Today started with some more Kangaroo spotting before breakfast. The hotel rooms were arranged in a courtyard with a small grassy area in the middle. At 7.15 I spotted a large Kangaroo grazing there and took lots of pictures. Peter W came out and flashed it causing it to promptly hop away up the driveway.
After breakfast I found a group of 4 Kangaroos on the lawn in front of the hotel and got a few pictures before they hopped off across the road including a mother with baby behind.
There had been heavy rain the previous evening and night but it was just starting to clear as we left with some light rain for the first 15 minutes. The rest of the day was cloudy with some sunny spells and temperatures up to 19C.
The day started with an 8 mile climb into the northern Grampian Mountains. We gave Peter W a 30 minute head start. We re-grouped at the top at Reids Lookout with great views over the Grampian Mountains. Then we walked half a mile to another viewpoint with a rock shaped like an Alligators Jaws and Peter T and Martin obliged by standing on the top to give some scale.
We then had a fast descent on switching bends with the road littered with torn off bark from gum trees from the previous nights storm. By the time we left the forest of the Grampians we had cycled 16 miles among trees badly burnt from a massive Bush Fire in January of last year. The forest had recovered very well with much greenery rising from the ashes and many trees left undamaged.
As we came down to the Wartok valley we were in another area favoured by Kangaroos with many visible in the fields. We saw one group close to the road and as we stopped they sat upright looking at us. Possibly the battery of Cameras we pointed at them decided them to hop off elsewhere and they hopped across the road in front of us leaping fences with ease.
Lunch was taken at a pottery and shop combined with Tea Rooms in the small village of Wartok. Later we saw a group of 5 Emu in a distant field.
Nearer to our destination of Horsham the land became pan flat farmland with dead straight road. We had a good 25mph tailwind riding to the Best Western in Horsham, a town about the same population as the Sussex version but spread over a larger area American style.
48 miles for the day and 1896ft of climbing.
Edwin
Posted by Edwin
at 10:29 PM EADT
