A highlight of any cycling trip between Sydney and Melbourne are the Rail Trails in the east. Not to be missed!
Tuesday 19 September 2017. Eden · Cann River |115 km|
Another hard day at the office!
I’d already imagined from my limited research that this section might be the most difficult part of the whole Sydney – Melbourne journey, and so it was. That’s because it’s hilly and the road, The Princess Highway (highway No1 in Australia) is narrow, shoulderless and vergeless and is very busy. And to make matters worse, a lot of the traffic consists of massive timber jinkers hurtling along in both directions.
Well, I obviously made it ok, and it really wasn’t so bad after all, but not for the scores of poor dead wombats I saw littered all along the road. Someone had put a big red or yellow cross on the bodies – to indicate they’ve already been counted, I guess.
Anyway, I’m tougher now after 3 months on the road, and it was no big deal in terms of meeting the physical challenge – might have been a different story if I’d tackled it in mid-winter when I was just starting out. So, well done Paul! Good planning!
It was cold and still a bit windy when I set out from Eden and threatening to rain all day (but it held off). The highlight, for me, was a lyre bird that scurried across the road in front of me in a particularly hilly and wooded section of the forest just before the township of Genoa. And now I know you wont believe me, but I swear it’s true – lyre birds are excellent mimics (see here: lyre bird mimicry ), and as soon as I saw it (almost under my wheels) I excitedly exclaimed lyrebird! and as it ran off into the bushes it replied in the same tone lyrebird! lyrebird! True, I swear.
My average speed for the day was only about 17 kph because of the hills (the overall average so far is 22.6 kph, to put that into perspective), and I was very exhausted by the time I rumbled into Cann River to spend the night free camping down by the river.
Wednesday 20 September, 2017. Cann River · Nowa Nowa |118 km|
It was very cold in the morning when I left Cann River, down to -1°C, but at least the terrain gradually began to flatten out a bit and the wind even dropped away too.
I had a good value roast lamb counter lunch at the Club Hotel in Orbost while the batteries were on charge at the Tourist Information Office, and then hit the East Gippsland Rail Trail.
The rail-trail would have to be the highlight of any cycling trip through this part of the country – it was for me, anyway.
The first 40km were easy – mostly hard-packed gravel – but after that the track surface began to deteriorate, with steep ravines to negotiate around trestle bridges and some fallen trees across the track. I made it as far as Nowa Nowa and camped in the very basic caravan park there, but at least I was able to buy a lovely gourmet brekkie of ham, cheese and onion toasties from the park-owner next morning.
Thursday 21 September, 2017. Nowa Nowa · Stratford |116 km|
Mighty cold again, down to minus 1°C when I broke camp and went and had 2 gourmet cheese and onion toasties at the park office/ store before I headed out. The trailer tyre had a puncture too, so I fixed that while waiting for my toasties.
There were 2 difficult creek crossings and 2 fallen trees to negotiate on the Rail Trail, but all-in-all, what a great day’s cycling it was!
With all that great cycling behind me, I popped in to Riviera Cycles in Bairnsdale to get the dope on what delights lay ahead. The shop owner, Gary, is a touring-cyclist enthusiast himself, and even has the same Topeak brand of Journey Trailer as I do!
That turned out to be important information because only 20km out of Bairnsdale, and 17 km before Stratford, my trailer broke! The left-side arm of the two shafts connecting the trailer to the bike just snapped clean off . I was only doing, like, 0.01 kph luckily, executing a tight turn at a truck stop. It was probably damaged when the trailer flopped sideways, knocking me off the bike in the process, going up that steep ravine a while back.
I called up Gary at Riviera Cycles, and he contacted Topeak straightaway and got approval from them to swap-out his own good tow bar for my broken one under warranty, and then he personally delivered it out to me at that truck stop. How good is that for service! Thanks Gary, and thank you Matthew at Casson’s, the Topeak distributer for Australia.
Between the high-mast lighting above my tent and the bumpity-bump highway bridge 100m away, I didn’t get much sleep in the Stratford caravan park that night. Dinner at the local Chinese Take-away was ok though.
Friday 22 September 2017. Stratford · Leongatha |148 km|
But I was soon on to another rail trail – this one the Gippsland Plains Rail Trail – and I was happy!
The Maffra and Traralgon bike shops were both really unhelpful in giving me the lowdown on the best way to get to either Melbourne or to the Mornington Peninsula – downright uninterested, in fact.
So I just winged it with my smart phone, and made for the Grand Ridge Trail. It’s only short – 13km – and all uphill in the direction I was travelling, but, being an old railway embankment, it only has a gentle gradient. It was actually a very nice ride between the lovely Boolarra and Mirboo North townships.
Then it was downhill all the way to Leongatha, where I overnighted in a motel managed by Colby the pug – or by his female owner, I’m not sure who. They looked the same (I mean that nicely).
Saturday 23 September 2017. Leongatha · Cowes |103 km|
It proved difficult to navigate on to the next trail at Wonthaggi, the Bass Coast Rail Trail, and even harder to get off it again! Locals helped with the getting-on bit, but I drastically overshot at the other end, and ended up at a dead end near the town of Bass, and had to backtrack 15 km against a howling gale to get onto Phillip Island across the bridge at San Remo. Bugger!
Very touristy on Phillip Island: for a hefty $35, I got to stay in the very ordinary Amaroo caravan park at Cowes, which is the main island town, and is located on the more-sheltered northern, or inland, coast. The weather deteriorated dramatically overnight from muggy and warm to freezing cold.
But kids are very honest, eh! The young children of the couple staying in a cabin opposite me asked if they could go inside my tent while I was having a glass of rosé on their parent’s stoop, but came rushing straight back out again, saying it was too smelly!
Sunday 24 September 2017. Cowes · Rye |62 km|
A raging storm struck at 7.30 am, just as I was packing up to go and catch the ferry across to the Mornington Peninsula. I managed to manhandle my partly-pulled down tent with all the gear still inside it across the lawn and in under the shelter of the camp kitchen just in time to avoid the worst of a soaking.
Getting on to the ferry was more problematical though; it’s only a tiny little boat, and the water was very choppy, with a 1m rise and fall against the wharf. Chris, a bike-packer who lives in the area, was crossing too, and together with the crew (two, 20-year-old girls) they did a sterling job in getting all my stuff onto the pitching boat. I certainly couldn’t have managed it alone.
Strangely enough, the batteries then ran down very quickly – only 54 km on the full charge, my worst result yet – and the road to Rye isn’t even all that steep – but after twice stopping for 20-minute charge-ups on the generator (I obviously under-estimated the first time) I pounded on in the rain and arrived at my daughter Justine’s house at Rye by mid-afternoon.
Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 September 2017. Rye |no cycling|
I hung out with my daughter and her brood, with the idea that I might accompany them all camping in the Otway ranges over the school holidays over the coming long weekend.
Wednesday 27 September 2017. Rye · Melbourne |98 km|
I changed my mind at the last minute and decided not to go camping with Justine and the boys after all. This was partly because there was a big crowd going, on what is one of the busiest weekends of the year, and the owner of the campground is apparently notorious for weeding out extras in the complement of booked individuals using each site. Also, I just wasn’t feeling up to it.
So I made a quick trip of it, along the foreshore of Port Phillip Bay for a lot of it, to Melbourne, where I was invited to stay the night at my friend’s house in Chinatown in the CBD of Melbourne.
-ends-