Day 7 "Brunch at Omeo? ... Let's!"

We were quite committed to our plan of brunch in Omeo. 30km basically level seemed like a doddle after yesterday. How strange is the mind when in a state of dissonance reduction. I suspect that Belinda had a more realistic take on this plan; she seemed hesitant when I first mooted a pre-breakfast ride. In any case it was with some enthusiasm that we prepared for the ride, taking some last minute photos and heading off at about 9:50.

Mary being a bit liberal with Chamois Cream

Simple maths would have told us that this would take over 2 hours, so it would be more like lunch than brunch.

There's not a lot to report about the early part of the ride. The road is excellent, and the grade easy.

The few hairpin bends had a funny optical illusion thing happening, Belinda and I had both noticed this yesterday. It works like this: if someone is ahead of you on a tight tucked-in elbow bend, having rounded it, and you are still approaching it, they emerge from the elbow and appear to be far above you. You enter the bend thinking "this will be a steep climb" but soon afterwards, with a gentle easy push up a slight gradient, you are at the point where you noticed the leading rider...it wasn't hard at all to gain all those metres. Is this because in our minds we perceive the gradient as the distance above divided by the straight line distance over the valley and we find it hard to perceive the total horizontal distance because it is folded back on itself?

While I'm asking you questions, have you heard of "counter-steering"? We hadn't, and Belinda gave us a tutorial. It's a motorcycling technique where instead of leaning into a curve to turn, you give a short push on the handlebar on the side to which you want to turn (ie: the opposite to what you would expect). You don't lean while you do this. The effect is a sudden shift in centre of gravity which suddenly leans you into the corner and automatically turns the bike. WARNING.. If you want to experiment with this, do it incredibly gently.. A vigorous push will almost certainly have catastrophic results. I had a bit of fun playing with this yesterday and really enjoyed it on the downhills today.. The slightest nudge causes a really effective and responsive shift in direction.

Another question? Have you heard of Kevlar emergency spokes? Belinda is carrying one of these. These aren't solid, as I would have expected.. They coil up like a cord. To me this was totally wrong: spokes are solid because they transmit forces up from the wheel where it contacts the ground to the axle, right? Well maybe not.. What if the wheel is solid enough to hold it's shape by itself, and all of the weight of the bike (at the axles) hangs by the spokes from the top of the wheel arches? Then the spokes could all be strong strings.. Could they not?

While on the theme of the counter intuitive, why after crossing the mountains from Mitta Mitta, where the river was heading steadily towards the Murray, did we find the very same river on the other side of our descent, heading towards the sea? We had been forewarned about this mystery but it still seemed wrong when we saw it! http://www.coxhill.com/familystuff/Holidays/Bike%20Trip%20Oct%202008/Tour%20Notes/Bike%20Tour.htm

Enough wobbling of your cognitive foundations and back to our adventure!

After a while sidling around high over river valleys we finally emerged from the Alpine National Park into grazing land. These pastures look less verdant than over the northern side and it wouldn't surprise me if the rainfall is a lot less. Even in the wet weather (patchy light drizzle today) the hillsides look "drier".

Just out of the forest I was cruising silently along and saw a farmer crossing the highway ahead. It was dead still and silent, so a vehicle could have been heard for miles. He didn't look at all, just stepped out with his head down. I had already slowed for him so I glided just behind him and said "good morning". I swear he literally jumped in the air, he got such a shock! This amused me a lot.. which made me reflect on my sadistic streak.. Why was that response so entertaining for me?

A female cyclist breezed past us as we approached a long planked bridge. We had seen her not long before hurtling the opposite way. Had she been to the Blue Duck and back in such a short time? How did she not get cold?

The Mitta Mitta valley was now to our left and below as we did a couple of easy kilometres. This easy run had to end sometime, and it did, with a strong headwind, and some rain.

To add a degree of difficulty we encountered two 11% climbs as we entered Omeo.

The Bankhouse, our wonderful accommodation for the night was easily identified (Mary spared me a detour courtesy of a Google maps error). The bank house was locked and a recorded message said the key would be in the door at 1pm. We could see a lit fire inside, and the sitting room looked fabulous. We couldn't wait an hour so I skirted the building looking for an unlatched window. I found one but gentle prising revealed it was painted shut. I considered a makeshift crowbar when I thought I heard a sound from indoors. I then had a brainwave. I went to the front door and.... knocked. The delightful and welcoming Mandy appeared from inside and soon we had been ushered inside. I wondered if she would have been so welcoming had I arrived through a window, complete with my balaclava and jemmy!

After a brief get to know you session with the house, we were happily ensconced as occupants and now 100% set on finding food. Twinkles was the place for us. Braving the 50m bracing cold walk we entered the warm-as-toast cafe with lovely food served by Trevor and Yvonne.. Also delightful.

A couple of hours passed as easily as we ingested their food and coffee. This was followed by lazing in the lounge back at home, washing, blogging, worrying about tomorrow's weather (snow again for our ascent to Dinner Plain and our descent from Hotham the next day), and planning dinner.

The Golden Age hotel was bustling when we got there for tea. More fantastic food! Apologies for photo quality: I only carried my very old iPhone.

Bedtime. Goodnight.

Day 6. A chilly traverse, blue fingers and The Blue Duck

Today was a long hard ride! Mary, ever articulate, put it aptly. Halfway through the day I asked how it was going. "Plod, plod, ploddy plod" was her reply

To be a bit more elaborate - today was our hard(est) riding day so far and possibly the biggest day for the whole trip. 78 km at final measure, including a climb to 1345 metres from 260 metres, a headwind predicted with gusts up to 100km/hr (thankfully these didn't eventuate), snowfalls at the summit, sleet, rain and icy temperatures. In short, this was tough.

