GeeDee

This morning, with a heavy heart (and a much lighter wallet than 3 weeks ago), I packed up the tent for the final time and headed towards home. Echuca to Bendigo The road out of Echuca starts off being very flat, and the countryside gradually becomes more undulating as Echuca is left further behind. After making a right-hand turn in the middle of a little town called Rochester (it has been claimed that this was named after Jack Benny's man-servant but I've been unable to verify this) the hills become more... umm... hilly until finally Bendigo comes into sight in all its golden glory. By my usual process of randomly riding the streets I found a nice little cafe called "The Wine Bank". This is a wine bar and retail outlet operating from a heritage listed ... read more

Today was spent being a tourist in the inland haven for tourists. I chose to begin my day with a walking tour of the 80 most interesting historical buildings/sites in the old port town. The tour started of in a most interesting way by taking me directly to McDonalds. I was a little puzzled at first, thinking that perhaps this was a clever marketing ploy, but on reading the tour notes I learnt that there had once been an old building on this site. I stopped after site No. 18 because it was getting too hot to continue walking, and transferred my touristic tendencies to a paddleboat cruise on the Murray River. This was a pleasant hour-long cruise, but my visions of cruising the mighty river were not matched by the site of rows of houseboats ... read more

Today I took a trip down to Swan Hill to have a quick look at the area. At the Information Centre I heard about the Lake Boga Flying Boat Museum and, being a bit of a plane geek, I just had to go and have a look. Lake Boga has been completely dry for a couple of years bacause of the drought, so the various aquatic facilities look strangely out of place. It's hard to visualise it with yachts and speedboats zipping around, let alone as it was during WW2 with flying boats taking off and landing for servicing at the No1 RAAF Flying Boat Repair Depot on the southern shore.... read more

With the rain continuing for 24 hours and not looking like clearing, I checked the BoM website to see if the weather was any better further down the coast. The forecasts contained little except varying degrees of rain for the next week as far south as Lakes Entrance. But further West there was good weather predicted so I changed my plans and headed West. The rain continued all the way to the Blue Mountains and in Lithgow the temperature was down to 13C. I was beginning to question my sanity at this point, but one of the signs of insanity is to continue with an action when common sense says to stop, so I kept going. Fortunately the rain eased off and the temperature rose as I continued on my way and by the time I ... read more

The rain has settled in, but in a sporadic way. Heavy showers are interspersed with dry spells where the heat of the day converts the wet-weather gear into a mini-sauna. Consequently I'm wet both inside and outside. My first stop for the day was at the Peacock Hill Winery. It was a good excuse to get out of the rain for a while, but I decided to taste a few wines (very small tastes only) and soon discovered that they produce a very enjoyable fortified wine. I took a chance and purchased a bottle which was very carefully packed in the top-box for the journey to the Central Coast. After stopping for lunch at the Hunter Valley Winery Information Centre, I headed towards Newcastle so I could take the 'scenic' route down the Pacific Highway and ... read more

Sydney to Wisemans Ferry Not wanting to spend more time in the traffic of Sydney than necessary I plotted a course out via Berowra Waters where the bike and I had our first nautical experience together on the ferry crossing. The road north traversed a mixture of farmland and bush, and the rain was restricted to an occasional light shower which barely dampened the road surface. Wisemans Ferry to Maitland The road out of Wisemans Ferry is quite picturesque with the wide expanse of the Hawkesbury River on the right and the sandstone valley walls on the left, with a variety of river flats, farms, fishing shacks and mansions in between. The only negative aspect is the road surface itself which, although sealed all the way, is mostly uneven and bumpy with many patched areas adding ... read more

Just a quiet day today before hitting the road again tomorrow. I went for a walk North along the beach for a couple of km to see what was past the rocky point. The answer, perhaps obviously, is another beach and another rocky point. I continued on like this for a while before realising that I didn't know whether the tide was going out or coming in, and therefore I didn't know if I would be able to retrace my steps without the risk of being swept out to sea never to be seen or heard from again, much to the disappointment of my loyal blog readers. I am happy to report that the tide appeared to be going out as I was able to easily negotiate the return journey without incident.... read more