Having had an excellent night’s sleep I was on the road by 7.30 after carbo-loading on a large banana muffin from the Inverloch bakery. It was already quite warm and it wss obviously going to be a scorchingly hot day. Rather than follow the LP route to Foster and Balook via the Tarra-Bulga national park, I decided to head up the Bass Highway as far as Mirboo North then fork off along a minor road to Traralgon, via Boolarra and Churchill. None of these were on the LP itinerary but I wanted to revisit Traralgon, since I’d spent several months living there back in 1997.
The Bass Highway has a good wide shoulder and made for safe cycling, though it was quite undulating, going over the Strezelecki ranges. After 25kms I reached Leongatha, a pleasant small town with some attractive historic buildings:
After gulping down a quick drink I rode on through the increasing heat. The terrain got more and more undulating and it was quite tough going, but at least the road surface was good and there was very little traffic.
After another 25kms I reached Mirboo North where the only thing of note was this monument to Count Strezelecki, one of the first to explore the region.
Strezlecki monument at Mirboo North
This was at the highest point of the Grand Ridge Road which runs along the top of the Strezlecki range.From Mirboo North there was a long descent to Boolara, then another series of climbs towards Churchill, then the rest of the way to Traralgon was pretty flat. On arrival I checked into the Governor Gipps Motel, on the busy Princes Highway, and made straight for the pool to escape the 35 degree heat.
Traralgon’s quite a big town, with around 20000 inhabitants and is spread out over a wide area. It has an attractive post office dating back to 1886 but otherwise has very little of note. Being a Monday very few restaurants were open and none of the bars seemed to be serving after about 9pm, the place was like a ghost town. Fortunately my room had plenty of cold beers in the mini bar and there was a Domino’s just up the road, otherwise I’d have starved. It was interesting to see Traralgon again after 13 years but I won’t be in a hurry to return.
Traralgon Post Office Distance covered today -121kms - so making reasonable progress!
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