Tuesday March 4, 2014

Today was a short ride to Victor Harbor.  We are staying with another warm showers host tonight.  We were on the road by 7:45 and arrived in Victor Harbor at about 10:30. Another hot day (30+ degrees), we started out with a bit of a climb out of Normanville.

After the hill we dropped down into Inman Valley, very pretty and cool with trees covering the road, it was a nice undulating road.  This road will be used this weekend for a Triathalon starting in Victor Harbor.

I heard my first Kookaburra today and we also saw an emu.  No live kangaroos yet.

Victor Harbor is an historic town with a lovely waterfront area and cafes.  It has an historic tram pulled by Clydesdales which takes you over to Granite Island where there is a small penguin colony.

This area was an important whaling area and “The Bluff” which is a large granite outcropping was used as a lookout area to spot the whales coming close to shore.  Right Whales come to this coastline in June to calve and can often be seen close to the shore line.

After having a lovely walk around the Town, having lunch, getting some shopping and getting my front brakes adjusted we headed up to our warm showers host.

We really should check addresses when we contact warmshowers hosts – if the address has Hill in it we should think twice about going!  We had a steep climb up to their place, but it was well worth it.

John was home with his son Dan, they had been for a ride in the morning.  We had a great chat with John, who had cycled in Vietnam last year.  He offered us a wonderful snack of tomatoes and cheese.  The tomatoes were out of the garden and tasted so sweet, absolutely wonderful.  Dan offered us some pear cider.  This was lovely and refreshing, but I could tell it was quite strong, so I paced myself!  I didn’t want to be under the table before dinner.

John and Lyn had invited us to eat dinner with them.  John was the designated cook for the night as Lyn was working.  Our dinner was all home grown, from the lamb to the sweet potatoes.  Even the pear cider that I was drinking was home-brewed.  We chatted and relaxed until Lyn came home and then chatted some more.  Great warm showers hosts.

They offered to cycle with us tomorrow.  Lyn was meeting a friend and cycling to Goolwa, which is the way we are going tomorrow.