4 pedals & 4 paws

Portland - somewhere in a pine forest = 55km
cummulative total = 469km

We could not get internet reception in the pine forest last night so I have left it until we got here to Mt Gambier.
We woke this morning to grey threatening skies and were debating whether or not to leave. After listening to a rather vague weather report on the radio we decided to leave Portland and to try to make a rest area at the turnoff to Winnap which meant a 55km ride.
The 192 road is a good road, it is used for forest logging trucks but since it is a Sunday today I doubt if there was going to be any trucks on the road and I was right!
However tomorrow I think there might be one or two! There was a bit of local traffic on the road I assume they were coming back from fishing at Glenelg River/Nelson. Alot of tooting and 'thumbs up' at us today. It is a gradual climb to Mt Richmond in fact you hardly see that you are going up but you definitely know that you are climbing as it is rather hard on the legs. Although that may have something to do with Neils' addiction to "orange stickers" which can be found at a supermarket and in particular in the bakery department. In fact I think I have to ban Neil from doing the food shopping while cycling as he has over done it with bread and cake. We left this morning with a few extra kilos that we didn't really need. But we do have a lovely Chocolate Butter cake to celebrate Valentines Day! Woo hoo what a valentines day to remember - a smelly wet dog in the tent, no showers, sandwiches for a romantic dinner and rain water to toast with!!!!
Anyway back onto cycling to Mt Richmond - by the time we got there it had begun to drizzle lightly and was getting heavier so we pulled over at the town hall and luckily they had a rainwater tank so we got rid of our disgusting Portland water and refilled with lovely rain water. Mt Richmond town hall is a lovely spot to camp sheltered by tall cyprus trees.
After a little while we restarted with our rain coats on and Neil is forever the optimist and constantly said "oh yes this is clearing" why he says that when you only have to look to the left and you can see the fine mist coming across at us! It wasn't a torrential down pour like when we arrived at Portland but more a heavy mist - enough to get wet and have to wear a rain coat. The road after Mt Richmond was a little disappointing in fact to widen the road all they did was tack a piece on the left hand side and obviously they don't "ice cakes" as their hobby as the join was as rough as anything and unridable so we had to stick out a fair bit! But that only lasted until Kentbruck. By now the scenery had changed to Pine Forests and also alot of ups and downs and at times the drizzle became quite heavy. Kouta was okay in his wagon - the shade cloth protects the majority of him from getting wet when there is only a drizzle but his face gets wet as he sticks that out but he didn't seem to mind and if anything I think he enjoyed the mist on his face!
Just before we got to the rest area we saw 2 emus on the side of the road but when they saw us they darted off in the pine forest.
We got to the rest area at around 1pm but decided there wasn't alot of protection from the rain and decided to camp in the pine forests. So after haulling the bikes across very rough, soft terrain to get to the forests we found a lovely, dry and sheltered spot just inside the treeline. I had never camped in a pine forest before but Neil assures me it is safe with no snakes (as there is no food for them) but only kangaroos, wallabies and emus .. but I keep thinking "Blairwitch" movie!
So you will see from the photos below our lovely little campspot and we really are protected from the wind and any really heavy rain.

Since everything was damp I used the pine trees as 'clothes airers'!

Tomorrow we should make Mt Gambier and will have a rest day there.