Last weekend, we headed west to Warrnambool and shacked up with Marls and Chris and were entertained with a bike ride and some seal watching.

The new 37k Warrnambool to Pt Fairy Rail Trail is all but completed and just needs some finishing touches before an official opening.  There are issues with access to private land near the Warrnambool end so we hopped onto the trail 5k out from Warrnambool and headed through Koroit to the lovely fishing town of Pt Fairy.  The trail is mostly through farmland with some small pockets of forest but a pretty good surface to ride on except for some small muddy sections in places.  Unfortunately, Chris’s road bike, with it’s narrow tyres, came a cropper at one stage and he managed to land on his head but his bone dome saved him from major grief. 

We stopped in Pt Fairy for a coffee and a look-see at the waterfront before heading back to Warrnambool.  We stumbled upon an organised bike ride to Koroit where the local burghers thought it a good idea to drum up some winter business by advertising a community bike ride.  However, the message hadn’t got out as only a handful of people turned up and they were well ahead of us by this stage.

We arrived back at the old Koroit station and the smell of the snags on the barbie was very tempting to four hungry cyclists and we were soon tucking into some mystery bags and hot coffee courtesy of the Rail Trail organising committee.  We got chatting to the leaders of the committee and discovered that they had spent $2.2 million of the Councils and State taxpayers money on the trail so far and then gave us an insight into the hard work that goes to developing these Rail Trails by a dedicated band of volunteers.  They told us they only had $15,000 left in the kitty to finish off the Trail and I suggested they put it to good use like a monster party for themselves.

We arrived home to wash the bikes and ourselves and then headed down to the Breakwater to view the antics of a pod of seals who have taken a liking to a fisherman who regularly cleans his tuna catch by the water.  A lady asked him what type of fish they were and if tuna made good eating.  She obviously has a cholesterol problem.

A small slideshow here and a video clip of the tuna lovers here.  The sound is a bit iffy with the video but keep an eye out near the end to see how the seal breaks up large morsels of tuna.

We rode the 2.5k back to the start of the Ballarat to Skipton Rail Trail and then hightailed it towards Skipton.  As I mentioned previously, it was a lovely ride through forests and open farmland dotted with old mines, relics of the gold rush days in the mid 19th century. 

We rode through the two small townships of Scottsdale and Scarsdale before we reached Linton where a cafe was conveniently located next to the trail and marked our return point.  Lunch was had at the picnic area at Scarsdale and then back to Ballarat to complete a trip of 73k. We ended up feeling quite knackered and put it down to having done a long walk with a couple of friends the previous day.  When ones mind thinks they are still 30 and the body rudely reminds us we’re not, it makes for a good nights sleep.  

The caravan park gave us a couple of vouchers for free coffee at the local Beechworth Bakery so we headed there for our recovery session.  If you look at the photo of the establishment and mine taken from inside, there is a hint of what this grand building was in a former life.  You can’t just rock up for the free coffee so we settled on a couple of small Bee stings which were the size of dinner plates anyway.

The next day, we drove to Skipton and rode back towards Ballarat and got to 25k before we decided on a shorter trip and then turned back.  Fortunately, we crossed paths with the cafe from the previous day and piled into the sustenance before the long hill climb out of Linton to be rewarded by a fast final 5k back to Skipton.

An enjoyable couple of days riding and a plan to come back in September and do the whole out and back journey of 108k’s. A small slideshow here and a short movie clip of me trying to chase down MP.

We spent the best part of the week camping at Ballarat and riding the beautiful 54k Ballarat to Skipton Rail Trail.  Ballarat is about 90 minutes drive north of us and their rail trail is a fantastic place to ride a bike and enjoy the great scenery along the way.

In the thriving gold rush days of the mid 19th century, Ballarat and the surrounding towns were a hive of activity and people and a rail line was built to service the towns between the bigger city of Ballarat and Skipton and beyond. The 20th Century brought a gradual decline in the population until the line was finally closed in 1985 and it fell into ruin and disrepair. 

A concerted effort by the community, local councils and the State government in the last few years brought about the construction of a rail trail for recreational purposes.  2008 saw the completion of the project with the spending of $700,000 to seal the trail over the full 54 kilometres with a fine crushed and hard packed sandstone rock surface, considerable signage and repairs to bridges especially the historic Nimmons Bridge.

Our camping ground was only 300 metres from the trail and only 2.5k from the start at Ballarat and we were really looking forward to our ride the next day.  As we were still building up our training for China, the plan was to ride from the start to Linton and return which would be 73k and enough for one day and then tackle another long one from the other end the following day.

