BENDIGO TO INGLEWOOD



Bendigo to Inglewood via Howard Rd, Pyramid Hill Rd and Sebastian Rd = 54km
Cummulative total = 54km
Camping at Inglewood = $25 unpowered but with own ensuite (no tent section)
It was a good day today considering it was our first day out and we are feeling a little tired at the end of the day ... but we did have a good tail wind so I would hate to think how we would be feeling right now if we didn't have a tail wind!
Leanne took a photo of us just before we left ...

We took Howard road all the way along the which was a busy road (due to school traffic) but ridable not exactly the widest by the traffic was courteous to us.  We stayed on the road right to the end and we reached McClelland Road, we went along this road and up the hill and then onto Sailors Gully road and then Pyramid Hill road which was good to ride along ... only local traffic.  This road travels in a northerly direction and since the wind was more an easterly this morning it was blowing on our sides and it wasn't until we got to Sebastian road where it turns west that we got a fabulous tailwind!  and it was blowing.

The first 4 km of this road was unsealed ... still firm despite the rain last night

This is a wonderful road to ride along really quite and very litte traffic.   

So we could ride side by side and chat ... and top of the chat list was yesterdays snake.  Todays local paper had a story about our friend George catching another brown snake earlier in the day at Kangaroo Flat train station which is on the edge of Bendigo.  He obviously is a very busy man at this time of the year!

Thinking about the snake ... it is scary that more than likely it was there over the winter and the fact that it was co-habiting with Leanne and Russell over the winter ... it is almost like they had a pet snake!  woo hoo!!!

We stopped for a cuppa at some CFA building we found and it is so lush out here ... the fields are either grain, for grazing or canola ...

the scenery is so pretty and to quote Neil "it just hurts your eyes!"  The sides of the roads are covered in yellow wild flowers.  Along this road we came across this dead tree with its' trunk painted pink and the cross is made out of horse shoes

We made good time getting to Bridgewater on Loddon due to the tail wind (sometimes we were cycling in our big chain ring!).  Since the flooding last year the town hasn't rebuilt the council caravan park and we are not sure if the private one that was next to it is still open and it was hard to tell as we crossed the Loddon river if both parks were still functioning ... definitely the council one isn't as it stated it on its' website.

Here is a photo of the Loddon River ...

So from here we join the Calder Highway and since it was lunchtime there wasn't alot of traffic on the road, we had a rough shoulder.  By now we started to feel it, still okay to cycle but looking forward to setting up camp. 

Along the roadside there are heaps of Gazania flowers blooming ... so many that it makes the Calder highway 'pretty' if that is possible!

We get to the town of Inglewood which is a popular town with potential prospectors, ie. grey nomads with metal detectors!

As you ride through the town there are lots of antique type stores in old buildings ... we did manage to spot this bike/lawn mower ...

I giggled at this as our lawn mower has just died and maybe we should detour back this way and pick this up before we get home!

Here is a photo of the town (taken just outside the IGA)

rather relieved to get to the campground which is on the west side of town behind a motel.  The park is full of caravaners that I think dabble in prospecting.  Every site has its' own ensuite so that makes camping a little expensive at $25 unpowered.  You can have power but it is metered.  You can also have a site without an ensuite but only if you have a shower and toilet in your caravan ... so rules us out!

I tell you not only were we tired when we got here but Kouta was half unconscience when we lifted him out of the trailer ... he was ready to sleep (even standing up!) ..

as you can see from the photo of our campsite it is a lovely sunny and warm day ... very lucky we were!

 

tomorrow we will cycle to Wedderburn via some back road (although it is heaps shorter via the Calder highway)



HI DE HI CAMPERS - BENDIGO

Hello there ... we are just about to go on the road again this time we are heading over to Streaky Bay South Australia.

Yesterday Neil drove up here to Bendigo with our equipment and dog and he drove back (without the dog!) and then today we caught the train with our bikes to Bendigo and then we rode out to Leannes' place which is in Epsom ... normally I wouldn't blog about today but we have a fabulous story to tell you and I have to admit we have never had such a spectacular start to any cycle trip as we have for you today.

So arriving at Leannes mid afternoon and entering through the gate at the side of the garage Neil is ahead of me and I hear a rustle under the lemon tree and think oh Kouta is there ... meanwhile Neil is saying stop there is a snake (he/she must have been sunbaking!) and at that moment I see the tail flick and disappear, so Neil continues on to tell Leanne that she has a snake in the garden and we have lost it, meanwhile I am still at the gate trying desperately to see where it has gone.  After a while passes I go through and Leanne has gone and rung for a guy to come and see if he can find the snake ... he will be there by 3pm.

So we sit down for a cuppa and a few minutes later he has turned up ... his name is George and quite a relaxed fella!

