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.