DAY 107 - 25TH JULY 2013 - CANN RIVER TO NIMMITABEL

Day 107 – 25th July 2013 – Cann River to Nimmitabel

Cycling Stats:  140 kms

Cycling Average:  estimate around 23 kms per hour – unknown as computer failure

Walter left at 8am – I had a bit of a restless night – I wanted to post the last 2 days of our blog but couldn’t because the Mac couldn’t connect to the internet. I rang Telstra late as I was concerned and was on the phone for over an hour – problem not solved…. Oh well – go to sleep and forget about it !!

I left around 8.40am and immediately pulled into the bakery next door to buy bread and headed up Ooops…. The Princes Highway for almost 60 km. I thought my god Walter has cycled fast today but then I thought – there is no way he could have got this far. So I stopped and had a quick look at the map & realized I had made a bad mistake and had continued on the Princes Highway and should have gone back and taken the Monaro Highway towards Cooma. So big panic – I had to drive back to Cann River and then buy fuel and then head onto The Monaro Highway and put my foot down to catch Walter as he had been cycling for almost 3 hours by this time. Damm !! I was so angry with myself. I caught him at around his 71 km mark and he looked like it had been a hard morning’s ride.

Today’s ride for Walter was another challenging one and he told me definitely one of the hardest.  With lots of climbing (long steep climbs and extremely cold as a lot of the ride was throughed forest areas so no sun) and yes I agreed today, more uphills than downhills. Walter was alos concerned about his bike – there were lots of grinding noises and one pedal seemed to be loose into the crank and with all the climbing it was getting worse as the day went on. We crossed the border into New South Wales this morning (I had done it twice !!!) and are now heading north and it seems uphill (we had joked about heading back up to Queensland and it being uphill all the way !!) and now for this section of the journey at least, this is actually true !! Today we went from around 200 metres above sea level to 1100 so that is pretty significant.

Our last planned stop was the turn-off to Cooma and when Walter arrived he asked me if we needed any cheese. I looked at him and he pointed to the sign to Bega. Good joke Walter – Bega is of course very famous for its cheese !!!! (Whilst I was waiting for him I thought I would see if the Mac was feeling better today - and yes great it must have re-set itself - who knows but internet connection had returned - thank goodness)

I arrived in Nimmitabel (a tiny town and enquired at the bakery about accommodation). There were 2 hotels / B & Bs in town and both were closed and for sale and the lady in the bakery asked me if I wanted to buy one….. There was however a motel just a little way out of the little town and I headed there. The owner was from The Sunshine Coast in Queensland. He said all the rooms were booked for truckies but… he knew one of the truckies wouldn’t be coming in that night so yes we could have it. That was lucky. I enquired about a laundry and he offered to wash & dry Walter’s cycling gear – very kind. We could also have dinner there – steak, schnitzel or barramundi & chips & salad & soup. Sounded good to us and it was.

One of the downhills

bare cold landscape

And ride slowly !!!

Do we need any cheese ...