Recce Trip 3, day 2

 

Some mushrooms ......

emerging.

Dunkeld

Dunkeld

Coleraine Community Centre

Coleraine Community Centre looking good: This art installation had just been an abandoned bicycle the last 2 times I visited.

Melville Forest is between Cavendish and Coleraine, and had this abandoned primary school and a Country Fire Authority shed.

Cavendish Post Boxes

Day 2 of my trip blog is continued from here

I was up early the next day - it was still dark at 7am  - and rode out toward Coleraine in early morning drizzle. It's possible I'm a bit fitter now than I was when I did this ride last as I made it to Dunkeld (about 74k) without much of a break. I stopped there for a pie and a drink and observed a small bird skittering around some old shop fittings.

Then it was on to Cloeraine via Cavendish. This route avoids the Glenelg Highway which runs through Hamilton and is quite busy. It was good to stop at the Cavendish cafe for a cup of tea and a pizza slice, and I was there about 2 - it closes at 2:30 winter weekdays! 

From then on it was fairly easy going, and I thought it was mostly downhill. (Correct, Coleraine is 60m below Cavendish) This was great, I didn't have too much energy left. I was in Coleraine about 4:30 in plenty of time to check into the hotel. I'd met Rodney the last time I was in Coleraine, and he was at the Hotel again, and I saw him off and on during my stay. He was visiting his mum who is in aged care in Coleraine. He is a keen cyclist and was interested in the challenge I was there to organise. 

 

Recce trip 3, day 1

 

View toward the Grampians

Cake!

Pub common room

Pub Bar and Dining room

Quite the building!

Ararat picture theatre

Lighting does the trick

These flowers were in the lawn in front of a large discount store

William, Ararat Hotel

Skylight

The first day of my third recce trip to Coleraine didn't have much cycling in it! 

On my last trip to Coleraine, I'd left Ararat to go by bike to Coleraine after the first Ararat train arrived from Melbourne at about 11 am. This left me riding in the dark at the end of the day, and I wasn't too keen on that. So for this trip I had planned to leave Melbourne on the 13:10 train, stay overnight in Ararat and start the next morning. 

My son and grandson visited in the morning and by this time I had worked out how to change my almost complete bookshelves so that I didn't hit my head on them. As well my grandson had quality tested my latest 3D print designs: I'll need to change the designs so kids are less likely to break them! 

After they'd left I made sandwiches, finished packing and was on my way in the sunshine to Southern Cross Station. I caught my train no problems and whiled away my time with a book and the newspaper, managed to lose my pen, and all together it was a pleasant trip to Ararat. 

William from Oz HPV met me at the station platform, helped me reassemble my bike and we ambled through Ararat to the Ararat Hotel where I was booked to stay. It is a nice hotel, old style and not too much renovated. Most of the pictures here are from Ararat around dusk on a day just after the winter solstice. I ambled around, managed to find a 2 litre bottle of chocolate milk and bought some replacement pens. Dinner was in the pub dining room and for supper there was some of an extravagantly coloured cake sampler which had been left in the guest common room. My room was a bit spartan but I slept well and was warm which is all you can ask for!