At 3am this morning I extricated myself from my warm sleeping bag in my warm tent to locate my earbuds from the trailer so that I could listen to my own music… until then I’d been trying not to listen to the doof-doof shite down the road. No wind and very cool temps meant the noise carried for miles. It didn’t have to though – it was only 200m away from my tent. So, I had about 4 hours sleep, in bits n pieces. Not a good way to start the day.
However, while only just over a 100 km was planned, there was lots to see. Due to yesterday’s detour I headed north to Binalong Bay to see the Bay of Fires. Get used to these photos – the whole east coast is like this… amazing…
South again and back through St Helens first…
To the Chain of Lagoons…
I’d read about the must-have stop at the Mount Elephant Pancake Factory, which starts with a magic 10 km twisty road up Mount Elephant (duh).
This place is up for sale, if anyone is interested… free pancakes for life I’m sure!
Just north of Bicheno is the East Coast Natureworld – at $25 it’s a bit steep, but I did get to see my first Devil, and I think my first “living” wombat (as opposed to roadkill), various quolls, and a myriad of other cute & cuddly (and not so much) things.
Bicheno is a nice little town too (all of them are actually):
The blow hole:
Through my research I’d been aware of Wineglass Bay within the Freycinet National Park, and I made sure I went there. It requires a 30-40 minute climb up 200+ metres of steep parths/steps to get to the lookout (or many hours if you actually want to visit the bay/beach itself). Clearly, it was the lack of sleep that I was suffering from that made me struggle – my obvious navy-seal-like physique would rule out any other reason.
It did seem a lot of work for just 5-10 minutes of viewing and photos, but it was worth it – particularly given the weather for today. I was worried that the rain hadn’t quite moved on and I’d cop it again at just the wrong time. Today was magic though.
And on the opposite side, Coles Bay:
Diesel made some suggestions to head further west, but I’ll do that tomorrow if I can. It was getting late in the day, so I headed to Swansea for the night.
PS. I am still thinking there’s something not quite right with my brakes. Several times (in carparks) I’ve found myself pointing uphill on gravel, front brake applied and the bike slides backwards with the front tyre just slipping down the slope – a VERY puckering moment! Rear brake stops the bike in its tracks. So I think the linked-brakes “aren’t”. It’s manageable at the moment – so I’ll check it out when I get home.