wheelieharro: Day 5- Apollo Bay to Port Campbell

Today was a big day of riding for all of us….

The day started early with us up and about at 6.30 am ahead of a 7.30 am start.

The sunrise at the end of the street was something to see as you can see from the photo below.

As we were taking our lunch today we stopped at the Apollo Bay bakery to get our lunch of rolls and drinks….i could not resist getting a coffee to start the day.

After this it was off to Port Campbell and after leaving the town we were on a climb of about 12 kms climbing about 350 metres…I was feeling pretty good on this climb and hoped that I had not “ spent my tickets “ doing this as we had significant climbing still to come!

The decent was great and enabled me to recover somewhat.

The next stage of the ride was through the Aire Valley which was quite pretty and over a flat area to Glenaire where we stopped for a regroup ahead of the big climb to Lavers Hill!

It was here that I met a German tourist who was hiking in the area and had sustained a badly sprained ankle. His car was located at the 12 Apostles and was looking for a lift back to it. Ian and I agreed to help and he was driven to Lavets Hill where another person helped with a lift to the car…. Rather fortunate for him as the travel by our Ute would have been delayed with stops to regroup us all at various times. I met him at the 12 Apostles later and he was extremely grateful of the help we provided.

After leaving Glenaire it was on for the big climb to Lavers Hill. This was a total climb of about 18 kms climbing 480 metres…. I was pleased to complete this without stopping. The trick is to keep a steady cadence and concentrate on achieving small gains in distance and time during the climb. This worked well for me and I reached the top in reasonable shape for the rest of the days riding.

We then had lunch at Lavers Hill in a “ picnic area “ ahead of the decent down to Princetown which was on the coast. We regrouped here and waited for Chris who had a flat tyre on the way down…

After this it was on to the 12 Apostles where we made a visit to the tourist centre and viewing platform. It was quite impressive and there were a significant number of tourists at the centre enjoying a lovely view in great weather… about 28 degrees with slight breeze.

After this it was off to Port Campbell to complete the ride at abou3.30 pm.

The days ride was 98 kms and we climbed about 1550 metres… a big day.

To end the day we had a lovely home cooked meal of hamburgers and sausages with salad followed by an ice cream on the after dinner walk .

Port Campbell is certainly an interesting town that has improved a lot over the years… it is worth seeing again!

Tonight I will sleep well ahead of the ride to Warrnambool!