from home, Bec and Ron, who are in Adelaide for their daughter's wedding.  It was nice to see some familiar faces and we had a good chat over an exotic and huge Italian breakfast.

Lowlight:  None really.  It was a tough climb out of Adelaide, but we knew it would be and the beautiful scenery was more than adequate compensation. 

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We were meeting Central Coast friends, Bec and Ron, for breakfast near our apartment at 8am, so we got up early enough to pack our bikes ready to go before walking to the cafe for a very pleasant catch-up (see above).

After breakfast, we returned to our apartment, checked out at 10:15am and pedalled south-east out of the city on a warm and sunny morning.  Our major cycling task for the day, climbing over the shoulder of Mt Lofty on the Crafers bike trail, began after a few gradually uphill kilometres of suburbia.  The bike path followed the route of the old major road out of Adelaide to the south-east which had been superseded by a freeway that could be seen for much of the early ascent.  The climb never got steep enough to require walking, but it was long and quite warm, and we were envious of the road cyclists whizzing down from the opposite direction.  Near the top, there were some spectacular views back over Adelaide through gaps in the peaceful bush bordering the road.

Once we got to the top, we discovered that we could not join the freeway as I had hoped (for easier riding), and had to follow some old roads through the Adelaide hills instead.  They took us on a winding and undulating route through the lushly beautiful mountain scenery, past lovely homes and cosy little villages, and on some exhilarating descents.

At Hahndorf, a very touristy and busy village set in an attractive wine district, we bought some lunch which we ate at a park 5km further along the road with 45km to go to Murray Bridge, our goal for the day.

On the Google elevation profile for our day's ride, it showed a steady descent after our climb over Mt Lofty, but it was anything but.  It seemed that every little village was in a valley that was preceded by a fast descent and followed by a grinding ascent.  There was a sporadic following wind which helped, but we found the hills hard, perhaps because we were out of practice after many days of outback riding.

As the afternoon progressed, the country opened out into farming land and the hills became less frequent.  An amusing episode occurred in the last 15km when we passed a guy wearing denim jeans doing something to his road bike by the side of the road.  I said "g'day" as we passed but he was unresponsive.  Then, a few minutes later he pedalled furiously past us without saying a word and then kept looking back to see where we were.  He even took a gravel road shortcut on a sweeping bend to get further ahead.  After another 5km, and going up a steady hill, we saw him up ahead walking along the road pushing his bike.  He looked back, saw us coming, and jumped back on his bike and began pedalling hard again.  We never did catch him.

We reached the town of Murray Bridge around 3:45pm and checked into our motel on the western outskirts of town.  Later, we bought some supplies from a nearby small supermarket and microwaved our dinner back at the motel.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 104 - Adelaide

Day:  104

Date:  Tuesday, 13 October 2020

Start:  Adelaide

Finish:  Adelaide

Daily Kilometres:  0 (click here and for Julie's Strava and photos of today's walks)

Total Kilometres:  10780

Weather:  Warm and sunny

Accommodation:  Apartment

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Scrambled eggs, rissoles & bacon

  Lunch:  Egg & salad roll/Tandoori chicken roll

  Dinner:  Rissoles & vegetables/Steak & vegetables, apple crumble & ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Nothing in particular, but a very pleasant warm sunny day wandering around Adelaide

Lowlight:  Lukewarm showers in our apartment until a maintenance man found a previous tenant had turned off a valve (or so he said).

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We had a slow start to the day and enjoyed a home-cooked breakfast, for a change, before going for a walk around the downtown area including paths along the River Torrens, the Adelaide Oval, Rundle Mall, Pilgrim Uniting Church (where my sister was minister for a number of years) and the lively and interesting Central Markets full of appetising food and fresh produce stalls (and where COVID-19 seemed to be a distant memory).

We bought some scrumptious rolls from one of the market vendors and took them to the very pleasant Victoria Square where we joined scores of office workers eating lunch on a beautiful spring day.  After lunch, we caught a tram to the city's main beachside suburb, Glenelg, and had a wander around before returning to the city and collecting our serviced bikes from the shop near our apartment.  No major problems were found, which is a testament to the quality of the bikes given the pounding they have received over the past 8,000 kilometres with virtually no maintenance.

We had another home-cooked meal for dinner and a quiet evening.  Back on the road tomorrow.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 103 - Auburn to Adelaide

Day:  103

Date:  Monday, 12 October 2020

Start:  Auburn

Finish:  Adelaide

Daily Kilometres:  110 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  10780

Weather:  Cool early, then warm and mostly overcast

Accommodation:  Apartment

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Egg & bacon roll

  Lunch:  Honey chicken & rice/Pad Thai

  Dinner:  Nachos, apple crumble & ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  Reaching Adelaide, another milestone on our journey.

