Great Ocean Road 2020 Cycling.

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Great Ocean Road. 2020
Day 1.
Here we are off on another adventure to the other end of the earth. Hopefully not into the bushfires which have been raging for two months now in Australia’s worst fire season in modern history.
We are going to ride from Warrnambool east to Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road built by the First World War soldiers on their return and completed in 1935 using pick, shovel and hard graft.
After a gruelling 22 hour flight and 28 hrs door to door and with dodgy sleep, if any, we arrive in Melbourne ready to build up our bicycles ready for a steady ride around the cycleways of the city on Friday the 7th of February. Please find me a bed to rest this weary body. I don’t care what time it is. Despite travelling in an Airbus A380, the best wide bodied plane for comfort in my opinion, cattle class is not conducive to comfort and sleep. What this trip to Australia should do is give us some sun on our bodies after the dull winters of England, especially in the northwest.
My first major mistake of the tour (and hopefully the last) was encountered when we landed at Tullamarine airport to find our coach was not waiting for us. After some phone calls it was discovered that I had got my date wrong and it came yesterday and went away empty handed. Luckily the Murray’s crew were very good and managed to find a bus with trailer and picked us up within the hour driven by the area manager with his Abraham Lincoln beard.
The bikes went together with no problems but no doubt some minor adjustments will be needed tomorrow on our tour of Melbourne cycleways. All 12 of us have now been issued with MYKI cards for use on Victoria public transport, so we should be set up now for our journeys around Melbourne later in the tour.
A visit was made for dinner to the Crua Thai 2 restaurant on Bridge Road in Richmond. Very nice it was too, as was the Japanese Restaurant across the road at lunchtime.
For anyone who has not been to the antipodes before the flora and fauna is of great interest and we look forward to seeing it all over the next three weeks.
Despite a two hour sleep this afternoon we still need more shuteye so bed for 9.300pm.

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Photos

Murals near Richmond Station
Melbourne

The travellers
Thai Restaurant