Wow what a superb ride. Born of the Warby tradition and aided by some well done "recon" by Jon and Anne Bate, our 75+ km ride was superb by all measures. Rolling hills, a good surface, beautiful scenery, drafts courtesy of numerous B Doubles, a great lunch in quaint Poowong and a stunning last 10-15 kms (mainly downhill) to finish in Lang Lang. Lessons learnt included - some of the old rides are still goodies, it does pay to recon the ride (much better done in the reverse Warby direction) & you still wouldn't follow Werner if lost in the desert !
A slightly wet day with some 60kms and nearly 900 meters of climbing to be had as we wound our way from Belgrave down to to Birdsland and into Lysterfield Park and up to the Trig point. A short cut through Police Paddocks put us on the Dandenong Creek Trail for the return trail ride to FTG & Belgrave or in Jon and self's case Emerald. Excellent ride Jurgen
4 hardy "highlanders" took up Jurgen's generous offer of a few days away and 3 fabulous days of cycling in the beautiful Gippsland area of Sandy Point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkTVlexHHmo
Day 1 included plenty of sun 70kms and a fair bit of climbing as the group completed a Fish Creek loop with some stunning views of the surrounding hilly and green landscape with Wilsons Prom standing out in the distance.
Replenished by Jurgen's wifes veggie lasagne and a few glasses of alcohol we started day 2 early with temps expected to climb into the 30's. This was a similar days ride in terms of distance and climbing as we first ventured to the beautiful beach at Walkerville
The climb out of Walkerville didn't leave us with much energy as we then descended to the Wind farm at Tarwin Lower by way of Sth Africa (see pic) !
Back on track it was a hard slog back to Sandy Point with most of us now feeling the rising heat. After a quick lunch we returned to the cool waters at the picturesque beach at Walkerville South.
A cycle, walk and a swim were enough to send us to an early bed after a lovely dinner supplied by Helen. Day 3 included a magic ride from the park gates of Wilsons Prom to Tidal River over a misty and wild looking landscape. Kirsten backed up as on road support having slept most of the night on the loungeroom floor thanks to loud snoring reportedly coming from the local Koala population
A coffee in tidal river , some lunch back at Jurgen's and it was time to pack up and return after 3 fabulous days of cycling - thank you so much Jurgen for your amazing hospitality
We'll work out something for those that turn up
The weather forecast said windy, overcast and 33c so it was no surprise that by the time we rocked up to Kurth Kiln for our 8a.nm departure that it was cold, still and amazingly, despite lots of blue sky, raining !
With Kirstens tubless tyre bubbling away we departed KK park after first burying Kerri's sweater behind one of 10,000 very similar looking trees (she felt she wasn't going to need it on the ride ). Some early climbing took us to Hoddles creek before a magic high speed descent. Milner road made up for it though as we crossed a steep saddle to the main Yarra Junction to Noojee road where we competed with what seemed like a never ending stream of motorbikes and sports cars for road space.
Thankfully the patchy rain soon departed as we coffee'd in the one and only shop in sleepy Powelltown wondering what locals do to keep themselves occupied. Our ride back was up the beautiful but never ending climb called Hazeldene road. We finally reached some mountain peak for a welcome downhill run back to the car park to conclude a great days ride with over 1100 metres of climbing. All we now needed to do was top help Kerri to remember which tree she'd hidden her jumper at !
