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In the morning after a good rest and a hearty breakfast, we took a walk around Ian’s and Prue’s Wangaratta neighborhood. Saw a permanent kids’ bicycle training course, complete with a working railroad crossing. Quite a setup — would be great to have something like that in SC (along with an adult version! 😉 Ian then escorted us out of town on the bike path he suggested we take instead of heading straight north. I was happy because it was on 45 miles vs. the two 75+ days we just had.
The trail was paved with very few rough sections and the first 12 or so miles were almost completely flat. Then came the climb to Beechworth. We’ve been on longer climbs on rail trails (17 miles on the Mickelson Trail in South Dakota last year for one), but none with these kinds of grades. Add in the heat, and it took me a while to get up to Beechwood. Dana was, as usual, way out in front, and was already scoping out refreshment and lunch spots and making friends in Beechworth by the time I got there.
When I flew past the hotel where she was talking to a guy from England, he pointed me out going by to her. A quick text message and I was back on track, quaffing the beers she had ordered. We changed venues and went to the Bridge Road Brewers where they made their own. The brewery was also a bike rental place and after ordering a couple more and chatting with the owner, he said we could leave our bikes there while checking out the town. We finished our beers and our lunch and took a look around, and had some ice cream for dessert.
The final push to Yackandandah was much easier than the climb to Beechwood. We soon found the Yack (remember, Aussies shorten EVERYTHING). We had a couple of beers and received tickets for another Aussie tradition — a raffle every Friday at many of the bars. If you “won” this one, you got to pick a playing card off the wall and if it was the Jack of Diamonds, you won the pot for the week. I think this one was a couple thousand dollars. We didn’t win, and the person who did, didn’t get the Jack, so it all went to next week’s pot.
We walked through town past another bar and a couple other bikers (motorcyclists) were having dinner on the porch. They asked us about our trip and we told them all about what we were doing and that we hadn’t had any f-l-a-t-s and had a couple of days without r-a-i-n. Also that we hadn’t had anything but minor mechanical problems. They gave us the rest of their chips (what we call fries) — we must’ve looked hungry!
Our host tonight was Kirsten, and she accepted our request even though she was out of town. She was excited that we were from State College. She had lived there in the early 90s while her husband at the time was working on his PhD at PSU, and she worked at Skills. Freakin’ small world ’tis. Laurie at first thought she’d be back to meet us, but got caught up in Melbourne and was unable to get home. She gave us the contact info for her neighbor Chris, and said they’d show us in and get us settled.
I messaged Chris on WhatsApp and he replied that he wasn’t home, but that his wife Lauren would help us out. After some minor confusion over where Google thought Kirsten’s house was, we knocked on Lauren’s door. She guided us through the house and even brought us milk for breakfast. Wow. Another great Warmshowers experience — and a house to ourselves.
We showered, made dinner, worked on the blog and tax stuff, and listened to some radio from home before we went to bed. Another day in the books.
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