Lismore to Colac

Lismore to Colac = 76km

Cummulative total = 1869km

This is my last entry for this blog for quite a while. We have now finished touring for the summer and will take the winter off to watch Geelong get the wooden spoon (probably!!!).

this is a photo of our campsite at Lismore. It is a council park with just your basic toilet and laundry block.

I must admit these 2 look like very wary travellers! I think we are all glad to be back home and when we look back we quit work around 18 months ago and have spent at least 12 of those months living in a tent! Not that we are sick of cycling ... more tired of living in a tent ... I will give myself 4 weeks and then I will wish to be on the road again!

The ride to Colac wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. When we looked at the way to get to Colac without having to go on any highways the route sort of was higgledy piggledy all across the country side! we had to google a route and then take note of the roads and when to turn right or left and at what distance these roads are ... couldn't exactly follow the route of the sun!

as you can see from the above photo it was a cloudy day and this did not burn off until just after lunchtime. The road was predominantly a single lane and it was fantastic riding and very little traffic.

the country side through and around Corrangamite Lake is very lush and green and the cattle are fat! We saw this old farm building and it is nice to look at but I don't think anyone lives in it.
There was an easterly breeze today - not strong but fortunately for us the bulk of the ride was either to be going east or south. The hardest part was the long stretch of east heading towards Beeac and turning south before it and then it was a cross wind.

We felt good cycling and by the time we stopped for a cuppa at around 40km I was relieved that it wasn't going to be a tough day of headwinds like it was forecasted (it forecasted south easterlies!).

As soon as we pulled over into some farmers driveway because he had a good gate to lean against there was a paddock with some cows that immediately started running towards us!

Kouta wasn't the least bit interested in them so Neil had to pick him up so he could smell them and the cows could smell him.

I think Neil was quite chuffed with the cows I think he was trying to get back to his country boy roots ... me I want to get back to my city girl roots ... namely my craft room!

Just after 40km we turned west and started heading towards Lake Corrangamite on the way there was a farm house with a farm dog waiting for us - we could see him waiting alongside the road .. he was waiting with anticipation for us! What was worse his he was waiting on a hill - so I began to pedal faster with Neil on the outside of me so if he should attack he would attack Neil first! But funny enough he stayed on his side of the road and just ran up and down getting very excited about us approaching. Either he wanted to play with Kouta and was disciplined enough not to approach Kouta or he thought Neil and I looked like cattle and that we had escaped and the dog thought that he might try and round us up!

Here is Neil with Lake Corrangamite in the background - it is not quite full but not as empty as what it use to be! This is a very big lake when you look at it on the map.

Between Lake Corrangamite and Alvie there are plenty of apple trees on the side of the road the first tree we saw the fruit wasn't ripe and then another tree further on had lots of red fruit so we ate one and they we okay. Didn't take any as we knew Ray had some on his tree for me to eat! We did spot a few blackberry bushes but they didn't have much fruit on it but I did manage to pick one or two to have for desserts last night (it went well with my Lemon Meringue!).

At Alvie we had a sandwich and as we cycled out from the rec ground Neil found a $5 note on the side of the road ... he finds money all the time!

From Alvie we go up and a bit behind red rock and somewhere along the road we saw this tree.

it is a tree decorated with bras! unfortunately I couldn't donate a bra as I only had 1 clean one and I needed that one!

Our road came out on the main highway and it was a 2 km cycle to Ray and Flos house and in that time more cars passed us than what has over the past 3 days! being a long weekend it was chockers both ways in colac.

Happy to be home and have a nice fresh meal with delicious desserts and I hear tonights meal is roast chicken with home made apple pie - we did weigh ourselves and have lost a few kgs but by the time we get down to Melbourne I think we would have put it all back on!!!

We will be on the road again proably in October - tentatively thinking about Melbourne to Canberra via East Gippsland and the coast.