Neil shows him where we saw him and this George dives straight in ... no apprehension what so ever! dig around the water tank (as we thought the snake may have gone under it) and no there was nothing.  It is not until I look at the end of the brick wall next to the water tank that I see that it is open ended and I said that it may have gone in there.  So Leanne gets a crow bar and George  takes of the top tile and breaks a hole in the brick and then digs down in with his hand  and no still no snake but reveals that the whole wall is hollow so it might be somewhere along there ...

George breakin the first brick

 and here is George breaking nearly all the bricks along the wall!

 okay I took this photo this close AFTER he had removed the snake to show you how it was hollow all the way along and it was a fantastic home for the snake ...

So after making so many holes and getting glimpses of the snake and telling us that 'oh it's a big one!' he finally dives in again with his hand to grab the tail of the snake ... Neil tells me that he had the tail and the head was coming out the end of the row of bricks ...

 here is George grabbing the tail and pulling it out ...

 and here it is all the way out!  It is a whopper and I am very excited and clicking away and all I can hear either side of me is Leanne squeaking and wimpering (or was that Neil?) LOL and Neil is gasping at the size of it!

You can see Georges' friend in the background going off to get a bag for the snake to be put in ... meanwhile George is .... not sure what he is doing ... I think 'playing' with the snake! ...

by now the snake is really, really angry with George and thrashing about ... at this point I am thinking this snake is about  1.3m long or 4 feet long

 unfortunately Georges friend sort of forgot to open out the bag so poor George has the snake in one hand and trying to open the bag with the other ... meanwhile none of us can say 'oh here let me help you George!'

So George manages to get the snake in the bag ... but not before the snake tries to have one last go at George ...

... there we go safely in the bag!

here is a close up of the snake ...

gosh it was exciting to watch George (the only licensced {spelling?} snake handler in Bendigo).  He tells Leanne that the snake may have been there all winter!  That is probably not something she wants to hear as she was working around that area the other day ... quite unnerving to know that the snake may have been there!
So that is our start to our cycle journey ... Tomorrow we are off to Inglewood.

Killarney

Well here we are at Killarney about 20km west of Warrnambool on the coast.  We were here at the end of November/beginning of December last year.  this is a lovely place and we vowed we would come here again ... and here we are.  We drove here with Dad in tow and arrived on Monday thinking that the park might empty out as it was the last day of the long weekend and also the end of the Port Fairy festival.  There were still a few people around but we managed to get a spot.

we have the shade shelter up but unfortunately we have also had strong winds so we had to take it down and seek refuge at the bbq area for shade!
Monday night dad tries his hand at fishing ...
 
with a little help from Kouta although Kouta is very much like my Mum ... hates sand, the beach and water! as you can see from the photo below - Kouta is running away from neil!
 
here is dad fishing again .. not sure if he is awake?  he caught "tinned tuna"
 
Tuesday saw us riding to Port Fairy via some of the Rail Trail that runs between Warrnambool to Port Fairy.  It is a nice trail and we joined it around 12km before Port Fairy.  It is a nice trail and isn't made up of Lilydale topping like most rail trails instead it is compacted clay and in some places with quite big gravel.  The part we were on had quite a lot of cracks running in the middle of the path (almost like a white line on a road to divide the path into left and right!).
 
We get to Port Fairy and dad went fishing again to try to get some more of that 'tinned tuna' fish while Neil and I hung around the IGA and the park.  It was quite a hot day and we began to head back home when dad found he had a flat front tyre.  So he changed it and we got going.
 
Heading back home I look at dads rear tyre and see that it is almost flat so we pump it up a few times to get us back to Killarney.  By the time we got home it is hot so we go down to the beach to try to cool off.  The water is very cold and we decide we will go in tomorrow as it is going to be hot again!  in other words we chicken out! although Neil does manage to get his toes wet!
 
where as Kouta gets an absolute soaking as he didn't get away from the wave quick enough and manages to get his belly wet ....
 
as you can see he is not a happy dog!
It is a warm night - the type where it is too hot under the sleeping bag and too cold outside it!  but Neil did manage to get me while I was asleep this morning ... believe it or not it is around 7.30am when he took this so I am sleeping later - I hope we get out of this habit when we start cycling otherwise we will become like dad and not get going for cycling until 10am!!!
 
today we decide to go to Koroit - I have never been there and neither has Neil- we have passed by it alot!  So we rejoin the rail trail and to the other way and back to Koroit.
 
we take a break at the old railway station ...
 
and then pop into town for some food.  While Neil is in the IGA I take a photo of dad next to probably something that is based on his ancestry ... yep the good ole spudpicker statue!
 
 
Killarney and Koroit is very Irish and there is an Irish festival here in April ... I think dad liked this place!  And it wasn't long before we found a street that had our name ....

