Julie and I were supposed to be hiking the 5,000km Continental Divide Trail in the US in 2020, but COVID-19 derailed that plan. Instead, we will have an adventure in Australia, circumnavigating the country on our bikes, a distance of about 16,500km taking approximately five and a half months. We will use minor roads where possible and occasionally catch ferries across rivers and inlets to avoid busier inland routes. We will camp some of the time and stay in motels, hotels, etc, at others. There will be stretches of up to five days with no accommodation or resupply available, so we will need to be self-sufficient.

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.

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