Oblivious to what was ahead we rose early and cheerily raided the hotel kitchen again for our "Continental" breakfast. For butter and milk we had to enter the large refrigerator full of supplies. The butter we energetically scraped from a 1kg caterers block of Western Star. We also prepared sandwiches which we would have to live off in the event of an Alpine disaster. We were quite organised and set off at 8:15

The weather was deceptively good: we even had sunshine and although it was cool, it was not cold. The exit from Mitta Mitta was a steady uphill beside Snowy Creek. There was a bit of a headwind, but my level of confidence was such that little could shake it : " this isn't going to be so bad after all". Very soon we had left the colourful deciduous trees behind and were soon in the characteristically evergreen Aussie bush. In the distance ahead, the mountains were overshadowed by large grey luminous clouds but they seemed far enough away to be of little consequence to us.

There were some pretty sites along the route. Granite flat was picturesque, as was "The Walnuts". We were doing well, covering 20km in the first two hours. Considering this was the uphill part we were happy that our worst case scenario of 5pm at the Blue Duck at Anglers Rest gave us plenty of leeway. As we approached the higher mountains we felt the occasional splash from the sky but happily the rain (as evidenced by a couple of rainbows) had evaded us and we were still in sunshine.

Soon we were climbing steadily. It became cooler, darker and eventually, when it could hold off no longer, the rain started. We kept climbing and the weather kept deteriorating. Fortunately we were largely sheltered from the wind, but when exposed to it, it was cold. We donned weatherproof gear as the rain became more consistent. At some stage we hit the gravel. Initially the gravel was OK...firm and well graded. Later it became muddier and we passed through some active roadworks. We climbed for 20km altogether ( that's so easy to write, but there is so much experience that goes into a 20km climb with full panniers that is hard to capture in print!)

By the time we reached an altitude of about 1100 m it began snowing. This was new for me. In fact I realised that when I purchased my bike I had omitted to ask "how does it perform in snow?". At one point Belinda asked me how it was going..."fucking awesome" was my response.

It's snowing

Blurry and probably unimpressive to you, but they are snowflakes.

My thumbs numbed, I was starting to get more gear from my panniers and put it on. Each stop also involved wolfing down a sandwich and gulping some water or staminade. The snow was quite pretty, but I wasn't in the mood to appreciate it.. My feet were also getting pretty cold. There was little option but to press on; stopping meant getting colder.

Eventually, after several hours of a pretty constant rise, we reached the Gippsland Shire line which had to be pretty close to our azimuth. The wind was howling in our faces, and the demountable housing a few roadworkers formed a suitable windbreak. The sun even attempted an appearance as we stopped for lunch. After a quick feed and chat with the workers we donned more clothing. I became a fluorescent Michelin man with my down jacket under my reflective vest.

We had not far to climb before we could relax a little and descend.

Final dirt section

Finally, the descent!

The sleet bore at our faces as we slewed through the mud. It spray painted my ventrum. The gears and chains started sounding like a pepper grinder. Extremities went numb and my frozen nose dripped. We whizzed when we could, braking to avoid catastrophes on the tricky bits and pedalled laboriously over a few brief rises. At speed the sleet hit our faces painfully. I wasn't wearing glasses, but was using the not well known slitty eyes-bowed head- tense sustained upgaze and presenting cap brim-technique, I was semi- protected. My numbed mind was devoting all its energy to devising some sort of Ned Kelly-like helmet.

Some juddery bits remained and there was the occasional slew into soft mud but all in all the graders had done a good job.. This road was soon to be surfaced.

By the time we reached the bitumen, we looked like dirt bikers. Nothing that a bit of pelting rain wouldn't fix! We free wheeled downwards, downwards, cold and wet. The next 35 km was mainly descent or level, with occasional brief uphills. We sidled by the mighty Mitta Mitta River and gradually ticked off the kilometres. Glen Wills and Glen Valley were pretty.

The Falls Creek turnoff looked daunting (it's called the WTF turnoff because of its punishing gradient of 20% followed by 10km of 10% in the three peaks riding course).

By 4:30 pm, weary after 6 hours of riding, and 8 hours total, we reached The Blue Duck Inn.

The publican gave us less than adequate information about our lodging and advised us to get a fire going first thing. For us first priority was actually hosing down our gear, bikes and selves to avoid our unit becoming a slurry.

Firelighting was a challenge without matches, firelighters or kindling which had been hidden with the diligence of someone setting up an Easter egg hunt. We weren't thorough enough in our search so B went to ask while I attempted to light the fire with 50 metres of toilet paper. The publican looked at Belinda as if she was stupid... Surely we were clever enough to realise that firelighters and matches shouldn't be left near the fireplace.. Look under rocks, in trees and failing that, in drawers!

Matches and firelighters were a great help.. Soon the fire was chugging away and looking forward to burning the rubber off my shoes while we were away at dinner. Dinner was good. We had been told to arrive early to get a good seat near the fire. We obliged and found many seats "reserved" . Our genius at the Genius Bar pleaded ignorant.. Pretending he'd never seen this happen before "it's another world down there!" he remonstrated, pointing out the dining floor. We weren't impressed. He flirted with Belinda (obviously he had no inkling of B's assessment of him) She took him to task and with that wicked twinkle in her eye threatened him with a kiss "later on". Despite his limp, he did the 50 meters to the kitchen in under 5 seconds.. Well done Belinda!

There are several unimpressive aspects to the Blue Duck. Having to light your own fire, pay for everything immediately lest you skip town in a hurry, being seated in the draft while locals arrive later and are escorted to the warm seats, having only one power point in the room (and it has a padlock!)

...we decided to skip breakfast tomorrow and head for brunch at Omeo.