Hit Polio For Six

  Blog 14 May 25 Monday, Jugiong to Yass For a couple of months now I’ve had this unsettling sense that I’m being stalked Emerging from our motel room in Jugiong we cycled about a kilometre back into the village to an attractive little cafe for our breakfast. It was very cold and we were keen to sit inside and found ourselves a long table and with 5 people already seated on it. To our surprise, we were greeted there by name, although we didn’t recognise anyone. It turned out they were Rotarians from our presentation at Coolamon and we had a very pleasant breakfast chatting to them, mostly about farming again. The bowls of granola we ordered were very generous (as usual Joyce was overfaced with the serve and got them to put half of hers into a container for later consumption) and probably the best we've ever had, so we were reluctant to leave.  Old Hume Highway Old Hume Highway could use some attention We wrestled with the route we were planning because the most direct route wa...

  The Murrumbidgee River Today’s ride was only about 40 km across the flat country between Coolamon and Junee along the main road called the Canola Way because canola is the major crop in this fertile area. We didn’t really need more coffee after the Cheese Factory in Coolamon but, with no time pressure for such a brief ride, hey, why not, we paused at the Marrar cafe. Marrar was a settlement comprising not much more than a crossroads and a cafe where we sat in warm sun on the patio to drink our coffee and revel in the relaxing day. Soon a man approached and asked if either of us was a medical doctor, which set alarm bells going in case I was to be asked to perform CPR or extricate someone from a car wreck. But, how did he know I was a doctor? Turns out Greg had spent the previous couple of days in the company of our host to be in Junee, Bill, attending a funeral of one of their classmates from 60 years before. Greg obviously heard the story of the tandem ride and put two and two t...

  Blog 11 Wednesday May 8. Time to move on from Wangaratta to Myrtleford along the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail, which was our old stomping ground and a trail we had ridden many times in the past when we lived in Myrtleford. But first, a couple of comments on the last blog. Bloggie Dave tells me that Redbacks have been found in Belgium - seems like we’re getting even for the rabbits and foxes. And Bloggie Robin sent me a photo of a large (think 2m) snake he photographed last month next to that snake warning sign in the blog.  It’s only about 45 km from Wangaratta to Myrtleford on the rail trail and it’s a sealed bitumen trail all the way so progress was pretty rapid, arriving in Myrtleford mid-afternoon. Here we turned off along the riverside walking track, which has now been designated as the Mosaic Trail. This has an interesting history. About five years ago, small mosaics started to appear along this walking trail but nobody claimed responsibility or knew who was installi...

  Dear Bloggies, We rolled into Wangaratta mid afternoon on Friday May 3rd and our first stop was going to be the bicycle repair station at the beginning of the Murray to Mountains Rail trail, which was in the centre of town and from my memory of years before had a complete set of chained tools, and also a track pump, which would be much less effort than our little frame fitting bike pump to bring the tyres back up to pressure after a month on the road. We rolled into the repair station to find it had all been vandalised and every single tool have been ripped off, including the end of the track pump. So, the next port of call was the nearby bike shop where I borrowed a track pump before we made our way to Heather's house, a kilometre from the centre of town. There had been signs on the way into town of a diversion brought about by some major works on the railway station and the surrounding bridges, so we thought there might be a complicated diversion to Heather's house on the ...