An overview of the road covered during our second and third week of cycling in Australia.

2018.02.19 – [AU] Canberra ==> Michelago (50 kms | Total: 3679 kms) – We left, a bit reluctantly, the comfort of our apartment/hotel in Canberra. Maps.me led us safely out of Canberra and onto the Monaro highway meant to bring us back to the coastal region over five days. The road climbed gently for what felt like most of the day. During our route planning in Canberra, we struggled to find some accommodation for our first day of cycling. We reluctantly booked, over the phone, a room in Michelago some 50kms away from Canberra. Upon our arrival, we knew this would be a low point of our stay in Australia. We could relate to Google’s rating of 1 of 5 stars. Jenny quickly referred to it as another one of our spooky places of rest. Thankfully, the village had a nice and friendly café at which we had lunch and bought some take-away sandwiches for our evening meal. After a good warm shower, we managed to get over the initial shock of the accommodation and settled in as best as we could.

2018.02.20 – [AU] Michelago ==> Cooma (63 kms | Total: 3742 kms) – Surprisingly we had a great rest in our not-so-luxurious accommodation – especially after the mices vacated the premises. We had a longer cycling day today as we ended combining two cycling days together as we could not secure any accommodation along the way. The weather was still cool and comfortable for cycling. The road continued to present us with up and down hills. We stopped at a café in Bredbo for snacks and chatted with a couple from Canberra. They, liked many Australians on the road, were pulling a caravan and heading to the coastal area. We were pleased to arrive in the big town of Cooma. We were surprised to notice a number of ski shops in town. We took a break at McDonald’s before heading to our motel. Our modest accommodation for the day was half the price of our previous day’s spooky accommodation and much tidier. We went to a Chinese restaurant for our evening meal.

2018.02.21 – [AU] Cooma ==> Nimmitabel (38 kms | Total: 3780 kms) – Before leaving Cooma, we stopped at a nearby café for breakfast. As we were about to saddle up on the tandem, a gentleman came out of the same café and inquired about our itinerary. As I forgot the name of our day’s destination I simply responded Bombala as I had noticed a road side pointing to our next day’s destination. The friendly gentleman promptly indicated that he and his wife were living in Bombala and they invited us to stay at their place. Jenny and I looked at each other with a surprised look as, exceptionally, we had not booked any accommodation in Bombala as we had planned to stay at the town’s holiday park. The gentleman provided us with his contact information before we set out on the road. We clarified that we would be in Bombala only in two days time. The road to Nimmitabel offered a continuous gentle climbs. Along the road, a cyclist caught up to us while we stopped for some suncream. This cyclist had briefly talked to us at the café in Cooma. He appeared to have extensive bicycle touring experience in Australia. He was a really fast rider as he had left Canberra earlier in the morning and he planned to cycle to the coast by the end of the day to celebrate his 60th birthday with his sister. Nearing Nimmitabel, Jenny and I were pleased to have reached again the Great Dividing Range. In Nimmitabel, we had lunch at a café before checking into our hotel, a very venerable establishment under renovation. We ate at the hotel’s bar which was the only place open for evening meals. The meal menu was quite limited as the kitchen was being renovated. We appreciated as much as possible our frozen type pizzas.

2018.02.22 – [AU] Nimmitabel ==> Bombala (54 kms | Total: 3834 kms) – Before leaving town, we had a light breakfast at the local bakery. As we were encouraged by the fact that we were at the top of the Great Dividing Range, we expected the road to be mostly downhill but we encountered more uphills than we anticipated. The ride under the warm weather was a bit tiring. As we arrived in Bombala, we stopped at a café for some snack and a rest. We opted to call Phil, the gentleman we met in Cooma that had offered us a stay in their home. Less than two minutes after Jenny left a voice message with Phil, we were greeted by him on the sidewalk. Phil had been on the look out for our arrival in town. We followed Phil’s direction to his home. Phil and Shirley’s hillside home was beautiful, spacious and Zen. Phil gave us a tour of their home and garden. He shared with us his fascinating lifelong passion for martial arts which included on and off 32 year stay in Japan. As Shirley, a head nurse working in town, was working the afternoon/evening shift, we invited Phil for an evening meal at a nearby Chinese restaurant. We were warmly greeted by Shirley upon her arrival at home after 9:30pm. From Phil’s and Shirley’s home, we witnessed the arrival of a medical helicopter which Shirley explained was to air lift a patient to Canberra. Surprisingly, Jenny was not scared by Thomas, the cockatoo, that had been part of the family for the past 30+ years.

