A Twisty Ride to the Seaside

You remember how I said we always seem to get up early then don't get going til late. It happened again, but it wasn't entirely our fault really, I think Tom didn't realise just exactly how slowly I ride!

We quizzed him over breakfast about the best way to get to Bermagui from Bombala, we had crossed back over the border from Victoria, to New South Wales yesterday. We'd be crossing The Great Dividing Range today. The Great Dividing Range is a line of mountains that divides the east coast of Australia from the rest of it, it took a long time for early settlers to get across it, it's that rugged! Tom told us the best way, I'm not sure it was the easiest with my novice riding in mind, I think he was thinking that as bike riders we'd like the twisties, but it was looking like my most challenging day of riding to date.

This is the route we took...



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Now I don't really remember the first part of the ride, I think it must have been pretty ordinary. But it wasn't long before we got to the start of the mountain. And we found a little spot to pull in for a quick break and photos.

First Terry's bike, who seems to have earned himself a name now .. being known now as growl .. and sometimes .. grrroooowl, depends what kind of mood he's in :)

And Roxy enjoying the shade.

Then we moved on, it wasn't too bad really, I was pleasantly surprised at how nice this road was. It certainly wasn't the horrendous 25km/hr twisties I was expecting. We'd planned to stop at the top at a look out the Tom told us about. There we found another surprise.

Oh I needed a proper break before I tackled that!!

We went to look at the lookout, and this time there was stuff to look at.

While we were there Tom turned up, he was surprised to see us here, I knew he hadn't reckoned with how slowly I take it.

Then we headed down the hill!

Oh I hate down hill bends like this, but I did it, and I have to admit by the end of this bit I was feeling pretty proud of myself too.

We were passed by a couple of groups of bikes, and I really have to apologise to those guys, I was going slow down there and I'm sure a couple of them got frustrated with me. I'm not going to be pushed too far out of comfort levels though so they just had to live with it for a couple of seconds before they could overtake me and take off.

One in particular kinda freaked me out though, he was sitting right on my tail going round one of those right handers that I really hate, and he'd come up behind me so quickly that I didn't see him in my mirror til I was well into the bend, then he pulled out and overtook me before I'd finished the bend and it shook me to suddenly see him beside me, I think we're both very lucky that when I jumped I didn't swerve very much and take us both out.

The left side of the road was just heading straight down the hill, go off there and you'd roll forever before hitting bottom, but for some reason I always find left turns much more comfortable.

And then we were down.

There aren't many more shots from the GoPro after this one, they all suddenly look like this ..

I guess that low gear was all too much for the bracket, luckily it jammed just kinda behind the headlight and didn't cause any problems with my steering. I found it when we pulled up in Bega.

I didn't like Bega. The town is famous for it's cheese, I love cheese but ... the smell as soon as you got near the town was just horrible!! Not to mention it's a hilly place, and we had to do a u-turn that nearly brought me and Roxy undone.

We grabbed a quick lunch here then hit the road towards Bermagui again. This country side was so pretty. We soon got to Bermagui, but even so Tom was wondering where we were.

So when we got lost in Bermagui (we were following his directions so not our fault!) we found a message or two from him.

Once we'd found out that we had to take the first turn right after the bridge, not the first right after entering town as we had, we also found ... our home for the next few days!!

And the view from the big back window had more than a glimpse of the ocean over the roofs of the houses behind us.

This is a fishing village, and the wharves are full of fishing boats. And of course there was a great fisherman's co-op, I went for a wander and brought back the yummiest, freshest fish and chips for dinner. Perfect end to a long day. Tomorrow we'd just laze around on the beach, check out the village, and generally relax. Well I would do all of that, Terry had some work to do, and he wouldn't hear of me helping him, so he only joined me for a little bit of all that. But more about that soon.