Well it rained hard all last night and I really was hoping that it would be dry today - no chance. It was drizzling when I woke up at 7am so I went back to sleep for another hour, by then it was raining harder. If I’d been in a more interesting place it would have been very tempting to take the day off, however Dalgety had very little to offer in the way of attractions, and with no access to the internet or even a mobile phone signal, it was time to move on. I waited until the rain eased off a bit around 10 am then set off on the road to Nimmitabel, about 50kms away. The route took me across classic Monaro country, wide vistas with the Snowy Mountains in the distance, occasional clumps of granite boulders interrupting the huge expanse of pasture grass. Unfortunately the driving rain made me in no mood to enjoy the view, let alone take many photographs - this was the only one I managed:
Most of the way to Nimmitabel was along a gravel road and the wetness made the going quite slow. I reached Nimmitabel around 2.30 and had an excellent fettucine at the café there; although there was no wifi access in this small town, the café owner very kindly allowed me to use her internet dongle for a few minutes so I could let everyone know I was okay - having not been able to post any updates to the blog for nearly 3 days I figured that some people might be worried, in view of the remoteness of the country I had just traversed.
Wet and miserable in Nimmitabel.
There was nothing to detain me in Nimmitabel though, so despite the continuing rain I set off again and soon found myself on the Snowy Mountains highway, going down an exhilarating (and dangerous in view of the wet) winding descent down Brown Mountain, from about 1390 metres down to virtually sea level. Both brakes were jammed full on all the way down and I was grateful for the consideration of the woman driver behind me who took it upon herself to provide rear cover from other traffic on this treacherous descent.
The rest of the way to Bega was rolling countryside and the going was pretty good, despite the continuing rain; by this time I’d stopped worrying about it - at least once I was down off the Monaro plateau the temperature warmed up a bit. I eventually arrived in Bega at 7.30 and found a comfortable motel, enjoyed a good hot shower and set about drying all my clothes out - fortunately the plastic bags inside my bike panniers had kept all the luggage fairly dry.
Total distance covered today - 111kms - not bad in view of the adverse weather conditions.
Raining hard in Sydney too, hope things improve!
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