Lowlight:  We encountered more traffic lights on our ride into Adelaide this morning than we have seen in total in the last three months, and most of them were red.  It seemed that almost every light was green as we approached from about 400 metres away, and nine out of ten turned red just before we reached them.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We had promised the bike shop in Adelaide, where we had arranged to have our bikes serviced, that we would get them there as early today as possible because they had a heavy schedule.  With 110km to travel, we thought delivering them around lunchtime was possible if we didn't mess around.  We didn't want to start too early, because the road into Adelaide was likely to be Monday morning busy and cycle-unfriendly, making riding in the dark risky.  So, we left soon after 6am as the sky was lightening, with the goal of first riding 60km to a truckstop for breakfast.

The sunrise was again beautiful with the clouds glowing pink and creating some beautiful tree silhouettes on the horizon.  To the west, the first rays turned the trees on the top of the hill the shades of autumn while the fields below remained dark.  Very special.

There was an increasing amount of traffic and we spent a lot of our time checking our rear-view mirrors.  A few large trucks gave us warning horn blasts when oncoming traffic gave them little room to move over, and we spent some time in the dirt.  One highlight occurred when we came upon a wallaby in the grass verge between the road and a fence.  It was startled by my arrival and took off along the fence looking for an opening and travelling at the same speed as I was riding.  For a time we were travelling together just a few metres apart, but then it found a hole under the fence and was gone.

Although Google showed our ride for the day was gradually downhill, that's not the way it seemed.  We had a number of long gradual climbs that sapped our energy  despite assistance from a following breeze.  Around 9am, we reached the truckstop and bought some breakfast which we ate sitting on a kerb in the adjacent carwash.  Soon after, as we continued south, we passed through the large town of Gawler and from that point on were mainly riding through suburbia on the Main North Road into Adelaide.  There was a lot of traffic (and traffic lights), but it wasn't too bad and we made good time, arriving at the Torrens River on the northern edge of the city at 11:30am.

We needed to get our bikes to the bike shop as quickly as possible and suspected we were too early to check in to our booked apartment, so we stopped at a toilet block and did a quick change out of our cycling gear then rode a kilometre to the apartment block hoping we could leave our bags in storage there while we took our bikes to the shop which was nearby.  As it turned out, they let us check in at noon, so we dropped our bags in the apartment and delivered the bikes by 12:30pm, satisfied we had done our best.

After leaving the bikes, we walked a kilometre to the Rundle Mall, Adelaide's main shopping strip, and found a food court for lunch.  Afterwards, we did some supermarket shopping with the intent of using the apartment cooking facilities to cook our meals for the next couple of nights (for a change), and then returned to the apartment.

Later we cooked dinner and relaxed enjoying the excellent view we have over the city to the south and east.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 102 - Orroroo to Auburn

Day:  102

Date:  Sunday, 11 October 2020

Start:  Orroroo

Finish:  Auburn

Daily Kilometres:  156 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  10670

Weather:  Cold early, then sunny and warm

Accommodation:  Motel

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Pies

  Lunch:  Toasted lamb, cheese & tomato roll/Hot lamb roll with gravy

  Dinner:  Fish, chips & salad/Hamburger & chips, ice cream

Aches:  Nothing to speak of

Highlight:  Yet again, a beautiful dawn.  As we rode out of Orroroo on a very quiet road, the sun turned high clouds pink on the horizon ahead and then slowly lit up the gentle rural landscape around us..

Lowlight:  An aggrieved magpie swooped on me a couple of times, just missing my helmet, as we rode down a stretch of road bordered by magnificent old eucalypts.  Julie, who was riding behind, enjoyed the show, but failed to get any pictures.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We left a sleeping Orroroo and headed south on a very quiet road into a magnificent sunrise (see above).  Our target for the day was the small town of Auburn in the Clare Valley wine district, 156km  away.  The weather forecast was for a following/cross breeze, but nobody had told the weather gods, and a light head-breeze and very gradual uphill made the first few hours relatively hard work, but the beautiful rural scenery compensated.  The rolling hills gradually changed from sheep grazing to crops, the road was often lined with eucalypts, and there were more farms and houses along the way, some of them very old.

After 56km, we stopped for breakfast in the town of Jamestown, whose signage proudly claimed it to be the birthplace of the iconic Australian, R.M. Williams.  Little was open in the old town, but there was a small supermarket on the fringe with hot pies, so we bought a couple and ate them in warming sunshine on a cold morning at an old wooden picnic table outside the shire offices.

As we continued on, the road was more tree-lined and the surrounding fields more verdant.  Thirty kilometres after a morning break in the little town of Spalding, we entered the attractive Clare Valley and began to see vineyards and wineries as the hills closed in on the road. The regional town of Clare was busy with visitors, many no doubt from Adelaide  enjoying a beautiful warm sunny Sunday in the country.

