Day five of our high country Raid was spent exploring the bike paths above Myrtleford. There is a rail trail to Bright which has been open for years but now a bike path runs all the way to Harrietville. I'd been on the bike path to Bright before but the section to Harrietville was new to me. These are both excellent bike paths but the section to Harrietville was stunning. The latter part runs through forest and beside a river - it’s very peaceful riding. Slightly uphill all the way and we stopped at an excellent road side caravan at Harrietville for lunch.
Magpies had been swooping our group for the last few days. Michael was sick of it and tried and experiment with cable ties and sunglasses on the back of his helmet. He said he was still swooped but not quite so badly! On my recumbent I didn't get swooped at all, but maybe this was down to the flashing lights I had on the back of my helmet. Throughout the whole trip every one behaved impeccably and the only swearing I noticed was Chris warning us of a famous swooping magpie called the Gapstead bastard!
After Harrietville we turned around and descended back into Myrtleford. The nice trail into Bright was now super easy to ride, and made me feel I had an electric motor on my trike. There was plenty of time for the op shops in Myrtleford when we arrived back and I bought my girlfriend a few souvenirs from the ride, including a glass from the 1968 Bong Bong cup horse race! Not something you'll find every day! (And I am no stranger to Myrtleford and op shops, see here!)
We had another pub meal where I spoke to Phil about his bikes. He does many, many kilometers around town and on Audax rides, to the extent that he wears out clusters and chains regularly. He wears out things that don't normally wear on bikes such as brake hoods and derailleur hangers. Chris and he had toured extensively on bikes including doing the Munda Biddi trail which runs for over 1000km from Mundaring to Albany in South-West Western Australia.
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