O'Briens Lane was on our way to Tower Hill lookout ...
 
there is not much water in this crater so all the photos we see of this place is very misleading - not sure how the water gets in there - I don't think it is river or creek fed - maybe rainfall?  Below is a photo looking towards Port Fairy and you can see the other side of the lake has water.
 
Got back and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around the bbq shelter shade as it was too hot but Neil and I did manage to have a swim - the water is very cold but once in it was okay!
While in the shade we were entertained by a hawk that was hunting all the crickets that are hopping everywhere ...
 
it was only a wee small thing but it was successful and once or twice it was chased by a willy wagtail bird which kept pecking at it while they were in flight - now for the kiwis a willy wagtail is a bit like a fantail type bird - it looked funny a small bird chasing and hassling a hawk!
Tomorrow Dad and Neil drive to Yambuk while Kouta and I might ride there (approx 30 odd kms) we are not too sure if there is going to be rain so maybe we will have to squeeze into the car again!

Gidday from Phillip Island

We had this idea to DRIVE (yes I know!!!) down to Philip Island (only 125km) and set up camp for 3 nights and cycle around the island over the 2 full days ... well we both have decided that we dislike 'car camping' and instead prefer the 'bike camping'. 
Having the luxury of a car enables you to take more camping stuff and to make life a little easier than the 'stuff' restrictions of bike camping ... well that is WRONG! we are that disorganised with everything that we have been away from home for 24 hours and we are absolutely lost ... can't find anything, everything is in a different place/bag to what it normally is when we bike camp and to top it all off I forgot some stuff as per usual ... the only advantage that I can see with 'car camping' is the fact that you get to carry a normal size towel for the shower rather than the tea towel size towel that you normally carry when cycling!
So this morning we woke after a good nights sleep in our new tent and shade cloth ...

our rather expensive but light weight shade cloth covers the tent and provides very good shade.
last night we went for a walk in the evening and the caravan park is on the beach ....
 
looking towards Cowes
 
so onto today ... like I said we wake only to find the kitchen doesn't open until 8.30 so we have to wait for 30 mins. We find kouta is scratching like any due to the grass so we go to give him a tablet and find that he won't eat any food (he stuffed himself silly last night with the chicken he had) so he is suffering.  So we decide to quickly set off so he can settle in the trailer, get hungry by morning tea and eat something with his tablet in ... well sounds good in theory but in practice ... what a disaster.  We get 50m, pass a takeaway and neil decides to buy kouta a dim sim to try the tablet ... no go there... so we head off towards the Nobbies and the Penguin place hoping they won't mind a dog scratching himself ... well once we saw the sign at the turnoff for the Nobbies saying there are penalties for dogs we decide to give it a miss and continue on to a beach called Kitty Miller Bay ...  get off the bike and Neil takes Kouta out and I look in his basket and see that there are strange looking 'stones' ... stones alright the little minkey has done a crap in his basket OMG!!!!  and to make it worse no dogs allowed on the bay!  so we sort of wash his paws (as I think he stood in his crap) and decide that we can't put him back in the basket, so Neil folds up the basket to carry it on his racks and poor ole Kouta has to sit on his mat in the trailer.   Took a quick photo of the bay ...
 
continued on and decide to head home but saw that Kouta was doing quite well in the trailer and didn't mind not having a basket to sit in, so we decide to continue and to go on a 4km detour of gravel road to Pyramid rock ... get there and no dogs allowed! so we pedal back and had lunch on the side of the gravel road ... sort of guessed that most places here wouldn't allow dogs so we weren't annoyed or anything but I did manage to take a photo from the carpark ...
 
the land in the back ground is actually main land Australia!
Below is a photo of Neil and Kouta ... not very happy by the way Neil is standing!
 
Just up the road from the detour we just took is the Phillip Island Grand Prix circuit ... we could hear the roar of motorbikes all the way down to Pyramid rock but could not see them.  Couldn't go in as it was a private running of bikes but I did manage to get this photo of the 'bike pit' alongside the edge of the circuit road.
 
after here we start to head home - an easy and uneventful ride!
So we managed to do the west and south side of the island and tomorrow we will do the east and a little of the south that we didn't do today.
So we are sitting here, it is overcast and a little chully at the moment. 
the park is filling up - it is okay (only 2 of the parks here on the island take dogs) very expensive $37 before discount and the facilities are ok - camp kitchen but have to pay $2 a night for the hire of cutlery, microwave, toaster and jug.  but there are gas rings for us to boil our water in.  Lucky the fridge is free to use!
One thing we are finding is with our silly dementia ridden dog is he is acting really unsettled and like he has never done this camping thing before ... I am putting it down to the concept of 'car camping' !!!
til tomorrow!

SKYWALK

Janet hanging over the edge.

 Lea Ann, Janet and Cena no hands.

             Lea Ann doing the skyjump.

 Out for a walk.

 Something interesting.