Saturday 7th May, 2022

67.6 km +703m
Moving 3:12, Elapsed 4:27
Max 65.1 kph, Avg 21.1 kph

Breakfast at Walwa, only 20mins away, so there was no point getting there before the General Store opened at 8. So we left Jingellic just after 8.

Walwa store was full of interesting old stuff. Breakfast, something to take for lunch, loo stop across the road, and then we headed off. It was a cloudy, cold day, barely scraping over 10 degrees. The road was pretty quiet, though, and not too hilly.

On a bit of a downhill just before Tintaldra, we passed a cyclist (on a tri-bike) headed uphill. We weren’t sure if he called out something – like ‘I’ll catch up with you!’, and couldn’t help wondering if this was a repeat of when the dotwatcher out of Beachport underestimated the speed of a tandem and never caught us. And then we checked ourselves for having the audacity to think every bike rider out there was a dotwatcher looking for us.

We hooned down that hill, nonetheless.

While there was the township of Tintaldra just off the main road, there hadn’t looked like there was anything much in there. There had been some signs [what do you call those roadside signs?] about a bridge being closed, but we weren’t sure if that affected us on the prescribed route or not. So we pulled up in a farm driveway, and I was consulting google maps. Old mate from up the hill came past and stopped to chat. Not a dotwatcher at all, lol. [something about having headphones in and not being able to hear us?] I can’t remember now whether it was the bridge at Tintaldra or a bit further along at Towong, but either way, it didn’t affect our route. We told old mate that’s what we were checking, and then he wanted to give us advice on good riding/touring roads, not fully understanding that we were actually on this thing called IPWR and following a particular route.

Anyway, we said cheers and then continued on.

We had about another 15km before turning off. Well, to be more accurate, it was where Murray River Rd rejoined the Murray Valley Hwy. We would have got here quicker if we hadn’t turned off yesterday to take a more circuitous route, but it would have been a much busier road through to Corryong (only 6km from here). Luke/Beetlejuice and Chris/Caveman had actually detoured there to stay the night before doing the Cabra climb.

We still had two humps to get over across this next section (so we were glad we weren’t going to be doing them first up!)

7km along this road took us to the Murray River, ‘Bringenbrong Bridge’ (try saying that quickly 10 times!) and our ‘official’ IPWR crossing into NSW. Just before that we stopped on a corner to eat our sandwiches, but it started raining, so we gave up and kept going.

I had earmarked this place to have lunch – by the scultpure of a yabby – but the rain put paid to that. A quick photo stop. He said he was taking a photo of the yabby, but he was really taking one of the gauging station. The TwoUp Facebook conversation that later ensued (after posting this photo) identified one of the dotwatchers – Unkle Erik – as having worked in that field. He was an engineer rather than a hydrographer, but had developed a similar passion for spotting and pointing out gauging stations when travelling.

I do regret that we didn’t get a ‘Big’ Yabby lean!

Woo hoo! NSW! And a road name change to ‘Alpine Way’.

8km over a hill to the intersection of Alpine Way and Swampy Plains Creek Rd. We would rejoin the route here and head up Swampy Plains Creek Rd – a misnomer if I’ve ever seen one! – on Monday.

Another 6k till we rolled into Khancoban at about 12.30, feeling pretty damp and … not warm.

The only other thing of note from the ride was – as Marc wrote on TwoUp – ‘Got chased by a few farm dogs only one of which got over the cattle grid but Tracey’s stern “home” stopped him in his tracks. ‘ I can’t remember where exactly along the day’s ride that was, but I do remember being chuffed that it worked again (it’s worked before!), and that ‘awww, seriously?’ look on its face.

We rode straight up to the shopping precinct, and to the ‘Pickled Parrot Providore’ (try saying that quickly 10 times!). We got some hot chips and they were YUM! Now in Marc & Tracey’s Top Ten Hot Chips in Australia list. I had coffee (of course!) and we sat by the fireplace killing time until we could roll back down the hill to the pub to check in.

A rest day tomorrow.