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In the morning we packed up camp and hiked back up main drag. Got some coffee at a local shop and had our breakfast at a park bench on the busy main street. We got on our way to Sheffield and our intent was to go past a wildlife reserve that also had devils and then do a big climb over to Sheffield.
The ride to the climb over to Sheffield was actually pretty easy. There was a lot of traffic but good shoulders most of the way. We stopped in a little town of Chudleigh, had lunch and some Cokes, and Dana getting challenged by a woman driver who was held up for a whole minute because Dana was in the lane instead of the shoulder – it was a blind hill, and the other drivers were exercising due caution, as they should have. Dana, ever the diplomat, calmed the situation down and eventually got the woman to admit the roads were (in the woman’s words) “for s*#t.” We then started out on the climb to Sheffield.
The climb was brutal. 11 to 13% grades, windy (and windy) roads, little shoulder to speak of, and flies. I haven’t mentioned the flies before, but we experienced them first back in Melbourne on the Moonee Pond trail. They circle and land on you for no other evolutionary reason except to be pests. Maybe they think we’ll soon be carrion or something. We saw people walking and jogging and swatting at the buggers with hands, tee shirts and hats, and soon were doing the same. About 1/2 the size of our houseflies, they delight in circling in front of your face and hitching rides on the panniers. They don’t bite (there is another species that does, but we only encountered them once), they just annoy.
Ok, flies. Enough said. Back to the climb. I walked the whole two miles and 900 ft up. At one point early on a guy with a pickup truck stopped and asked me if I wanted a lift up, and I declined. I was going to make it one way or the other under my own power. So, too, did Dana (well ahead of me) and we got to the other side of that hill and had a sweet downhill that only took about a tenth of the time it took to get up.
A few more smaller, but still painful climbs later, we made it to Sheffield. Our plans there were to camp in the festival grounds where there were some facilities, but no showers. We stopped at the Sheffield Hotel for some refreshments and Dana made some quick new friends at the table next to us. The women were poo-poo-ing the festival grounds, but one of the men piped up and said, if you buy dinner here, the owner will let you camp behind the hotel. Really? Yes. We went in and confirmed that and ordered dinner (after Dana had a walk around town and we almost missed the kitchen closing). I set up the tent, we had a wash off in the restrooms, and sat down for an nice meal before retiring in a nice, safe little spot in the yard behind the hotel — with a few caravans also spending the night. A good end to another good, if hard, day.
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