The Last Leg Begins ...

Day One on the Great Ocean Road

Portland to Port Fairy

We must have done something right. The forecast for today was 8 - 12 degrees, with a clearing shower early. Luckily the shower was very early, coming through overnight. And we awoke to a minimum of only 10 degrees, so not as cool as forecast.

Here's Di on the way out of town down by the waterfront in Portland ...

Ready to roll!

Isn't she looking good after all these kilometres on the bike!

While we were down that way I stopped to take a photo of the port itself, with a couple of ships waiting to take on cargo from the huge pile of wood chips sitting on the wharf ...

Portland port area

The first ten or so kilometres of the ride were just wonderful. We were on a quiet road that followed the shore before joining the main highway. Once on the highway things got busier but at least there was a very good shoulder to ride on whenever a large truck approached, which was much less frequently than the previous two days.

All in all, it was a pretty uneventful day. Di and I set off about five minutes after the others and were just catching up to them when we noticed Jacquei passing Neil. In doing so she missed the turnoff to the main highway. Neil, Jim and Jen followed her and so did we, but I soon realised we'd gone the wrong way and alerted the others as best I could. Dianne and I turned around but we weren't sure whether the others were going to follow us or Jacquei, so followed the sign pointing toward Warrnambool and confirmed with a lady walking her dog that this was the most direct route to the highway and on to Port Fairy. 

As we were looking back, it appeared the others had continued ahead in the direction they were going so we sped up a bit thinking we would have to catch them again: perhaps Jacquei had found another exit on to the highway? We continued at pace for about 5 kilometres and then decided that we would have caught the others if they'd continued in the direction they were going, so slowed down again. 

There were a couple of interesting things along the road. The first was a collection of what must have been many hundreds - if not thousands - of pairs of shoes string up and on a fence alongside the road. I tried to shoot a video but it was useless. The second mildly interesting thing we passed was an old sandstone house with some early farm machinery parked alongside, counterpointed by turbines to the north. I took this photo, where if you look closely you can just see a turbine at the extreme left edge of the photo ...

The old ... and the new

We went at a steady pace through to  morning tea at the rest area at the Codrington wind farm entrance. There's this quirky bird(?) sculpture at the entrance ...

Watch the birdy

... and good views of the wind turbines ...

Codrington wind farm

Neil arrived a few minutes after we did, and then Jacquei. It turns out that they did follow our example and double back to the missed turn-off. Jim and Jen arrived a few minutes later so we did manage to have a little bit of time together.  I was a bit disappointed the way the morning had turned out because with the easy terrain - initially along a quiet road - it had seemed like a good opportunity for the six of us to ride together. 

We had a relaxed spell and then Neil, Di and I set off for the remaining 30 kilometres into Port Fairy. We had a very enjoyable ride together and were delighted to get all the way from Portland to Port Fairy without being rained on. With our last rest day here in Port Fairy Neil had opted to book into a hotel and Di and I had reserved a double room in the YHA. Here's my bike parked against the fence of the hostel ...

Arrival

It turns out that our accommodations are less than 200 metres apart. Collis dropped our bags off for us and we settled in. Well, Di and I did but Neil's room wasn't ready for him. He came over to the hostel and then we wandered into town and had a great lunch courtesy of The Farmer's Wife. 

Here's a graphic of our journey today ...

Portland to Port Fairy

We have just now walked back from the caravan park where the others are settled. Collis laid on a barbecue, with contributions from Jen (potatoes and nibbles) Jacquei (coleslaw) and a Greek salad prepared by Di. It was a convivial meal and now I am ready for bed, where Di has already taken herself. After our rest day we have three interesting days ahead before the last easy day into Melbourne. It seems incredible that we are more than 90 percent of the way through our journey and that it will come to an end five days from now.

Distance covered to date: 4314 kilometres