March 26, 2011
Day one at last!
It was a nice sunny day with no wind and the temperature just over 20C as we left Dave's sister's home at about 9.15AM
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We have a 10km on road ride before we get to the rail trail. The road is a major thoroughfare on weekdays but on Saturday and Sunday the traffic is fairly light.parts of Melbourne are hilly and the first 3.5kms were a steady climb to Montrose where one end of the Mount Dandenong Tourist road starts. Mount Dandy is about 600 metres above sea level but we are not going up today. On a Sunday the road has road bike riders in plague proportions.From Montrose the first 500 metres descent is quite steep ( we have to ride back up tomorrow) and thereafter a gentle undulating descent for the next six km to Lilydale Lake.
From here there was another short climb until we reached the rail trail and more gentle gradients.After about three km of gentle climbing we reached Mount Evelyn, the highest point on the rail trail and The Cog bike cafe for a well earned drink.
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All downhill now for the next 15km to Woori Yallock. the lowest point on the rail trail where Mary meets us again for lunch with flasks of hot tea and cheese and home grown tomato sandwiches. We have enjoyed the best rainfall for twenty years ( too much in some areas leading to severe flooding ) but Melbourne gardeners have enjoyed tremendous tomato crops this year.
Pretty flat now until we reached Warburton at about 2PM and booked in to our accommodation, the Alpine View Hotel.
In the first part of the last century when there were not too many motor cars about people used to travel on the train to Warburton for their holidays and stay in places like the Alpine View and would have had three meals a day included in their hotel tariff. Our rooms would have been single rooms in the old days and had a double bed, a wardrobe and a wash basin and just enough room to move between them for $40 per night. The facilities were just down the passage. The did have some en suite rooms for the more affluent cycle tourist at about A$90 per night.
We then had a shower and changed out of our cycling gear and had a walk around the town.
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The meals were substantial. Australian hotel meals tend to include chips with everything and the lasagne that I ordered came on a bed of chips. The serving was so large that I could not touch the chips and none of us wanted anything on the desert menu.
Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 50 km (31 miles)
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