Details of the ride tomorrow with a short slide show and more photos.

Memo to relevant Bellarine Rail Trail authorities. Get your act together!

Just because we bought a Loewe LCD TV, people think we have expensive tastes.  That’s just rubbish!

My computer mouse has been playing up lately so I’m ordering this one.

Since the weather looks like behaving next week, we’re hooking up the van and heading off again.  Taking the bikes this time and will tackle someone else’s Rail Trail for a change. 

110k out and back should make for nice ride.

We had to do some business in Melbourne yesterday so we decided to take the train instead of battling the traffic of a city with 4 million people.  It’s a no brainer really as it costs me $6 return for a comfortable one hour trip from Geelong and double that for MP because she’s hasn’t reached the ranks of senior citizen yet.  I bet my UK readers couldn’t match that.

We were heading to Lygon St which is the cafe and restaurant capital of Oz, and amazingly, a place we haven’t visited before.  Business concluded, we looked for somewhere to eat.  Considering every establishment along this road is an Italian restaurant or cafe, it didn’t take us long to get roped into a nice place that served great pizza and excellent coffee.

There has to be more Italians in Lygon St than in all of Italy but I was amused by a sign on one window that said, “Sorry, we don’t speak Italian, but damn, we make great pizza and spaghetti”.  One place was packed and next door the waiters were standing outside forlornly waiting for some business.  Someone was doing it right.

On our way from the station, we came across a rally of building workers protesting safety in the workplace which has come about because of a sudden surge of recent serious workplace accidents.

United we stand!

The Grampians comprises several mountain ranges about 3 hours away in north western Victoria and it’s an imposing sight even from a 100k’s away because the surrounding area is mainly flat, farming country.

We stopped at a small town on the way there and the general store has great coffee and we were soon surrounded by these guys.  The trucks use this highway to cut through to the main drag to Adelaide so we mix it with the B Doubles for a short while.

We pitched the van at a nice camping/caravan park on the outskirts of Hall’s Gap which is the town servicing the Grampians and wandered into the town for a sticky beak.  This place teems with rubbernecks at holiday times, but hey, we do it out of season so we don’t qualify as rubbernecks!  Go figure the logic!

We picked a great week weather wise as the temperature hit the mid 20’s every day and even a smidge hot for the grunty hill climbs which we would start early to beat the heat.

Day 1 saw us tackle the Pinnacle walk which takes about 3 hours of grunting to gain some great views over the Grampians followed by some easier walks to waterfalls and other great views.

Day 2 and we drove south to Jimmy Creek camping ground which even has a bush shower and did a walk with a tough climb to overlook the Victorian range.  Then a trip back to the Koori Cultural Centre to check out how the original owners lived and suffered at the hands of the white fellas.  A 3k walk around the centre and we came across quite a few of the locals too.

Day 3 took us from the Cultural Centre on the steep climb up to Boronia Peak and the views were well worth the steep rock scramble to the summit.

A very pleasant few days away and you can check out the slide show here if interested.  About 60 photos but you can speed them up if you click on Fast from the menu at the top left.

This video to show our visitors from foreign shores our big hopping rabbits………

We’ve just got back from a few days in the bush to find my blog account had been suspended because I was overdue with my payment.  Considering it doesn’t run out until October 2011, I was somewhat annoyed and some stern words seems to have paid off.

I’ll report on the trip in detail when we get our breath back but we visited the Grampians National Park in north west Victoria about 3½ hours away.  It’s beautiful country and five days of fine weather made it a great trip and the camper did it’s job well.  We haven’t been up that way for over 20 years, and even though a major bushfire ravaged the area in 2006, it has recovered well and the place is teeming with regrowth and wildlife.

Just a quick selection of pics……………..

   Mixing it with the big boys at a coffee stop                The Grampians

          Crimson Rosella’s everywhere               The usual suspects

No volcanos here to worry us so we’re going away for awhile.

We took the bikes down to Queenscliff today for a planned 60k bike ride to Geelong and back.  We knew the “back” bit was going to be fun when we mounted our trusty steeds and we were doing 20 kph without peddling!  So the out bit was a screamer with a 30 kph tailwind but that came to a halt 6k down the track.

We mastered the clip-on shoes and pedals very quickly but we need to train the brain that we actually have clip-ons and not conventional pedals.  I pulled up to cross the Portarlington Rd and came to a halt without unclipping the shoes from the pedal cleats and I suddenly started to lean like that famous Tower except I kept on going.  When you get past 45 degrees and you just remember you need to unclip, then it’s too late and Newton’s Law takes full effect.

