Blog #6

Currently written in Apollo Bay as it’s the weekend, so we have a whole day off. Following on from the last Blog, I forgot to mention that, prior to the electric fence being installed, they had used fiercely protective Maremma dogs (works well in Fairy penguin colonies) to protect the gannet colony from foxes. This they did very effectively but they turned out to be rather too partial to Gannett eggs.

Leaving Warrnambool on Thursday 18th April, we only had about 70 km to go so we selected a slightly indirect route, recommended for cyclists, which kept us away from the main A1 highway and followed the C167. We were expecting some showers in the morning and were not disappointed, having to put our waterproof trousers and jackets on and off a few times. The route took us through Allansford, where we had been told there was a good bakery and coffee shop, but we arrived there before 9:30 and thought it was too early for coffee. Rain was threatened much heavier in the afternoon and we wanted to avoid delay in getting to Cobden. The road was great, quiet and flat so we made fast progress, passing the solitary, weirdly shaped hill in the photo (looks like a Viking burial mound) and passing a speedway.

 

 Seem to have passed a lot of speedways during this trip and didn’t realise it was such a popular sport. 
Reaching the outskirts of Cobden (pop 1800) we paused to check the map and our accommodation address and discovered that Google Maps gave two alternative distances to the town. If we clicked on the car route, it said it was 14 km and if we clicked on the cycle route it said it was 4 km. Both following the same road. Whilst we were scratching our heads over what this meant, a car stopped on the opposite side of the road and we were greeted by name by Gary from the Cobden Rotary Club. A chance sighting on his way to a trivia afternoon, he stopped to say hello and then alerted one of the other Rotarians to welcome us to the bed-and-breakfast where we were to spend the night. Arriving there, we found Frank standing at the gate waving and he ushered us into a lovely modern bed-and-breakfast. The only problem with the set up was that there was nowhere under shelter to leave the bike and,  not long after we arrived, the rain started in earnest, continuing all afternoon. The bike got wet and the chain quickly rusted, despite me having oiled it three times in the last two weeks.

 
We were ferried to the evening Rotary meeting by car even though it was only 200 m. because the rain had turned heavy. It is a small town and a small club and catering at their meetings is home cooking courtesy of Rotarian Lesley. She produced an excellent meal with home-made meat pies and a bread and butter pudding. Just the calories we needed. With only 10 members, they certainly punch above their weight being very active raising money on a mini golf course in town and directing that money mainly towards Trachoma prevention (Trachoma is an eye disease prevalent amongst Aborigines in the Northern Territory and WA). It can be prevented simply by regularly face washing but many of the aborigines on outstations either don’t have the water or simply don’t know to regularly wash their face. 

The infection is carried by flies and causes blindness. We were given some statistics, which I can’t remember but, in the space of a handful of years they’ve reduced the incidence of trachoma by around 90% simply by providing flannels, soap, shampoo and water bottles along with instructions on regular washing the faces of children.
The Rotary meeting dragged on a bit but resulted in a very generous donation to End Polio Now and, when it was finished, we were able to get some advice on the following day’s route across the Otway ranges to Apollo Bay, where we were planning to have two nights of R&R. We were very strongly advised to avoid the main route across the Otways via Lavers Hill because a lot of trucks and caravans use it and it’s narrow, tortuous, steep (10%, so a knee trembler) and has no shoulder.

Returning to our accommodation, we checked Google Maps for an alternative bicycle route and found several options, which were not much longer than the main road so we followed one on Friday 19th. We got caught by brief showers, but nothing significant, and the route took us initially on bitumen roads and then, to our dismay, on a gravel road. However, this one was in excellent condition and we continued at normal speed, even if it was a bit rattly over the gravel. Another few kms on bitumen then a seriously corrugated gravel road and it looked like we would have to continue on that for 80 km. Just not possible, we would’ve shaken to pieces, so we looked for an alternative and turned east towards the town of Colac, from which there was a bitumen road south across the Otways to Apollo Bay, but the total distance was going to be beyond us. Arriving in Colac just after 1pm, we stopped at a bakery for lunch and to decide on our plan of action, knowing that we could not now make it across the Ranges. A maxi taxi seemed the only solution so we phoned from Colac to a taxi service in Apollo Bay to check that they had a maxi taxi available, then arranged to ride a further 33 km to Forrest and get picked up, thus avoiding the final 40km across some serious hills. 
Vanessa was our taxi driver and she was very chatty and pleasant and at the end knocked $20 off the fare. 

Arriving at our B&B in Apollo Bay, we were met by the host and hostess and our host showed us around the property.
He was a Kiwi married to an Italian. He took us first into our bedroom and showed us, in tedious detail, every minute feature of the bedroom, opening every drawer and cupboard. Same on the patio. Same in the bathroom, where he folded and re-folded the flannels and showed us the towels and soap. Then it was the turn of security and he demonstrated each key in each lock on the inside and on the outside in turn before moving on to the air conditioning in forensic detail. Still he wasn’t finished. Next the living room area of the bed-and-breakfast and through into the kitchen where his attention to detail blossomed, opening every drawer and showing us almost every knife, fork, and spoon plus the eight breakfast cereals, which he carefully disturbed and demonstrated, one by one ( and rearranged in order of size of packet). The teabags, about ten varieties, got the same treatment before he turned his attention to the fridge containing about twenty litres of assorted fruit juices and milks. Was it my imagination, or was there a carton of hamster milk in there? It was absolutely bizarre. I took a sideways glance at Joyce (we were both still in our cycling gear) and noticed she was almost imperceptibly shaking and I couldn’t decide if she was cold in her damp Lycra or if she was going to launch into a fit of hysterical giggles. I interrupted his flow with some excuse about us having to have a shower immediately and we made our escape. His personality seemed to be a weird collision between autism spectrum and hypo mania.
Having said all that, the B&B was pretty good, even very good. We had our showers, had Nana naps, checked the coast was clear of our host before tiptoeing out for an absolutely splendid Italian meal. This was followed by bed, feeling quite replete, at nine.

On Saturday we didn’t do very much at all. We had never planned to do anything other than wandering downtown to look at the market on the foreshore and picking up a coffee and the weekend paper.
Our first choice of restaurant for dinner was fully booked but the second choice was excellent, too.

Still couldn’t shake the ignominy of bailing out into a taxi - first time in thirty years of cycling. Otherwise a couple of good days.