Day two - Upper Yarra Reservoir to Marysville: The hardest day of the ride. - Beginners' three day mini tour

October 10, 2010

Day two - Upper Yarra Reservoir to Marysville: The hardest day of the ride.

Although Marysville is more or less at the same altitude as the camp site at the Upper Yarra Reservoir there is the small matter of about 950 meters of altitude to gain and loose. It was not just straight up and down but rather a series of saw teeth to be overcome before the final 10km descent into Marysville.

So we attacked the Reefton Spur. A solid uphill grind for the first fifteen or so km then undulating for the next five km to the T junction with the Marysville-Woods Point Rd at the Cumberland Gap. We stopped every five km for a drink and snack break, jelly snakes and barley sugar went down well.From the Cumberland gap we enjoyed a downhill run of about 3km to our lunch stop at Cambarville, an old logging settlement.

Note the orange lines marking the edge of the road and the orange roadside markers. it does snow sometimes in sunny Australia!

Lunch at Cambarville. Rod, John, Bill and Chris

Note the burnt bark on the trees in all these pictures

Australian Eucalypts can usually regenerate after fire but the 2009 fires that passed through this area were so hot that most of the trees here were destroyed.

After lunch John fired up his electric bike and headed back to the campsite and we headed towards Marysville still having to climb and descend a number of the saw teeth before the final 10km downhill run into Marysville. More than 80% of the buildings in Marysville were destroyed in the bushfires and rebuilding is a slow process and many people whose homes were destroyed still have not decided whether to rebuild or just leave town.

The caravan park has been rebuilt and we soon pitched our tents and headed for the showers. The supermarket was a short 100 metres walk from the caravan park and the bakery, which was one of the few buildings which was not destroyed in the fire was another hundred yards further. So we fueled up before returning to the supermarket to purchase food for our evening meal.

The Big Culvert. (Photo by Chris). Above is a photo of the Big Culvert, which as you can see is a masterpiece of stone masonry built around 1880. This beautiful moss covered granite arch was constructed by a German settler, George Koehler, who operated a hotel nearby.

Today's ride: 42 km (26 miles)
Total: 104 km (65 miles)

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