We bought some lunch from a very popular bakery and ate it in a small nearby park before buying a few things from the adjacent supermarket and setting out to ride the last 24km to Auburn.  To Julie's disgust, there was yet another long hill (there had been a few earlier in the day), but soon we were rolling down the other side and reached the very small town of Auburn about 3:30pm.  We found our motel, where the proprietor had left our room unlocked as he was going to Adelaide, and settled in.

After lazing around for a few hours, we phone-ordered take-out for dinner from the only such shop open in town and later Julie walked a few hundred metres to collect it.  There followed another quiet evening and another early night.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 101 - Wilpena Pound to Orroroo

Day:  101

Date:  Saturday, 10 October 2020

Start:  Wilpena Pound

Finish:  Orroroo

Daily Kilometres:  163 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  10514

Weather:  Cold early, then sunny and mild

Accommodation:  Cabin

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Pie/Chicken & lettuce sandwich

  Lunch:  Ham, cheese & tomato sandwich/Ham, cheese & pickle sandwich 

  Dinner:  Pizza/Beef schnitzel, salad & chips, lemon tart & ice cream/chocolate lava cake & ice cream

Aches:  Nothing significant.

Highlight:  For the first hour of the day, we were treated to a beautiful sunrise, with the rays lighting up the bluffs of Wilpena Pound in a deep orange as we pedalled below through the dark cypress pine forest on a road with no other traffic.

Lowlight:  For the first hour the day it was absolutely freezing.  Hands and feet were numb, and we relished every sliver of sunlight the forest and mountains allowed through until it was high enough to warm us without interference.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

It was very cold when we woke, and that might explain the hour and a half it took us to pack up camp before we left at 6:45am.  The sun had not yet cleared the horizon and we steeled ourselves against the cold as we pedalled out across the plain and turned south down the eastern side of the Wilpena Pound.  Compensation for the cold was the magnificent sunrise we were treated to on the walls of the Pound, and the serenity of the cypress pine forest.

Eventually, the sun rose high enough to begin thawing us out making the rest of the first 56km to Hawker even more enjoyable.  At Hawker, where we had stayed on our way north four days ago, we called in at the service station and bought breakfast and supplies for later in the day as we did not expect to see any more stores.  As we pulled into the service station, two couples came over for a chat about our trip and we learned the males were about to start a ride along the 900km Mawson Trail that runs south from the Flinders Ranges to the coast.  Another one on the bucket list.

From Hawker we continued south with the aid of a nice tail breeze and entered an area of rolling red soil hills, with a light covering of new grass, perhaps courtesy of the recent rain, flanked by the mountains of the southern Flinders Ranges to the wast.  There were old crumbling farmhouses here and there, perhaps a sign that the land was not particularly fertile. We passed through the tiny hamlet of Cradock and, after one break en route, reached the slightly larger town of Carrieton where we stopped for lunch in a well-kept picnic area.  The whole of the tiny town looked well-kept, but most businesses were shuttered and keeping the place alive looked likely to require a big effort.

After Carrieton, the roadside fields became more lush and the farms looked more prosperous as we rode the last 36km of the day to the regional town of Orroroo where we arrived at 3:45pm.  It looked pretty quiet too, though the lady at the caravan park where we had booked a cabin insisted that it was a very busy and lively town, just not on Saturday afternoons on the final weekend of the school vacation.  She may have been biased, having lived here for 35 years and having two sons each owning one of the two pubs in town.

After checking in, we spent thirty minutes washing our very muddy bikes using a hose in the campground, conscious that we were taking them in for a service on Monday in Adelaide.  We then showered and did some trip-planning before wandering down to the closest pub for a very filling dinner.  Then it was back to the cabin to watch my team win a finals match on the TV, the icing on top of another very good day.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 100 - Wilpena Pound

Day:  100

Date:  Friday, 09 October 2020

Start:  Wilpena Pound

Finish:  Wilpena Pound

Daily Kilometres:  0 (click here for Julie's Strava and photos from our walk)

Total Kilometres:  10351

Weather:  Cold early, then sunny and mild

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Muesli

  Lunch:  Trail mix

  Dinner:  Chicken schnitzel, salad & chips, Tim Tams

Aches:  I am going to be very sore tomorrow after our hike.  Bike fit isn't hiking fit at my age, and although the cardiovascular system coped fine, my lower back and hips are aching tonight.

Highlight:  The 360° view from the top of St Mary's Peak (1168m) was superb.  You could see the unique Wilpena Pound, a huge 30 square kilometre basin surrounded by uplifted mountains, the folds of ranges running north, distant mountains, and dry arid plains stretching to the horizon.  The sky was cloudless, the temperatures mild and visibility excellent.  We were up there by ourselves for 20 minutes and felt like king and queen of the world.

