Narbethong to Warburton

Narbethong to Warburton = 41km
Cummulative total = 8508km

Man last night was 'chully' and I am saying 'chully' this way because after chatting to Bevan and
Felicity (the motorbikers from NZ) I found my NZ accent came back!
We said our goodbyes and rode back down towards St Fillans and took the Marysville turnoff and 100m up the road was our Warburton turnoff - The Acheron Way. We decided to do this road (even though some of it is unsealed) for 2 reasons - 1. We had driven over this years ago with Neils folks and the gradient is ideal for us as cycle tourists and 2. The Black Spur is just too dangerous for cyclists - it is winding, no shoulder for the bulk of it and the traffic is very heavy (logging trucks and local traffic).

As you can see from the above photo there is a little low cloud on the mountains.

This is the Acheron way and is not suited for buses, caravans and semi trailers - I think it is because it is narrow the whole way and there are logging trucks on this road - we saw 1 loaded logging truck, 2 unloaded logging trucks, 3 cars and a group of 9 4WD cars for the entire time we were on this road - so it is very quiet (it might have a little more traffic on it on the weekends).

The average gradient for this road up to the Acheron Gap is anywhere between 1-3% so it is perfect for us.

You can see that some of the fires had been through here especially at the start of the road.

It is lovely riding through here and very soon the bush becomes thick with undergrowth.

Neil stopped often to take photos. We decided to take notes along this road for ideal bushcamp spots so then the next time we come along here we can go straight from Alexandra to somewhere along here instead of having to go to the campground at Narbethong. Anyway there was a good one about 7km along the Acheron way and another at 13km (better one) and at about 15km along the road became unsealed for around 13km (when it meets up with the Mt Donna Buang road on the other side).

As you can see I look fashionably correct for a cyclist - socks with my sandles and socks on my arms as arm warmers - I was a little cold going up this climb. We took small breaks every now and then mainly because Kouta was moving a bit which means that he needs to go to the toilet.

You can tell by the look in his eyes that he wants to go but won't!!! It got to the point that I threatened to kick him out of the trailer and to make him walk that he finally did his business!

At 20km along you reach the top or the Acheron Gap

Damn Neil and 'his look' we took this picture twice but the second one Neil is smiling and I look funny so I decided to put this one up of me looking a photo of fresh air and Neil very stern looking!

We had a cuppa at the top and had a look around and found the perfect campspot there for furture rides up here. We put on our warm gear for the decent into Warburton which is 15km away. There was still another 8km of gravel - the gravel road before the gap was nice and compact but after the gap the road became a little rough in places - a few humps and bumps but it was still nice and it was a nice gradient down too. 5km down we met a cycle tourist coming up from Warburton and his destination was Alexandra today and home in Canberra eventually.

After 8km we joined up with the Mt Donna Buang road which is sealed and from there it is a 7km decent into Warburton - it is steep compared to what we had been riding today. I would say that it is around 6% for most of the ride and it is constant and there is no shoulder. It was a great ride coming down it though!

This is the unsealed road going down!

So we are here in Warburton and are about to polish off our last packet of Tim Tams until we cycle tour again - we have to be ruthless with cutting back our food intake from now on!

Tomorrow is home and that is around 50km away I think.

Funny enough we have decided that todays ride was probably the best ride we have been on this trip (and other trips) that Acheron Way is just so peaceful and beautiful that we will most definitely do it again and may even try going up the Mt Donna Buang way.