Warrnambool to Port Fairy

Warrnambool to Port Fairy = 35km

Cummulative total = 181km

It was a slightly cooler start to the day today! We recovered from our ordeal yesterday and the body has taken a bit of a hammering from the heat and wind yesterday the legs were a little heavy this morning.

We said goodbye to Heather around 8.30am (said goodbye to Anthony last night at he gets up at 4am to go to work ... man I love retirement!). Had to pick up a few bits and pieces from town so we stopped by a camp store to get a spare fibre glass pole for the tent and some milk powder and dog food from Aldi.

It was hot and sweaty by the time we got out of Warrnambool - To get to Port Fairy there are not too many options except for the non existent rail trail that is not sign posted or complete! or along the Highway. We chose a combination of both the highway and quiet roads. We took the highway to Illowa and turned off there to go onto the old highway which funny enough is part of the so called incomplete rail trail. This road is very quiet and a little bit hilly. Thinking that we might be able to continue on the rail trail we take the path that goes under the highway and then ... nothing! you can go left and onto the highway or right ... to who knows where - we think it might be the rail trail that continues on to Koroit but with loaded bikes you sort of don't really want to take your chances and waste energy in finding out! so we opted left and jumped on the highway which has a reasonable shoulder and had our usual break at the quiet cemetary!

From there we remained on the highway up and over tower hill and then just at the bottom of this hill is a road called Gormans - we took that and that becomes Survey road - these are lovely quiet country roads that are only 1 lane wide but next to no traffic.

The above photo is on Survey road - no doesn't that look the perfect cycling road. This road continues for a few kms and then you have to go right at the end and take the highway again for around 2km and then turn left onto Woodbrine road and this takes you right to Port Fairy via the golf course - this is a better option compared to the highway but does have local traffic along it.

By the time we got to Port Fairy it was cooler but we were still sweating. Got there around 12.30pm and had a bite to eat but I have to mention that while at Warrnambool we did get a little gift from a sponsor! ... take a look!

Anthony who works at the Warrnambool cheese and butter company kindly gave a cooler bag to us - and this is the perfect size for my panniers and is a bit bigger than the one that got stolen at Barcaldine last year! thanks Anthony!

We have been to Port Fairy before but one thing I don't remember is the mossies - they are thick and viscious so we have to spray ourselves regularly with aeroguard and even then they still continue to bite through the clothing.

We went for a walk this afternoon and remember how last year we took a photo of every street that had our names ... well we found another Kouta one but again they got the spelling wrong!

We went down to the estuary and sat on the banks watching 2 guys fish (they didn't seem to be successful only in pulling in plankton ... beached az bro!). But we did manage to capture a family moment...

Tonight we will walk back to here and I will go across to Griffiths island to the mutton bird viewing platform (it is a national park so Kouta is not allowed) hoping to see them come in en masse around dusk.

We are staying here tomorrow - the campground is big and not very full but has a camp kitchen with bbq, fridge, hot water urn, gas burner and toaster. It is still expensive - tonight is $33 (peak) for unpowered and tomorrow is $30 (shoulder). Dad if you are coming this way you might want to consider bypassing Port Fairy and continuing onto Yambuk which is alot cheaper nothing there but a campground but the kitchen facilities at this campground is surprisingly good!