Winchelsea to Geelong

Winchelsea - Geelong = 44km

Cummulative total = 1144km

We woke this morning very early as the campground is right on the A1 and there were quite alot of noisy trucks going through at around 5.30am ... even though we woke up early doesn't mean we got out of bed to make an early start!

It was a cloudy but warm start at 8.30am and we decided to take a different route to Geelong instead of going through Inverleigh and Bannockburn. We rode 6km north on the Inverleigh road and then took a dirt road for 6km towards Gnarwarre. At first the dirt road was very sandy and soft but after a few 100ms' there were more harder sections on the road to ride on. Very few card used this road and there was one who couldn't believe that he saw bikes on the road that he had to stop and pull over and chat to us. I think he drives this road quite often and was very surprised to see us on it. After the dirt road we turned east onto a sealed road to Gnarwarre. It was undulating up and down to get to Gnarwarre but the road was fairly quiet for us. At Gnarwarre we had a very early cuppa at the CFA sheds.

Nearly every small locality has a CFA shed and they come in very handy for us to rest the bikes on!

From here the road continues east towards Geelong and is very undulating (but rideable!). Just before Ceres the road goes down a bit and I tell you there are some real "nuff nuffs" out there when it comes to driving - 2 in a space of a down hill! One old guy decides to overtake Neil on a blind curve and I am well ahead and can see him in my rear vision mirror and point to the other side of the road indicating that there is another car coming the opposite way but he stupidly stays out half on the other side of the road between Neil and I and the car coming the opposite way has to move over. At the bottom of this hill I am far ahead of Neil and another car overtakes me clearly seeing there is another car coming the other way but still overtakes and the car coming the opposite way has to get off the road! what is it with overtaking people on bikes are people just dumb?

We turned North just before Ceres and cross the Barwon River - plenty of water but it is not really flowing (stagnant).

We took a small break near the river - it is a lovely spot! Just a bit further up the road we pass a farm and at the corner of my eye (we both saw it!) I saw a huge bird and neil yells out that it is a wedged tail eagle. Now we are not too sure if it is a wedge tail eagle and we will check when we get back to Melbourne in the bird book, but it was HUGE! I thought they were only in the outback as we use to see them flying in the sky all the time. But this one was being harassed by 2 small birds on a farm and I have never seen one that close and I couldn't believe just how big it was!

As we were circumnavigating our way around Geelong I guessed we were probably around 10km out and we climbed a medium size crest and at the top was a farm that had these boulders. I suppose you are wondering why we took a photo of them .. well around this area if there is stones they tend to be the grey ones used on fences like at stoneyford but these were like smooth boulders - almost like the devils marbles!

So Neil stopped half way up to take a photo of them while I continued climbing to the top to get a photo of him and the area we just cycled through and I also loved the fact that around these boulders was this one little tree!

Neil and I must have been thinking the same thing - he takes a photo of me while I am taking a photo of him!

Not long after this we get to the main highway and have to ride around 4km on it (and it was the worst 4km of the day!) and I had time to reflect and so did Neil as we both came to the same conclusion that it must be "3rd time lucky" the first time we were here we had 50km per hour winds (headwind) the second time we had a heat wave and third time was just right!

Tomorrow we will be heading for home!