Day five - Port Campbell to Warrnambool - 75 km, 461 m - ride total 378 km

 We were away again at 7:30 a.m. this morning with the intention of beating the forecast rain that was expected around lunchtime - as it was I achieved that almost only putting my light jacket on for the last 10 km's otherwise it was a lovely 20 odd degrees temperature wise although for a good chunk of the ride we had a serious head wind coming at us from a variety of fronts - left, right and centre!

No serious hills today which was quite nice after yesterday's effort.

The scenery continued to be superb with many more views down onto lovely beaches and outlying Apostle like outcrops - We passed "London Bridge" which is no more as the natural arch that up until recently connected it to the mainland fell into the sea. If that wasn't bad enough there were as a couple marooned on the new Island and they had to be rescued by helicopter - a perfectly newsworthy event that was shared live on National TV news, one would think - only problem sitting at home watching the news was the wife of one half of the couple whose "husband" was meany to be away somewhere else on business! Hmmmm  - I'm picking no amount of explaining was going to get him out the situation he'd placed himself in!

As we left the Coast and headed inland, we came across more intensification and some large-scale dairy farms - they have to be large scale coz the climate is so dry that a huge acreage is required to grow enough feed for the Cows - It would appear that most relied upon irrigation or housed the cows and brought the feed to them.

Noticeable today was the fact that although at first glance this coastal land atop the cliffs appears very bleak and barren upon a closer look you actually can see a huge variety of native shrubland vegetation that grows very well in such a harsh environment - I'm sure a botanist could get very excited and spend a lifetime studying the natural vegetation.

Riding across this continent is very similar to riding across New Zealand in that it can be quite some distance between towns (I'd say more so here) where a weary cyclist can pull in for a cup of tea and a bite to eat. Today happened to be one of those days - At Peterborough while there was a place to do coffee (yea, but who really drinks coffee) and the food had to be toasted sandwiches coz they only get the bread every two weeks! so we rode on to Allenford Cheese/wine/brewery Cafe/Museum - yes they had food and after I asked a woman enjoying the $5 Devonshire Scone my mind was made up - a Devonshire Tea in Victoria it was going to be. A Devonshire Tea please I asked - Sorry that was the last one (and it was only 11:00 a.m.! Nothing else appealed so it was a good handful of salted macadamias and some more of my lemon squash that got me through to Warnambool.

At last we have a town of sufficient size to have a bike shop and so it was there I headed to get a replacement tyre and also a cadence sensor so that I can keep track on how many revolutions my pedals are doing - all part of the science behind this cycling.

Back at camp it was time to fit the new tyre and do the usual ride end of day things - that generally always seem to take me through to dinner time then it's a walk to the ice cream shop if there is one and time to hit the hay.