Ride: Bairnsdale to Orbost (East Gippsland Rail Trail)

Friday 8th January:

Caught the 1.25pm train to Bairnsdale

Riding to the caravan park a pedestrian saw the loaded up bicycle and commented "fuck that!"

Set up at campsite at Mitchell Gardens caravan park

Rode a few km to the lookout at Mitchell River silt jetty and back

Had dinner at the pub closest to the railway station - nice meal

Met the others at the train station at 10:30 pm

Saturday 9th January:

Got up about 6am to the cockatoo alarm clock

Left caravan park by 7:30 am

Rode 30 k to Bruthen for morning tea around 10 am. Nice, busy bakery.

Rode 27 k to Nowa Nowa. Hard up and down slog as it was already getting hot by now. Had a raspberry icy pole and an iced tea for lunch as couldn't eat anything in the heat.

Left Nowa Nowa by about 1 pm. Temperature about 40 degrees. Started to get heat stroke symptoms about 3 km into a climb after Nowa Nowa so stopped often until I could get my legs working again and ease the nausea symptoms. Temperatures climbed to about 45 degrees. Side winds even though tailwinds expected. Southerly change didn't bring much relief when it finally came.

Arrived at Orbost caravan park about quarter to 5 or 5pm. 104 km.

Had a shower and then had dinner at 'the top pub'. Ordered unhealthily but yummily.

Part of the rail trail between Bruthen and Nowa Nowa

A wooden trestle bridge between Bruthen and Nowa Nowa

And a few more wooden trestle bridges

A corn field and dairy cow a few kms out of Orbost

Sunday 10 January:

Another hot day expected (albeit not as hot) so D rang the wife so we could all get a lift back to Melbourne. We also had a 13 year old amongst us - a real trooper. Another 100 km back to Bairnsdale was out of the question.

We hit a bakery in the morning and then packed everything into a car and onto a bike rack for the four hour drive back to Melbourne.