Lowlight:  None today

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We emerged from our tent around 7am to a cold and clear windless morning and had a leisurely breakfast before setting off to hike the outside track to the summit of St Mary's Peak, the high point of the mountains surrounding Wilpena Pound, and the highest peak in the Flinders Ranges.

The trail notes called the hike strenuous, and they are not kidding.  After a few kilometres warming us up with some relatively gentle hills through groves of cypress pines, the track ascended steeply, with a lot of rock scrambling, up to the rim of the Pound.  Although we were constantly watching our footing and grip, we still had plenty of time to stop and admire the ever-expanding scene below us.

From the rim, there is a very slow out-and-back couple of kilometres to the peak, involving almost non-stop boulder-scrambling, testing both our strength and flexibility (neither of us have much of the latter).  It was hard work, but the view from the top, which we reached around noon, was superb (see above).  There was nobody else there and we savoured the grandeur in isolation.  Twenty minutes later, another couple arrived and we set off back down the mountain, meeting a number of other groups on their way up, some of whom seemed to be struggling, and another well off the track (we called out to them and set them right).

Back at the junction where the outside track reached the rim, we took the inside track, a long gradual very rocky descent along the side of a mountain, down into the Pound itself.  We only met one other group on the descent, and otherwise had to ourselves the stunning views, birdsong and sounds of a creek rushing unseen below.

When we reached the Pound floor which, with the mountains as a natural barrier, had been used for sheep grazing from the mid-19th century until the mid-20th century, we found shady groves of cypress pines interspersed with some large clearings.  The walking was mostly flat, the air temperature perfect for hiking and the sky above a cloudless blue.  We couldn't think of anywhere we would rather be.

Near the gorge exit from the Pound we passed the beautifully restored stone cottage built around 1900 by the farming family who then lived in the Pound.  From there it was just a few more kilometres back through the gorge to the campground where we arrived at 4:30pm after our 21km journey.

After showers, we had an early dinner at the bistro, followed by an early night.  Back on our bikes tomorrow.

Round Australia Bike Ride - Day 099 - Blinman to Wilpena Pound

Day:  099

Date:  Thursday, 08 October 2020

Start:  Blinman

Finish:  Wilpena Pound

Daily Kilometres:  64 (click for Julie's Strava and photos)

Total Kilometres:  10351

Weather:  Cold, windy and mostly cloudy

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Cereal, toast and apple

  Lunch:  Soup, macaroni cheese & corned beef

  Dinner:  Hamburger & chips, donut/muffin

Aches:  Nothing significant

Highlight:  The whole 64km ride from Blinman to Wilpena Pound was spectacular.  The road was a bit of a winding roller coaster, and the west wind was icy and strong, but the scenery was magic.  Rolling hills, some topped by rocky bluffs, pine covered red-soil slopes, aged elegant eucalypts in puddled creek beds, distant sun-dappled mountains, and finally the mountainous crags of Wilpena Pound, made it a very interesting ride.

Lowlight:  While Julie was changing the SIM card on her phone (we have a backup SIM from another carrier), the card and holder catapulted out of her phone and disappeared into a large swathe of small pebbles surrounding our picnic table.  It took about ten minutes of careful searching to locate both.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

With only 64km planned for today, we felt no urgency to make an early start, the wisdom of which was confirmed when a temperature check yielded 5°C without the considerable wind chill.  We ate the continental breakfast that came with our room, then repacked our now mostly dry gear, before heading off at 9am after stopping in at the tiny general store/bakery to get a snack for morning tea.

It was cold and we were wearing more gear than usual, but at least it was dry, the sun was occasionally breaking through the clouds, and we were on sealed road.  We felt no time pressure, given the relatively short journey to Wilpena Pound, and enjoyed the beautiful scenery (see above), taking just one break along the way, but making plenty of photo stops.

There was much evidence of yesterday's rain, with lots of standing water by the road, and debris and water across the road in many of the floodways.  Some parts of the journey were through sheep grazing country, with homesteads visible in the distance, and other parts were through sections of Flinders Ranges National Park.  It's one of my favourite parts of Australia, and I have visited here many times in the last 50 years.

After a last 5km beat into the wind, during which we overtook a couple of mountain-bikers out for a ride, we reached Wilpena Pound Campground and checked in around 2pm.  It is nestled in a valley just outside the Pound, a massive bowl created by a ring of mountains which also tower over the campground.   It's a busy and big place.  Peak season and the last few days of school vacation, mean that there are many families camped here.  There is also a resort with a restaurant, bistro and accommodation along with a small supermarket.

After we set up our new tent for the first time, we showered, had a late lunch and did laundry and a few other things, before walking down to the bistro for dinner just before 6pm.  It was fully booked, but they let us eat at an outside table.  It was freezing, and we were happy to head back to our tent and some warmth after eating.  I heard on the news this afternoon that a number of nearby locations have experienced record cold October temperatures, and it feels that way.