Straight roads, headwinds and tired legs.

April 16, 2025

Green Lake to Shepparton

Apart from one caravan that ran its generator until 2am, it was a peaceful night by the lake and I slept pretty well. After today’s ride into Shepparton we will have a well needed rest day. It’s another clear sunny day but the wind is already picking up, and with my innate sense of direction I can sense it will be another day of battling headwinds.

After breakfast of muesli and banana with brown goopy baby food I whipped out the aero-press to make the first coffee off the trip. I was confidently explaining to John the intricacies of loading the aero-press upside down to achieve the perfect blend. I then managed to forget to put the filter on, failed to turn it over and filled up the handle with the ground coffee and boiling water. With the other two now convulsing in laughter I attempted to rescue the situation by tipping the lot into a saucepan and then tipping it back into the aero-press with filter attached. Except that in my haste I didn’t attached filter properly sending the entire brown muck right into the saucepan below. I gave up and made a cup of tea.

Almost as embarrassing as the time I served myself an entire meal onto my placemat thinking it was a plate.

By the time we headed out the wind had further strengthened. We had another 20 kilometres of highway riding before what should have been our second coffee of the day at Stanhope. There was little traffic so it was heads down and ticking off the kilometres whilst trying to forget about my coffee debacle. I did deflect the conversation somewhat by pointing out a distant windsock on what looked to be an abandoned airfield, which turned out to be a small solar panel above a gate. It’s not my day!

Desperately searching for Cat Heads after Pete’s repeated punctures.

Stanhope is very much a one horse town and a one cafe town. It is also the cheese capital of Victoria with a massive Bega cheese factory dominating the town. The Stanhope cafe did turn out a decent cappuccino and egg and bacon roll which fuelled us up for the next leg to Tatura.

All the famous cheese towns; Camembert, Gouda, Cheddar and Stanhope.

Finally we’re off the highway and onto quiet dirt roads. We’re actually not far from Echuca on the mighty Murray and there’s plenty of irrigation channels. Apart from cheese this is a fruiting area and feels less dusty and arid than the last few days.

The highlight of Bessie, Ursula and Hepzibah’s day.

Long straight roads but at least there’s some green.

Tatura is a much bigger town famous for its trotting track, but I can’t convince the other two to have a leisurely afternoon on the punt so we wander into town and settle into the Cafe a Roma for lunch. Having barely gotten off the bike a bloke with a wizened battle scarred face asks us how long the cafe has been here. “No idea mate, I’ve just turned up”, to which he says “Probably about 15 years is my guess” and wanders off.

Tatura has a significant Italian influence. The coffee and salad sandwiches are excellent but not as good as the biscotti and sfogliatella. After 15 years it’s good to see they’re still churning out quality food.
Lunchtime discussion centred on the remarkable sporting prowess of Pete’s family. I knew Pete was a pretty handy swimmer and runner but his mother Judy won the world age championships in various disciplines and was the over 50’s world marathon champion in 1982. His Dad Alan was the national age pentathlon champion up until he was 70. Both were awarded the Australian sports medal in 2000 for their achievements. Makes my ‘Most improved’ trophy in Scottish Highland dancing at Pymble Public School look fairly second rate.

One last rest in the shade on a hot afternoon. I didn’t notice the boobies above Pete’s head until now.

We have 22 kilometres left to get to Shepparton which we knock over at an ever slowing pace, with the last segment across the floodplains of the Goulburn River on a bike path that leads to the centre of town.

Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 426 km (265 miles)

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