Day 6 – Wednesday June 29, Narrawong to Nelson – 82 Km/ 50 Miles

What did we just do? It seems we were all feeling a bit harried from the ride today.

I hope it does not come across as complaining. I realize that any ride of such ambitious proportions, will have bad days, they are to be expected. In retrospect our first two days of short mileage should have been expected. The first day was basically a half day ride, and Day 3, with the climb, should have been expected to be short mileage considering climbing on a fully loaded touring bike. Day 4 was tiring, but we really made headway despite a very persistent headwind. Day 5, again into a strong headwind was a worthy effort. Today was our first day of mixing climbs, strong headwinds with the enormous trucks the ply the roads in Australia.

We set out from Narrawong and made our way toward Portland, a major regional port for imports and exports. We avoided Portland proper by taking West Lakes road west, to join up with road C192, or “The Scenic Road” toward Mt. Gambier. It turned out that C192 despite being a narrow twisting two-lane road was the major road for all the raw materials being exported out of Portland coming from the west. Among the traffic was a constant stream of empty dual trailer lumber trucks heading west with their loaded counterparts heading east. The same for enormous wood chip haulers with dual trailer bins. Lumber is a major regional industry and the clear-cut forests were part of the scenery today. Trucks easily outnumbered cars along the road 3 to 1. Where trucks would pass us either oncoming or in the same direction, the drivers would for the most part pass with a generous amount of room. Our Challenge arose when their passing would coincide with ours. More than just a few times we had to just clear the roadway as quickly as possible to make way…they were not slowing down.

Both Joe and I started off the day with some knee pain. Joe’s tended to subside, mine increased. A cold front with rain is moving into the area, so tomorrow will be a rest day. Hopefully taking a day off will help our knees recover. We are about 30 K east of Mt Gambier a more substantial town.

Tonight we are in rooms at the Nelson Pub. It is a small historic pub, and restaurant with 5 small rooms attached. We had a nice meal before retiring to our rooms. Ok, so the rooms were not heated, but that was the least of our worries today!