April 12, 2025
Best coffee in the world
Ballarat to Daylesford
Three became five as Pete’s sister Di and Homeless John joined us in Ballarat. Di lives in Castlemaine and will ride with us for a couple of days.
John will ride all the way to Bungendore where he’s left his car. He has only recently come back from Europe where he’s just recently completed an epic sojourn. Over 18 months he completed a zig zagging journey of over 17,000 kilometres through 31 countries. Hence Homeless John. I joined him for a very small portion of his trip in France and Italy.
After an excellent cappuccino in the heart of Ballarat we rode past many of the impressive buildings that dot the centre of town. The first hour was mainly uphill, initially on sealed roads before turning to a rough gravel track that took us up into a pine forest. What goes up eventually comes down which made for an easy run into Creswick.
According to John, who has apparently travelled extensively, Creswick has the best coffee in the world. So with high expectations we pulled up at Le Peche Gourmand boulangerie for what turned out to be my second best cappuccino of the day. Great baguettes though and Steve rated the chocolate scroll he devoured in two bites as easily the best in northern Victoria.
We saved the baguettes for a roadside lunch overlooking a rather parched lake, leaving another twenty kilometres into Daylesford.
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Our route was through a state forest but a forestry burn had gone out of control leaving us with no option but to pedal up the main road. There was a decent verge but it meant cycling up a dirty great hill which we would have avoided on our intended route.
We made Daylesford by mid afternoon, demolished a chocolate milkshake and cycled on to a caravan park just out of town.
It was another picture perfect day, with temperatures in the high twenties, making me question why I brought all my cold weather gear. Still we have the Snowy mountains to come.
Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles)
Total: 184 km (114 miles)
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1 week ago
I’ve always wanted to see Yakandandah and that area. Are you going anywhere near Brighr? Supposed to be amazing in autumn. Many artists including my mum visit to paint the colour at this time of the year . Trees amazing apparently. Safe travels. Xxx
1 week ago
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