November 7, 2011
Day 3 Sorrrento to Frankston 51km
We got another early start and were out of the hostel by 7.45AM. The Mornington Peninsula, like the Bellarine is a popular holiday area and the road followed the edge of the Bay for the next 20km being fairly flat past Blairgowrie,Rye,Tootgarook,Rosebud and Mcrae before arriving at Dromana. Unfortunately most of the time the water was not visible due to trees and bushes on the side of the road.
Australian readers would be familiar with the problems caused by territorial magpies during the breeding season who swoop down on unsuspecting cyclists sometimes drawing blood from the ears or back of the neck.
I have never seen this before but Phil was attacked by a wattlebird, another territorial species which followed him for about 50 metres but hovered just above him, making a lot of noise but not making actual contact.
After Dromana the next place is Mount Martha which as the name suggests is up a hill but first comes Martha Cove, a marina at the foot of Mount Martha. The developers put the road in a tunnel beneath the canal leading into the marina so sailboats can enter and leave without having to lower their masts as they would if there was a low bridge over the canal.
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The climb to Mount Martha begins from the bottom of the tunnel and is nothing special but a small challenge after the previous 20km of flat riding.
from Mount Martha the road undulated to Mornington, the next town and another holiday resort.
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From Mornington we joined the Nepean Highway for the run down to Frankston, this varies from three to two lanes in each direction and in addition has a bike lane at least two metres wide most of the way.
On a downhill stretch my mobile phone rang but rang out before I could stop. I had recently changed my phone and had not yet transferred all my old contacts to the new phone and as I did not recognise the callers number I ignored it. When I got home there was an email from my vision impaired friend Dave, (see previous journal)who had stripped a pedal thread on one of his tandem cranks and wanted advice on removing the crank. I posted a picture of a square taper crank extractor for his sighted front rider to see and explained how to use it.
Finally we arrived in Frankston where we caught a suburban train back to our homes.
Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 187 km (116 miles)
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