27th April 2017 – Melbourne to Foster 210kms

Max temp of 15C predicted, plus rain! Ugh, NOOOOO! I’m like a Sara Lee Danish, “Layer upon layer, upon layer”. Pull out the big guns, winter gloves, winter woolly buff, and chuck in the waterproof liner of the jacket. Oh, and let’s not forget the prayers. Please, please, please, no rain? It was a pretty chilled morning, easily packed up by 9:30am, and wait with Bill for the Uber we’d pre-arranged. Five past ten, the car came for Bill, and we waved him goodbye. Back to load the bikes properly, a short 200 meters to drop some excess clothes back to The Salvos, before busting out onto the Napean Highway, heading towards Frankston.

Bill is off in the little red Uber, and we are ready to Not slide on the tram tracks. Those things make me nervous, and today they are wet as well.

Our aim today is a meagre 168kms, but we have a few alternative roads,we’d like to take to drag it out a bit. See more of this great coastline. So just before Frankston, we head off towards Cranbourne, and Tooradin. So far the ride has been pretty boring, double lane highway, and we’ve been rained on, ever so lightly. Time for a warm break, grab some lunch and a coffee. We spotted a cafe in Tooradin, right on Sautels Inlet. Nice. Pulling off the South Gippsland Highway, and heading back to the cafe, we realised we were going the wrong way down a one way road, oops! Sorry, we’re from WA! Is that a good enough excuse? Stiff bickies, we are at the cafe and ordering lunch.

Feeling warmer, and ready, we carried on towards Jam Jerrup, (real place) and onto The Bass Hwy. This is the way to Phillip Island. Should we go bust out a couple of laps of the Grand Prix circuit? Not today, we have been there before, so going to look at new stuff. We deviate, and come over a rise, and Wow! What a view, and we find ourselves in Kilcunda. Ha ha ha, who comes up with these names? But great beach, and it’s pretty rough today. Now we are heading to Wonthaggi, then down to Cape Paterson for a more coastal ride. This part of the ride was more like it. Twisty, coastal, and enjoyable, even if it was getting pretty cold.

A great surprise seeing this coastline. We had a few sprinkles from the darkness, but avoided the worst.

From Cape Paterson to Inverloch, a pretty big place, then towards Venus Bay. Again, we’re not stopping in there, but only because we are cold and racing the rain. There are some mean looking black clouds coming in. So we bust through Fish Creek, which looks pretty cool, notice the pub with a massive fish on it’s roof. No time for a picture, so we are definitely coming back for a beer tomorrow. Can’t miss that one, and it is the entry to Wilson’s Promontory. We will check it out tomorrow, our sight seeing day. A good ride into Foster, and it was easy to find the YHA, where we’d booked a couple of nights. It is such good value, and we’ll stay dry and warm for a couple of nights. Bit worried about the weather, it is getting cold real quick.

Cape Paterson was very nice, with a great beach, and lots of holiday homes. The cute little YHA, where Will sorted us out a great room.