Wendouree 2014: Prelude

Beeac, Western Victoria

Finn's $5.00 Surfboard Bike

Rob

Fresh Blackberries at the start of Riflebutts road.

Top of the big hill, Riflebutts Road

Near Beeac

Blurry flowers

More blurry flowers

Hi

A few days ago, I took some time off work and decided to use some of it for for a bicycle road trip.  There is a place I can stay in Airey's Inlet, and I was booked in to a Motel in Ballarat for the Lake Wendouree relay ride , so why not make a tour of it?

Friday Feb 14:
Up early and made the 7k ride into Southern Cross Station for the train trip to Geelong.  My bike is big, awkward, and heavy to move around, but I had some help getting it onto the train so no problems really.  Arrived at South Geelong about 8am and I rode to my friend's Rob's place in Torquay.  Rob wasn't that surprised to see the bike, (having seen a range of my machines) but another mate Paul was very surprised, a wooden fwd bike being entirely new to him.

Rob had bought a tip shop bike for his son Finn for $5.00.  It is a cabable touring machine with canti brakes but now it is garishly painted and has surfboard racks fitted. After a mango smoothie, I went on from Torquay to Aireys Inlet where I stayed the night.

Saturday Feb 15
Made a 7:20 start for Ballarat.  There is no main highway between Aireys Inlet and Ballarat and the first bit of the ride needs to be over or around the Otway hills.  I chose to go up the dirt road to Bambra - and my bike does not cope well with uphills on gravel at all well, so there was lots of pushing to be done.  The basic strategy to employ is shut up and get on with it. Here is a short video I took

So 2 hours for the first 20k to Bambra, and then on over fairly familiar territory to the Colac - Ballarat road.  (So no more navigation then)  This road runs north through Beeac, Cressey and Rokewood .  I hadn't seen these towns before and they were very pretty.  Beeac has a windmill museum celibrating the diversity and craft of Beeac local windmill builders.  Had a nice lunch of dim sims, tea, and coke (I was cycling so this sort of makes sense) in Rokewood before moving on through the hills to Ballarat.  Found the motel fine and zonked it pretty early.