Friday March 21, 2014

I woke early and turned over and went back to sleep.  The coffee shop where we were going to have breakfast didn’t open until 8:30 so there was no point in getting up at the crack of dawn.

We were up at 7:15 ish and were just about ready to pack up the tent when Ralf commented it was beginning to rain.  It is the fastest that we have got the tent down and packed – it was still dry when we packed it.  Everything else was packed and ready to go.  We went to the little café and had a lovely bacon and egg sandwich for breakfast.  We also met two road cyclists who were cycling the Great Ocean Road – the only thing they were carrying was a couple of Camel-baks.  They were staying in motels and had one change of cycling gear with them!!

As we left the café it had begun to shower, then it rained.  We got the panniers covered and carried on.  The first part of the ride took us down from Lavers Hill into Horden Vale. A lovely open valley, then we went back up hill to the Great Otway National Park. We saw our first Kookaburra.  We considered cycling down to the Otway Lighthouse – that was a brief consideration, as it was still raining and the road was 12 kms down to the lighthouse and, of course, 12 kms back up.

As we were cycling back up another hill towards the Great Otway National Park, I commented to Ralf that this is one of those days that we should not be enjoying, cold, raining and hilly but we were both enjoying the ride and the scenery.

It was only when we got to Apollo Bay and stopped cycling, we got cold then all we wanted to do was find somewhere to stay for the night and have a hot shower.

Of course, we got a cabin and have plugged everything in to power up and done a load of washing.  Some of our clothes can be put into a dryer, others –  the merino wool cycling shirts and t.shirts have to be hung to dry.  Our little cabin looks like a wash-house.

Apart from the computer Ralf wanted to be off-grid – however, our power consumption is huge. I am surprised they don’t have regional black-outs when we get into a place where we can recharge everything:

• 2 Garmin bicycle computers
• 2 cameras and 2 batteries
• cell phone
• data stick for web connection; and
• laptop.

We also have the heat on in this little cabin one to keep warm and the other to dry the clothes!!

Apollo Bay is a surfing town with lots of shops catering for the surfers.