Penshurst to Mortlake

Penshurst - Mortlake = 58km

Cummulative total = 934km

Unfortunately there are no photos today as I forgot to put the memory card back into Neils camera and again it has all gone onto the cameras' internal memory which we can't retrieve until we are back in Melbourne as we didn't bring the cord! Silly me!

Anyway there wasn't alot of looking around today - due to the solid headwind this morning all I really saw was the tar on the road (fascinating!!!) as I had my head tucked in and just pedalled!

It was no use getting up early this morning as the wind didn't cease at night and just kept blowing and blowing all night and continued right through this morning. But we did endeavour to get up marginally early (6.30am) and because of the wind the temperature was rather 'chully'

and I think it was around 7 degrees last night (don't quote me on that!). We have noticed that the mornings are getting cooler and have had to dig out the merino thermals to cope!

We departed Penshurst around 8,30am and took the Hamilton Highway and we noticed that there was hardly any traffic on it. It was great to Caramut, despite the headwind, we travelled quite well. There was even a few dips and bumps to get through but they provided a welcome relief from the wind. From Caramut to Hexam is another story! by now the traffic had picked up but even still there wasn't alot especially trucks I suppose they were on the other highways! Anyway the road became quite flat and open and so we had no protection from the wind except for when a farmer had kept their cyprus trees which buffer the wind (and believe me you do notice the difference when they are shielding you from the wind!).

From Hexam to Mortlake the road turned almost South and that made the going easy as the wind was coming from the East so it was more a cross wind and by lunchtime it had begun to die down (at least it felt like that!) but every now and then you would get a strong gust come through and that would stop you almost dead!

So we arrived here at Mortlake around 1.30pm and the campground (council one again) is rather full as they are here working on the new power station so we were intending to have a rest day here tomorrow but we may not and push on to Camperdown as believe it or not tomorrow could be a tailwind for us as there is suppose to be a north westerly wind so who knows - we shall decide tomorrow.

There is not many facilities in this campground so I am here by Tea Tree Lake under a new shelter with bbq and tables (and a power point) and I am about 30m from the tent and I am overlooking the lake so at least that is a plus with this campground ... until all the other campers come home and use the bbq! I must admit when Neil and I passed through Mortlake late November last year we thought it looked like a nice place so we decided to stop here this time and while having our cuppa this afternoon I think we were both disappointed with it, not too sure what we are disappointed with but we feel that Mortlake is not living up to our expectations (not that we have high expectations or anything!).

If we go to Camperdown tomorrow we know the caravan park is good (as we have stayed there before) and we will have a rest day there as it would be our 4th day riding tomorrow.