2018.02.23 – [AU] Bombala ==> Cann River (87 kms | Total: 3921 kms) – Jenny and I had a great night sleep. In the morning, Phil and Shirley had graciously prepared breakfast for us. Our stay with Phil and Shirley was clearly our high moment during this segment. After a few send-off pictures with our kind hosts, we left Bombala knowing that it would be a long cycling day of 85+ kms. Thankfully we expected going downhill from Great Dividing Range for some 700m or so. Along the way, we kept on being grateful to Phil and Shirley for their breakfast which kept us going all day – as we did not encounter any other facilities on the road. As we crossed into the state of Victoria from New South Wales, we noticed the comforting road shoulder simply disappeared. Cycling the last 20 kms, under the warm sun (30+C), to our final destination appeared quite long. After checking into our motel in the small town, we discovered that Cann River had very little to offer beyond a number of motels, a few cafés, two petrol stations and an expensive small grocery store. Nonetheless, Jenny and I were both glad that we had planned a day of rest the next day to give our bum a rest. Jenny managed some clothes washing using the hotel’s courtesy washer. We had our evening meal at the local tavern.

2018.02.24 – [AU] Cann River ==> Cann River (0 kms | Total: 3921 kms) – We enjoyed lounging longer in bed in the morning. When we stepped out of our room to have breakfast at one of the cafés, we could already feel the heat with the thermometer expected to climb up to 34C. We spent most of the day in our room working on our Chinese visa applications. I took a short dip into the motel’s pool which had surprisingly cold water. We had our evening meal at the only café still opened after 5:00pm.

2018.02.25 – [AU] Cann River ==> Cabbage Tree Creek (49 kms | Total: 3970 kms) – We had breakfast across the street from our motel at the same café as last evening. We ordered some take-away sandwiches for our evening meal as we did not expect any restaurants near our remote B&B. We left Cann River under much cooler condition than yesterday (20C) and under cloudy skies. After having reached the end of the Monaro highway in Cann River, we headed, once again, west on the Princess highway as we had done leaving Sydney. Although our cycling day was less than 50km, we had a good workout with the many climbs. The vehicular traffic was quite heavy as it seemed that every Australian family were out on the road with their caravans or boats. We missed the large road shoulders we got accustomed on the roads of New South Wales. We stopped at a nice café, less than one km away from our B&B, for some snacks and lattes. The café owner reached out, on our behalf, to the B&B owner to see whether we could check-in earlier than the expected 4:00pm. A light rain had started fallen when we stopped at the café and it continued throughout our stay there. After an hour rest, we cycled the short distance to B&B. We were delighted with the comfortable accommodation and the peaceful surroundings. Due to remoteness of the B&B, we had to pay an extra $10 for the satellite wifi. The B&B owner prepared us a serving tray with all the food items for our morning complimentary breakfast. She later offered us some tasty afternoon cake. One of the highlights of the B&B was the nearby pond which was home of few platypus. We first learned about the platypus in Bombala with Phil showing us a book about this strange looking Australian animal. Later in the afternoon, I visited the pond briefly but I did not see any platypus. We chatted with a UK gentleman, staying with his wife in the second and only other B&B room, about tandem cycling which he had done quite a bit in the UK in his younger years. His wife and him had been traveling extensively over the past several years in Australia in order to avoid much of the UK winter. We had our morning take-away sandwiches for our evening meal.