The tumble didn’t hurt too much except for some shed skin but my new seat came apart and is beyond repair.  I managed to do a temporary fix otherwise I was going to have one seat shaft embedded up a very sensitive place and so we rode on.   We managed 20k out before the seat started to continually fall off and so we turned around and hightailed it home.

Well, “hightailing it” into the strong headwind probably wasn’t the right word but we battled on with me having to stop a few times to prevent “embedding”.  MP decided to have a forgetful moment with the pedals too and joined me with some scrapes on the knee but we made it back okay and a trip to the bike shop is in order with their crappy seat.

Clip on, clip off. Clip on, clip off. Clip on, clip off.

MP was backing the car out of the garage yesterday when the Google camera car sailed past.  I heard they were re-doing Oz again and I told her she should have jumped out and mooned the thing.  Now that would have made a great link on a blog post.

Another beautiful day today so we piled the bikes into the car and drove over to the car park on the Rail Trail at the corner of Curlewis Rd and Portarlington Rd and rode the Rail Trail into Geelong where it meets the Barwon River and then completed the 20k circuit around the river track. 

A most pleasant ride and we even stopped for the obligatory photo shot and a latte at the riverside cafe before heading back to the start.

Our trip meters were showing 49.9 kilometres at the end so MP decided to ride up and down the car park a couple of times to get the 50k while I just picked up the bike and spun the front wheel until it clicked over 50k.

Yeah, I know!

Last week we had exercise classes, long runs and bike rides and the long hike yesterday left us feeling on the stuffed side.  I had plans for more retaining wall replacement starting today, but damn, this body is rejecting the notion.  How about a nice jog on the beach, a swim afterwards, and a trip to the flicks to use up a couple of freebie vouchers.  Sound good to you?

Another thing we did last week was renew our passports as they expire in June.  We’ve gone through three passports in 20 years of travelling and two had to be replaced because they were chockers.  I thought this could be a bureaucratic fumble considering my place of birth and pedantic nature but I started the process on-line which extracted ones records and created forms you printed out and took to the Post Office to arrange an appointment for an “interview” .

Well, talk about painless.  We knew were on a roll when we walked into the PO and the place was empty.  The Ocean Grove Post Office ALWAYS has queues coming out the door so we looked at each other and wondered if the end of the world had come and they forgot to tell us.  A very pleasant and cheerful lady assisted us and said we could do the “interview” there and then.

So it was over against the wall for some mug shots, some form ticking and checking and then I tossed in the fast, curve ball.  When I filled out my personal details form on-line, it didn’t have a country of birth as Palestine but it had the Palestinian Terrorities which was no good as that’s the Gaza and West Bank so it would only accept my country of birth as Israel.  As many of you will know, my father was a British Palestine Policeman and I was born in Haifa, Palestine, in January 1948 (I’ll help you out here, it’s 62) and the State of Israel didn’t come into being until 15 May 1948 when the Jews kicked the defenceless Arabs out of their homeland and took possession, a trick they learnt from their own oppression in Europe.  Don’t get me started as it could become a monumental rant.

So I told our interviewer that I took exception to “Israel” being on my passport, as for one, I wasn’t born there.  She said countries of birth don’t go on passports anymore but I dug my heals in and said I didn’t want any record of Israel in my records.  She said she would ring her contact at the Dept of Foreign Affairs and came back quickly and said they were happy to accede to my request if I just filled out a form explaining the circumstances. She had the form there and it was a done deal and we were out of there in no time and $416 lighter with a promise of new biometric passports within 10 days.  It’s not often I can say dealing with government departments is a pleasure.

Well, for that price, it should be!

While we’re on a roll with photos.  These taken at the Iguazu Falls on the border between Argentina and Brazil in 2002.

[smugmug url="http://dogbait.smugmug.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=gallery&Data=7552864_Dj3iG&format=rss200" imagecount="18" start="1" num="18" thumbsize="Th" link="image" captions="false" sort="false" window="false" smugmug="false" size="X3"]

We took off for the Otway’s again on Tuesday and headed out to a bush camp 14k east of Gellibrand River which is on the road between Colac and Beech Forest about an hour and a half from our place.  The Old Beechy Rail Trail runs 45k from Colac to Beech Forest through Gellibrand in the beautiful Otway Ranges and the idea was to camp a night at Dando’s Campground and a couple of nights back in Gellibrand where we could spend some time walking portions of the Rail Trail.

