Not A Mid Life Crisis (Part III)

 DAY 5

Today was going to be an exciting one for me. I hadn't ridden any of the roads in north eastern Victoria since 1999. That was when I moved from Central West NSW to Adelaide for work and the route to Phillip Island didn't take me that way any more. Also, I had never ridden the Mitta Mitta to Omeo road as it was largely dirt back in the day. 

I was up pretty early and soon doing battle with the biggest bacon and egg roll I have ever seen. It actually defeated me by just a little bit, but a defeat nonetheless! Do yourself a favour and have the $8 bacon and egg roll at the Union Hotel in Tumby. You won't be disappointed!

Once I had stuffed most of the roll into my pie hole and finished talking to the BMW blokes who had wandered down from the other pub looking for food, I headed back out the way I had come the night before for a few kilometres before turning left on the Jingellic road. There was some nice riding along here and I had to force myself to stop for a photo - which doesn't do it justice.

There isn't much at Jingellic so I just stopped at the border crossing. How weird that I can just roll across today when a few short months ago I would have been clapped in irons for trying the same thing.

Turning right I skirted the liquid border - The Murray River. The river was very full and spilling out onto the flood plain, right by the roadside in places. It was great to see so much water around.

Coming into Granya I saw two motorcyclists on the side of the road up ahead. I was cruising at 100 and as I approached they just pulled out in front of me! No indicators, nothing. FFS. Luckily I had slowed a bit and moved across the road "just in case". The guy at the back looked in his mirror shortly after and got a eyefull of my headlights and me shaking my head. From his agitated movements I think he was duly shocked/embarrased. Imagine if a car had pulled out in front of them like they had just done to me. They would be the most self righteous spanners in the world about it, no doubt. Grrr.

Anyway, the Granya Gap was less than a kilometre up the road and soon took my mind off those two. How good is Granya Gap?! Twisty, smooth and deserted this morning. Awesome!!

I continued on and was pretty much just blindly following the gps. It had me turning left on the C453 toward Mitta when I thought I probably needed to go straight for fuel at Tallangatta. Nah, I should be ok I told myself. 

The road down to Eskdale and then Mitta was very pleasant. Nothing too demanding but plenty of corners still. Should I have got fuel in Eskdale at the big above ground tank......?

Rolling into Mitta I knew it was 105km to Omeo and the bike indicated 150km range. There was a line up for fuel and it was mooving...barely! Do I, don't I bother? What if I feel like blatting up to Falls creek...? Yeah, ok. Better top up.

So I lined up and waited... and waited. "Hmmm, I'll get a coffee" while I wait so went inside to order one. It was like a wax works inside with about 10 people standing around, going nowhere. Apparently the EFTPOS machine was playing up so nobody could pay. Doesn't anyone carry cash any more?

So I went back out and the bloke in the white car in the photo below was filling up. I pushed the bike up behind him and asked him if he could do me a favour. "Would you mind if I put $20 in my bike after you fill your car and I'll give you the cash?" I asked. "Yeah, sure, no worries" was the reply. Sweet!! I got some fuel, paid the man and was on my way. For all I know those people are still standing in the store, waiting to pay. 😄

It didn't take long for the fun to begin. Corner after corner after corner after corner on smooth, well surfaced road. After quite a while I thought to myself "yeah, I'm done with corners for now" and almost as if on cue a distance marker came by stating 65km to Omeo. That means I've only done 40km of the 105km of bends! 😲 Geez, I need a rest....

But in true "Dad" fashion, I didn't. I kept going! At the Falls Creek turnoff I made a hasty decision to go look at Falls. Another 36km of tight, twisty narrow road added in. 72km if you count the out and back.

But I like Falls Creek. Well, the surrounds anyway. We have camped at Langfords West free campground a number of times and mountain biked around the countryside so I wanted to take a look. There was plenty of room to camp as Langfords was almost empty this morning.... (that trail to the right follows the aquaduct around the mountainside for miles and miles, all at a very gentle grade, for something like 25ish kilometres. All at above 5000’ amsl. It’s an awesome ride that almost anyone can do 😎)

The views back to the south east are superb.

I stopped at the mtb shuttle spot for a coffee and bloody awesome piece of lemon slice. There were a lot of cyclist out today and plenty of them were on the road. The back road to Falls isn't one to blast along as it is a popular road cycling route. Not that that worried me. I was just cruising and happy to give them plenty of room.

Turning around, I backtracked to the Omeo Mitta road but not before a quick photo at the Rocky Valley Storage dam.

It took a while to get back to the Omeo rd where I turned right for Omeo.

Then ensued way more corners than I can count! I caught up to three blokes on BMWs along here and followed for a few kilometres before they noticed me. Once they did, they waved me by and I continued my "carving". Fair dinkum, this is one awesome road. Think of your favourite set of 25/35/45km/h corners and extrapolate that out to 105 kilometres of them end to end.....😋

The Eastern end is under tree cover, in the forest. The Western end is more open and goes like this.... left...

right....

left....

And continue until you almost can't take it any longer!!

Eventually I rocked into Omeo where I fuelled up then grabbed the last room in the Golden Age Hotel. I had a double room with ensuite. A bit flash for me but it was another hot day and I was going to be well washed, air conditioned and rested.

I dumped the gear off the bike into my room and grabbed the map and a cold beer. It was faaar too early to stop riding for the day. I only had to get to Melbourne tomorrow, a mere four hours away and I had all day to do it, so what to do today? 

I thought about doing the dirt tourist loop down through Cassilis to Swifts Creek, then back but for some reason the road was closed with a sign stating "local traffic only". That only left one option - to ride up to Mt Hotham for a look! 

Cool, hadn't been up there since this day in '99.

@Chiller

Many more corners ensued! I was disappointed to see that the speed limit had been lowered to just 80km/h. When are we going top start teaching people how to drive/ride? Never, because thats not popular and no politician will ever get elected by mandating stricter driver training or standards. Or how about fixing the road surface to make it safer? Never, just lower the speed limit so users don't bounce off into the scenery. It was quite a warm day and the shiny black tar up toward the top of Hotham was actually slippery. I could feel the bike weaving around on it so I avoided it as I would in wet weather. 😑 (but I didn’t slow down! 😜)

I made a whistle stop tour of all the touch points when you do Hotham. Yeah, I was getting a bit worn out with all these twisty roads...

Back in Omeo I had a wander around the main street,  

The BMW group who had started in Tumbarumba had arrived. They weren't strictly all BMWs though.

I had hit the supermarket for some supplies too. Retiring to the front verandah of the hotel, I chilled until dinner.

The food was pretty damn good and I washed it down with a few more reds. I must admit, I was a bit shagged today. I don't think I have ever ridden so many corners in a 485km day.

I didn't need to make a sparrow fart start tomorrow as like I said, four hours and all day to do it. I wasn't really sure what I was going to do. The only thing that I was certain of was that I didn't want to do any of the Princes Highway. That Prince got a shite bit of road. 🙅

To be continued...