2018.02.26 – [AU] Cabbage Tree Creek ==> Nowa Nowa (66 kms | Total: 4036 kms) – We prepared and enjoyed our self catered breakfast in our room. Before leaving our B&B, Jenny and I visited the pond one last time in an attempt to capture a glimpse of a real life platypus, but unfortunately we were not successful. The weather appeared to be a copy of yesterday, cool and covered. The hills were a bit less challenging today. We stopped mid-journey in the small town of Orbost where we stopped to purchase some fruits and other snacks. We stopped at one of the town’s many cafés before continuing our route. Upon our arrival in Nowa Nowa, we checked into our tavern accommodation which was cheap, clean and spacious. Jenny managed more clothes washing with the motel’s washer. We had our evening meal at the motel’s bistro/restaurant. In the evening, we took a stroll along the nearby river.

2018.02.27 – [AU] Nowa Nowa ==> Bairnsdale (59 kms | Total: 4096 kms) – We enjoyed the motel’s complimentary continental breakfast before setting out on the road. The motel owner had warned us the previous day that we would be confronted to some hills before we would reach the coast. We had anticipated more challenging hills than those we ended climbing. It was a bit exhilarating riding downhill into Lake Entrance, a popular tourist holiday town. We stopped at McDonald’s for some lattes while enjoying the nice lake views. The tandem and trailer attracted the interest of quite a few tourists. After climbing (i.e. walking) a steep hill out of town, the road leveled off and made for some very enjoyable cycling. Along the way, we stopped at roadside general store/café for some snacks and a rest. We met a single lady cyclist living in Melbourne who had, on the spur of the moment, equipped herself with a tent and sleeping bag and set out to cycle to Lake Entrance. She needed to free her mind and enjoy the benefits of cycle touring. We chatted for almost an hour at the café. The remain of our ride was also enjoyable. In Bairnsdale, we checked into our accommodation at a tavern with a game room. Our room was much smaller than yesterday and required us to carry our luggage to the upper floor while we locked the tandem in the car park. We had our evening meal at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Later we walked the deserted main street.

2018.02.28 – [AU] Bairnsdale ==> Sale (71 kms | Total: 4166 kms) – As we expected a long cycling day of 69+ kms under warm weather (34C), we opted to leave the town a bit earlier. After carrying our luggage back-down to the car park, we reloaded the tandem and cycled to the nearby grocery store for some fruits for the road. We had our breakfast at McDonald’s before leaving town. To our surprise, the road was fairly flat and we managed to keep a good cycling pace. For the first time, our flat road cycling was what we had expected Australia to offer us. We covered the kms quite easily. We stopped in Strafford for some snacks and lattes before tackling the last 20 kms to Sale – our rest town for the next three nights. We checked into our nice motel before 2:00pm. After a refreshing shower, we went to a nearby shopping mall to purchase some food items. We spent the remainder of the afternoon in our room planning our upcoming arrival in Melbourne and more specifically our ferry crossing to/from the island of Tasmania. As we stepped out of our motel room for our evening meal, we battled some heavy winds simply walking to a nearby Italian restaurant. We were relieved that we were not cycling against such a headwind.

2018.03.01 – [AU] Sale ==> Sale (0 kms | Total: 4166 kms) – After our motel’s complimentary breakfast, we assembled all the documents for our Chinese visa applications. We were able to have these documents printed by our motel’s front desk – for a nominal fee. In the early afternoon, we headed out for some errands. Along the way we had some roast chicken for lunch. We spent the remainder of the afternoon in our room catching up with our travel blog and our trip expenditure tracking. We skipped our evening meal as we were still stuffed from our late lunch.

2018.03.02 – [AU] Sale ==> Sale (0 kms | Total: 4166 kms) – After breakfast, we continued to work on our trip planning, including making accommodation reservations for the remainder of our journey to Melbourne as well as booking our car rental for our upcoming trip to Uluru – after our cycling in Tasmania. We had some Chinese food for lunch. Later in the afternoon, we walked around lake Guthridge nearby our motel. We stopped by the Port of Sale for some lattes. We had some Mexican food for our evening meal. It was a very relaxing day.