This country is a mixture of rolling, lush hills and magnificent eucalypts and blackwood rain forest but the place was raped and pillaged by loggers in the late 1800’s and the early 20th century.  Although the forests have recovered, the magnificent giant Mountain Ash’s have gone but pockets of the original forests still remain especially along the Rail Trail. 

Gellibrand and surrounding areas were once renowned for their hillbillies, hippie communes and extensive pot plantations but the place has taken on a more gentile nature these days.  Pine plantation logging still goes on in the area but old growth logging is now banned.  At one stage, we were walking along a track with beautiful eucalypts on one side of the road and pines along the other.  Very odd.

We took the van down a good gravel road to the Dando’s bush camp but were dismayed to find it so crowded.  It had a clean toilet but no tank water but we were carrying plenty so no drama there.  We setup camp and went for a pleasant walk along the Gellibrand river but retreated back when the stinging nettles got a bit too much on the bare legs.  As you may have determined, we had the place to ourselves and it was a peaceful night but I swear I could hear banjos and pigs in the distance!  Just my fertile imagination, methinks.

The next day, we headed back to the camping ground at Gellibrand and had the place pretty well to ourselves. They had trouble finding a dry spot for us since 125mm (5”) of rain had fallen up that way in the previous week.  We tossed on the hiking boots and headed south along the Rail Trail for a couple of hours and then back again for a very pleasant afternoons walk.  As you can see from the map, we started at Gellibrand and turned around about 1k past Wimba station site but there was much to see along the track.  Magnificent parrots everywhere, remanets of the the old railway, and of course, a beautiful walking track.  We only saw three bike riders in the two days so it was practically all ours.

The next day, we did the same but headed north where we found a lovely spot for lunch at the old Kawarren station and decided to head back from there and so covered about 35k of the best walking you could imagine in the two days.  That night, we headed over to the Gellibrand pub for a great dinner and were there for an hour and the only people in the place.

It’s times like these I wonder what the workers of the world are doing.  Just a fleeting thought I might add.

Slide show of 27 photos here.

We spent a few pleasant days at Johanna Beach west of Cape Otway along the Great Ocean Road.

We used a freebie camp site which is just a couple of acres of grass buried behind the sand dunes with a toilet and water tank.  We had the place practically to ourselves with just the odd camper popping in and out as people slowly shift around the country.

We did a couple of long hikes along the Great Ocean Walk which stretches for 95k and you may remember we did a portion of it a few weeks back further east towards Apollo Bay.  It never ceases to amaze me what great country exists just a couple of hours down the road.

We took off heading west on the first hike with all the battle gear on as it was cold and threatening and were down to shorts and tee shirts within an hour.  Half an hour later and the armour was back on as the rain thumped down.

We had a mixture of cliff top walking and along rolling meadows before we came across a mob of ‘roos with one stepping across the boundary to nibble some juicy shoots.  A couple of English girls sauntered past and were jumping around like a couple of excited, uhm, kangaroos when I pointed the paddock encroacher out.  Toss the tourists a ‘roo or a koala and it keeps them happy.

The next day we drove about 10k to Aire River and hiked east towards the Cape Otway lighthouse but the return trip would have been 8 hours so we opted for lunch at the beach and returned to Aire River.  We were going to camp at this pretty little spot too but decided to stay put at Johanna and drive to some waterfalls the next day.

We made for Hopetoun Falls near Beech Forest and took the track to the base of the falls which was running well with all the recent rain.

A family arrived in the car park when we got back and took one look at the sign saying 40 minute return to the falls, groaned, whinged, and got back in the car and drove off.  I could wax on about how useless people are today but I’m not wasting my breath.

Camped not far from us was an old guy (all of 61) who had arrived with a cart loaded with his swag and provisions and 4 large jerry cans of water and food.  We struck up a conversation with him and it turns out he had pulled that cart from Western Australia.  He had this enormous, tobacco stained handlebar moustache and his clothes hadn’t seen water for quite sometime but seems he was a scientist in a former life from which he had opted out.  We had no doubt about that judging from his cultured educated accent and his level of intelligence which was several floors above mine.  Swaggies were common in my youth but you don’t see too many like this roaming the country these days.

The camper preformed well except for a drainage problem in the sink but we’ll get that ironed out before the next trip in a couple of weeks.

If you haven’t been bored too much by this stage you can view a slideshow with about 40 photos here.  Hit F11 on your browser to get full screen before you start the slideshow for better viewing and then “Fast” on the top left to hurry it along a bit.