Day: 007
Date: Wednesday, 08 July 2020
Start: Woolgoolga
Finish: Woodburn
Daily Kilometres: 148
Total Kilometres: 727
Weather: Cool and overcast all day. Occasional drizzle in the morning and steady light rain in the afternoon
Accommodation: Motel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Choc chip muffins
Lunch: Egg & salad sandwich/Chicken salad roll, Lime milkshake/Chocolate thickshake
Dinner: Hamburgers with the lot & chips, ice creams.
Aches: Both are a bit saddle sore. Today, it was my turn to have a cleat miscalculation and I now have some thigh gravel rash to remind me to be more careful. Julie's quadriceps tendon became sore again in the afternoon. We were very grateful to friend and sports medico/cyclist, Dr Jon, for calling Julie last night to discuss her tendinopathy and we were hopeful that a rest day yesterday and some suggested exercises would do the job. It did for the first 100km, but became sore in the afternoon. Julie denies it is a problem …..she "can still pull up with that leg, but just not push down!"
Highlight: Following a little-used road along the north shore of the Clarence River south arm, that passed through green pastures (some with newborn lambs), sugar cane plantations, and small villages that had seen busier days.
Lowlight: The long slog eastwards after lunch for 52km along the busy, and under construction, freeway from Maclean to Woodburn in continuous light rain. Bedraggled would be the best word to describe our condition on arrival at our (very) budget motel. But at least the much-needed shower was nice and hot.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We got up at 6am, laundered and hung our used sheets and towels (the neighbour will kindly retrieve them), and were riding at 7:20am. At one point, we had hoped to meet with friends, Neil & Jeanine, who intended to travel south from Grafton where they were staying and meet us somewhere along the way. However, our need to make good time today, along with the inclement weather, eventually made it impractical.
So that we can reach Queensland on the day their border opens (Friday), and have a half day off in Byron Bay en route, it made sense for us to have a long day today. I had booked a scarce motel room in Woodburn, 140km away via the freeway, so we were keen to get some early kilometres under our belt. We joined the freeway a little north of Woolgoolga, and soon were climbing away from the coast on a series of long gradual hills in gloomy but dry conditions.
After the climb, the temperature dropped and there was occasional drizzle, but there was also a light tailwind and we made good time. Along the way, we were tooted by a passing Queensland-registered car which I learned later, via text message, was driven by the son of a running friend, Martin, back on the Central Coast. Small world.
Disappointingly, we found that cyclists were prohibited from using the new freeway that bypassed Grafton which meant a few more kilometres were going to be added to our already-long day. Soon after, we stopped at a highway rest stop for breakfast, entertained by some very persistent birds that were keen to get some of our muffins.
When we resumed, rather than follow the highway into Grafton, we took a shortcut bypass I remembered from a previous trip that took us along a very quiet rural road, passing farms, farmers out doing various jobs (who wished us "g'day"), and a few kangaroos for good measure. Very pleasant. That feeling ended when we rejoined the Old Pacific Highway at the little Clarence River town of Ulmarra and we didn't much enjoy cycling on the very narrow road edge being closely passed by trucks and caravans.
After another 30 minutes, we left the highway and crossed the south arm of the vast Clarence River at Brushgrove to follow the river eastwards. It was a beautiful ride (see above), though it began raining as we approached Maclean, our planned lunchstop. We crossed back across the river on a long narrow bridge and found a bakery in the centre of the small town, which was clearly proud of its Scottish heritage, with various tartans wrapped around lamp-posts. By now we were quite wet and cold, and though we had a protected outside table at the bakery, we were both cold as we ate and keen to get back on the bikes to generate some warmth.
The rain intensity increased as we rode out of town along the river a few kilometres before we crossed the river again and rejoined the freeway, which was still under construction. Although our spirits remained good, it was a fairly miserable ride along the busy highway (see above) to Woodburn, which we reached at 4:15pm, having made good time for our 148km, despite the conditions.
We checked into our budget motel, managing to squeeze our bikes into our room as well, and savoured our hotel showers and dry warm clothes. Later, we bought huge hamburgers for dinner from the adjacent store. All our wet gear is spread out in the room and we are hoping the small fan heater does the job of drying everything overnight.
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