Last day to Harrietville, and what a weird day it was!

Not early enough, it turned out! It was dark as we prepared, and there was no time for a leisurely breakfast.

We ended up leaving 10 minutes late which turned out to be fatal. But having no crystal ball with us (too much weight) we set off with high hopes and low gear. Lit up in the dense fog we trundled across the landscape at our usual speed. My mind was busy with calculations. I reckoned we needed to average 11km per hour, which might be do-able if the downhill section made up for our slow pace. The temperature was 1 degree but there was a wind, and near the summit of Hotham it started raining. The downhill was scary. The fog was so thick we couldn't see the road surface well, or what was ahead, so we couldn't go fast. Add to this our weight and wet brakes which meant we weren't able to stop fast.

I just have to digress here to say how strange life is. If someone had asked me how I was going to spend the day, not in a fit of madness would I have thought of "oh, we're going to spend 6 hours lying underneath a house", but that's what we did! Read on.....

At the summit at 8:05 I realised we wouldn't make it so I went ahead to get to the gate in time. Maybe I could talk the guy into letting the others pass since I was on time. No sir! I was there by 8:29 and he informed me that he got into trouble for letting a cyclist through last week. The cyclist was sent back up the hill by the tree-fellers (or maybe there were four....that's an Irish joke!)

We understood the reasons for the strict enforcement, but we were devastated. Would we ride back up the miserable hill in miserable weather? (an option quickly discounted). Would we wait eight hours at the barrier? (Not possible- we'd get hypothermia). Mr Stop Sign from Omeo suggested we walk the alternative route.. A 4wd track to Harrietville over Mt Sugarloaf. This looked like an 8 hour trek, but we would definitely be warm and this was a priority. The other option was to sit "on the balcony" of the ticket office just down the hill where the 4wd track took off. Mr Ssfo told us with conviction that it would provide us with shelter so we headed down to investigate.

Here's the balcony. 

The hut was closed and monitored by a security camera- no chance of me using my skills here! We were all freezing and Belinda was shivering. We couldn't stay here so we rugged up and started along the 4wd track. Actually "along" isn't the right word. The gradient was one I've only seen tackled by F1-11s at the air show. Belinda was struggling and after taking two of her panniers, I was too. 

After about 200m sanity prevailed. We had to return to a (locked) hut we had discovered near the ticket office and find or make shelter.

But we were warm: pushing heavy bikes uphill had got our blood circulating. We thought it would be good to keep doing the hill sans bike, so we ditched them and slowly climbed to the top of Mt Sugarloaf, surveying the devastation from the recent fires.

Returning to the hut, Belinda found an access door under the house...Shelter.

I set about making us a platform/bed. This was going to be our home for 6 hours so it needed to be comfortable. 

Raw materials for the bed

With foundations, cross beams and a sheet of plywood badly damaged by being run over by Caterpillars ( the big ones), we had a platform, and some carpet stored under the house completed our luxurious accomodation. 

It was cold. We had to do the occasional constitutional walk up the hill to regain temperature. Snoozing lightly, shivering, we whiled away the hours. Counting down to 4:30. It couldn't come quick enough! Dismantling the bed would take a while, and get us a bit warm prior to the whoosh down. It was still foggy and now raining.

Quite cold now, we dismantled our bed, restored the hut and put on all of our warm gear. Soon we were hurtling down the road in thick fog. There were two one-lane sections, the second at a huge landslide, just above Harrietville. This meant waiting with cars and setting off together. We were only just slower than cars, it being pretty poor visibility. At one stage it rained consistently, but we were pretty warm in good gear and we gained confidence and speed. I enjoyed letting cars overtake, then catching up with them and tailgating (from a safe distance) 

A massive land slip under repair above Harrietville

By 5:40, and just before darkness set in we reached Belinda's and the trip was complete...

.....km in all ( I haven't added it up yet) 9 days, lots of pedal revolutions! What an adventure! 

Day 8. Omeo to Dinner Plain (950m ascent : 1460m up and 515m down)

What's a good day's ride without a good dose of anticipation? We had been discussing today and tomorrow for a few days because of the relatively demanding climb to Hotham, the predictions of snow, enhanced by texts from home: "more weather coming", and by the very inconvenient daily road closures for our final descent ( closed from 8:30 to 4:30 for repairs after severe landslides due to heavy rain.

These variables were important. If there is significant snow on Monday morning then the descent, already called "dangerous for cyclists" because of residual landslide and earthwork debris on the road, would become icy and with our loads, somewhat suicidal.

So the various plans were..

1. All of us stay at Dinner Plain and rush in the morning to beat the road closure at 8:30. Very early chilly start and hope for reasonable conditions (it's 20km to the gate)
2. All continue down today. The road stays open all day on weekends, but that makes today huge.
3. Me continue down and bring the Subaru (with bike bar) back up while M and B feather our Currawong nest.

We would make the decision at DP, but we had to get there first! That meant going up....a lot.

We took on fuel at Twinkles. Trevor gave a wry smile as I handed him half a tomato left over from preparing lunches, asking him to add it to my cooked breakfast. Fortunately his cafe was licensed for BYOT and he obliged. Breakfast was great. Mary procured some gloves from a ski hire place and I followed suit. At 9:15 we were off.

Belinda set off on Isabella and disappeared upwards into the fog. It would be nearly an hour until we caught her. 

As we lifted, so did the fog. Au contraire to the last mountain crossing, as we climbed we shed rather than donned clothing. It was getting warmer and soon we started seeing blue sky. Upwards and upwards, we stopped at Mountain Maid where two talkative grey nomads blasted us with stories and questions. An abandoned Audi had shed all its oil when the driver, probably distracted by the view, had run over two huge rocks about 200kg each! The engine was still warm.. How upset they must have been!

On and on we climbed. The gradient seemed like 10 to 12% for a lot of this initial part. Then we were sundulating (that's going up and down in sunshine). The whizzy bits were fresh to cold and the ups were Ok. There were some very pretty bits of country as lower hills became upper pastures (Cobungra Station was lovely, and the cattle stampede I started was entertaining). Raucous ravens and cockatoos filled the hills with their cries - harsh sounds compared with their lower cousins, the magpies and currawongs warbling in the fog earlier. 

Soon we were in Alpine National Park. We were following in the footsteps of a previous blogger who had described the landmarks.. The white markings becoming yellow, Hotham Airport and finally, after 6 hours, Dinner Plain.

The first sight was the new cafe "Mountain Kitchen" and it's a treasure! The sticky date pudding with cream was to die for, and the coffee was great. Bellies full, we made our way to Currawong Ski Club and proceeded to tackle the coded entry lock with instructions from Lauren, the caretaker. This was nearly as complicated as the DaVinci code and we failed, having to ring again for assistance. Once inside I recognised the spa, which I had admired during previous stays at Sing's house. L arrived and lit a fire for us and started the spa. 

We showered and collapsed, not surfacing until dinner time (High Plains Hotel: fantastic meal) and too tired to spa, retired. We had decided to race the gatekeeper at the top. To be there by 8:30 we needed to leave by 6:30. That's too early in my book!