Day 10 - Bodalla - Woolamia

Tuesday 16th February 2010

I was out of Bodalla just after 7am, pausing briefly to look at the view of the lake:
Although it was dry, the sky was dark with heavy clouds and it looked as though further rainfall was likely. I had arranged to spend this evening at the house of a friend, in Woolamia, near Huskisson, some 160kms away - I’d hoped at the time I made the arrangement to have been at least 50kms further on than I was - this was prior to yesterday’s delay.

I thought I’d see if I could make it all the way to Woolamia in a day - at least I’d give it my best shot. I didn’t know what the terrain ahead was like but I found soon enough that the Princes Highway was quite undulating, not flat at all:

The highway crossed frequently over creeks which were still very swollen with flood water:

And there were still a number of blocked side roads due to fallen trees:

I stopped off briefly for breakfast at Moruya, after about 20kms. Not much of interest there, it’s a typical small town with a highway running through it. By this time things had brightened up quite a lot and it looked like I might get a rain-free day.

I reached Bateman’s Bay (55kms) around 11am and immediately looked for a cycle shop as all my brakes were making horrible grating noises and were no longer very effective; I knew that the brake blocks needed replacing urgently, there were some huge hills on the route and I needed to be able to stop. When I removed the old blocks the metal was indeed showing through on all of them - it showed clearly how much braking I’d been doing over all the big hills since descending from the Alpine peaks:

Not a good idea to let your brake blocks get this worn before replacing them.

I stopped a while for lunch in Bateman’s Bay and took a quick look at the waterfront:

Then I was off again, still heading up the main Princes Highway road - there is no alternative at this stage of the route; fortunately the road wasn’t too busy. The next main town is Ulladulla (105km) which I reached around 4pm. This was a quite attractive place but I didn’t have time to stop for longer than a few minutes, for a quick drink and a photo of the bay:

About 20kms further on I passed through Milton which had a few historic buildings:

There were some steep climbs in the next 20kms, some of which were so long I had to walk the bike up them, however inevitably they led to some great downhills, one of which I reached a maximum speed of 68kph on - about 42mph which was fun!

I also ran into the first cycle tourists I’d seen on the whole journey - a couple of Dutch cyclists on Challenge recumbent bikes. They were headed in the opposite direction, to Melbourne from Sydney so we were able to swap info on the route with each other.

By about 5pm I knew I was going to make it to Woolamia before it got too dark, provided I kept on going. I turned off the Princes Highway at Tomerong and from there it was another 10kms or so on back roads till I reached my friend Chris’s house, just as it was getting dark. I was welcomed in by Chris and his partner Rebecca and their friends Steve and Lara and we all enjoyed an excellent dinner washed down with a decent Valpolicella.

Total distance covered today - 169kms which has more than made up for yesterday’s lack of progress. Feeling good again now.