Prologue (Adel to Pt Adel)

DAY 1 (Adelaide to Victor Harbor)

DAY 2 (Victor Harbor to Meningie)

DAY 3 (Meningie to Robe)

DAY 4 (Robe to Mt. Gambier)

DAY 5 (Mt. Gambier to Port Fairy)

DAY 6 (Port Fairy to Port Campbell)

DAY 7 (Port Campbell to Lorne)

DAY 8 (Lorne to Melbourne)

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Seacombe Motel

~ A fresh start ~

I am certainly excited about the fact that I could ride again. It was a shame that I was not able to see the Blue Lake because of all the drama yesterday.

Today was the longest day. Not only we had a double century ahead of us, but also a 30-minute loss as we crossed the Victorian boarder. I rode with Alicia, Kelvin and Andrew again, and we set ourselves a gentle pace. The first 20km we went through the lovely pine forest. It was a mainly quiet road with occasional courteous logging truck drivers passing through. We crossed the Victorian boarder about 30km out of Mt. Gambier, signalling the half way point of our tour. The first bit of the Victorian road was quite narrow and had a line what I called the "wake up line" on the left side. The shoulder was full of broken branches made it quite difficult to ride.

We were picked up by another group soon after. Together, we rode in a good pace. We were even in front of Grant in his Ute (which was supposed to be the leading vehicle). We arrived Heywood at about 1030 - the first group arrived there. There were couple of locals joining us for the ride.

I was feeling that good at the half way point that I won the sprint to the next stop - the lunch stop at the sailing club in Portland. From the map, it is a detour from the Princess Highway. It actually had quite big rolling hills in the outskirts of the town.

The visit to the club was worth every extra pedal stroke. We were treated with the catch of the day on BBQ, salad, delicious fruit salad and soft drinks. Local wines were also available at your cost, but I would rather not risk being charge drink riding.

With Grant’s excellent on-road signals, we safely came back to the Princess Highway. The rest of the 80 kilometres was certainly tuff, with constant gusty head wind and it started raining half way. That made me put my head down and I even missed the giant wind propellers. Somehow I wished I could see the wind propellers facing our way so that we could just soft-pedalling with a tail wind!

I arrived to Port Fairy at about 2pm and checked in to the Seacombe House Motor Inn. I was impressed by the quality of the motel. It was a large beautiful house surrounding a beautiful and scaringly neat garden. The rooms and the doorway had newly laid carpet of matching colours. Sorry my bike! I usually loved to have it in my room but not today. A nap was a nice reward of a hard day.

After a long hot shower, a walk along the Moyne River was indicated. It was a good food day as we had our buffet dinner at the Victoria Hotel. Tomorrow considered by most people as a ‘rest’ day as it would be a scenic 100km day.