Labertouche - Neerim ride, from Helen.

Labertouche – Neerim Thursday, 18 April, Blog Chatter

Not in our wildest dreams, as we moved out on our trusty cycling steeds, from the homely precinct of Labertouche Community Centre, that our wee breakaway group were about to create history. Our Leader Mike, creator of the course we were to explore, promised a ride up to the picturesque hamlet of Neerim South for an early coffee before reaching Neerim proper. From here we would loop inland along the ridge line before dropping back down to Rokeby, Tarago and our cars for the home journey, 70 kms, 600 metres in climbs he anticipated.

Up we climbed, with a steady cadence to a highly anticipated but now defunct coffee house. We commiserated with a pair of thirsty Harley riders, before a sidling descent into one of Victoria's more glorious valleys. Most lunched here before routing out the planned goat track leading us to a magnificent vantage point, taking in the splendour of the reservoir valley below, as it nestled under forested hillsides, stretching back into the Baw Baw. Further goat tracks, much like Werner's cow track along the Cardinia reservoir, took us along a range of gob smacking vistas to a confronting sign, warning off any attempt, by any means of transport, at a traverse. We survived, only to be thrown into an afternoon of deeply undulating terrain, with a 12% bit thrown in for good measure.

A speedy descent through a valley forest along the ancient rail trail spat us out at Rokeby. More climbing and descending, whittling away the metres till we found ourselves once again on the flats we had ascended from. Kirsten confirmed our bearings with an unscheduled pullover of a passing motorist which sent us speeding back to the welcome arms of our vehicles, happy and excited at having achieved such an unexpected outcome, and a promised repeat visit. 

To our amazement we discovered we had more than doubled our estimated climbs for the day, bringing them up to 1205 vertical metres over a 66 km distance. A record for our little group.

Thank you, Mike, for such a great adventure and Jon, Kerri, Werner and Kirsten for your fine company. 

Helen Geddes