The Great Victorian Bike Ride: Day Seven

Whitfield to Mansfield 39 miles (247 miles total)

Absolute mother of a mountain. Effectively it was an eighteen mile climb up a mountain. About five minutes up the mountain I passed the last of the students who was having a hard go. I took one rest stop on the climb up, but didn't get off the bike other than that before lunch. It was going to get hot again and I didn't want to end up stuck in the heat in the afternoon.


We stopped at lunch early in a nice shady spot and were met with a pleasant surprise. Throughout the ride there has been a four-person band that has entertained the riders in varius guises: gypsies, minstrals, etc. Today there were at the lunch spot done up as hillbillies and they played some really cool bluegrass and country music. We grabbed some shade and ended up at the lunch spot for about two hours. It's getting easier to keep in mind that this isn't a race but a ride, and we weren't in a hurry to leave this little oasis.

We had some nice downhill riding after lunch and then we were hit with an utterly depressing last eight miles.


It had become stinking hot and the land was parched. Australia is going through its worst drought in hundreds of years and the area where we were riding is in the heart of bushfire country. Rivers and lakes have dried up to the point that they were either gone altogether or just a small, desperate trickle in a barren landscape. This felt like a dead land. Outside of the riders, silently spread along the road, and the few gums, there didn't seem to be much life here at all. I drank about seven liters of water today and was really looking forward to getting to the site.

Fortunately we were at a camp sight that had lots of shade, even if our tents were in the open sun. We spent the day hanging out and the feeling that I was ready to go home started to get more pronounced. I was ready. Just two more dayes of riding.

Dinner was braised chicken, mashed potatoes and vegetables. Very nice and no line.

After dinner I went down by myself and watched The Castle, a classic Aussie comedy, on an outdoor screen at the camp sight. After it finished I crawled into bed.

The weather is supposed to break tonight and it should be cooler tomorrow.