Betten On Bike: DAY 9 - 27 FEBRUARY 2015 ST HELENS TO SCOTTSDALE

Day 9 – 27 February 2015 St Helens to Scottsdale

Cycling Stats: 107 kms

Average Speed: 24.5 kms per hour

Once again another very heavily cloudy morning and the guys left at 7am. Gill and I left at 8am as we had planned to meet at the ‘flat bit at the top of the climb’. This was all the information we had to go by.

There was so much heavy cloud around and some light showers and as we started to climb, the cloud cover increased and when we met the guys we passed them and found the “Little Plains Look-out’ which was the flat bit at the top of the climb but, it was very cold and heavily clouded and not conducive to stopping for a break.

The decision was to continue on to Derby another 20kms along and find a coffee shop. The sign we saw “Painted Art Café’ sounded appealing so when Gill and I arrived in Derby that’s where we decided to head. Before that though, we parked close to an arts & crafts shop. Carla the owner was standing outside and greeted me and I noticed what I thought was a dutch accent. I struck up a conversation with her and asked when she had come to Australia. I always find this interesting as my parents immigrated back in 1955. She told me very bluntly that over many drinks in a pub in The Netherlands she and a friend had decided to come to Australia back in 1978. She said they weren’t allowed into New Zealand so opted for Australia. After twenty years of living in Sydney she had come here to Derby 10 years ago. The town is changing, she told me, 20kms of new mountain bike trails had recently been opened with more to follow. The Tin Museum, which we had visited 5 years ago is now being run by the local biking group now (it was handed over by the local council). Cycling is now the theme of Derby with many shops being adorned by bike symbols and Carla is enjoying making cycle themed jewellery from coloured buttons (the wheels) and twisted metal wiring (the bike frames).

We stopped at the Painted Art Café for coffee and cake and Walter & Steve arrived not too long afterwards. When Mandy, one of the owners brought over Walter’s coffee she noticed that the lights on the bikes were still flashing and asked why. Walter immediately replied that the lights were to attract the women whilst he was cycling. A big discussion followed about big black books and cycling around Australia etc etc with lots of laughter.

What was interesting was that Derby seems to be a small town where many mature women run the businesses. Mandy explained there were many women running businesses in Derby and she said that that is because women are more organised and better at running a business then men. Hmmm

Walter & Steve decided to visit the Tin Museum. I had visited it 5 years ago so I opted to travel on with Gill to Scottsdale to locate her camping ground, set up camp, organise lunch for Walter and book in & settle into the motel unit one km up the road which we had booked.

The weather was unsettled – showery, cold and a bit miserable but I couldn’t really begrudge this as we had been lucky for the whole of the last week.

Walter arrived cold and wet through and enjoyed a nice warm shower. A bit later we decided to head to the Timber Museum (5 years ago when we were here it had just closed for the day) but when we arrived today we saw it had, in fact been shut down for some time. We learnt later when we visited the Information Centre that this was because the building had some serious issues. The sail structure imported from Germany had been spanned incorrectly causing serious leaking problems which had affected the electrics and so it was now derelict and this we found was quite sad. We also heard that the Information Centre had been located near this Timber Museum 5 years or so ago and around 200 people walked through their doors every day then. There were at that time many tourist buses which visited the town. Now the Information Centre is located down a side street, not very central and not as many people find the need to visit it. I must add though that the building where they are now located is the old court house and the beautiful old timber ceilings and the judge’s platform are all still intact so this in itself is worthy of a visit.

Tonight dinner in the local Scottsdale Hotel – the service and food were great.

Tomorrow, a huge ride for the guys around 170km from Scottsdale to Devonport. Unfortunately the weather forecast is not favourable.