A warm cup of milk

April 4, 2024

Northcliffe to Yirra Kartta

Last night’s accommodation behind The Naughty Noodle cafe was pretty agricultural but satisfied our needs perfectly, which, at this point of the trip includes any sort of running water, any sort of bed and a roof. I’m definitely not taking Cherie back here when she flies over.

There was a jar of vegemite on the bench and we scored some avocados from the co-op so breakfast was my favourite combo on toast. I highly recommend you try it and add some chilli flakes if you have them. After packing up, leaving $100 on the kitchen bench and sliding the key under the door of the visitor information we spent the next hour loitering around the public toilets. Not because we’re a bunch of Lycra clad perverts but because that’s where the Northcliffe public wifi router is.

Best reception was by the men’s urinals but I was happy with 2 bars outside

I took the chance to update the blog and call home, whilst having servo automated coffee machine cappuccino which was surprisingly good. So good in fact that I got Pete to get me a second whilst I finished the blog but somehow this time the machine forgot to add coffee so I had a $4.50 cup of warm milk.

As we rolled out of Northcliffe a guy filling up at the Servo waved and told us to watch out for the snakes. For the next hour I was spooked, so every stick on the trail looked like a potential venomous snake! We spent another day almost entirely in the woods. The only person we met all day was a young guy riding the other way. Chase joined us whilst we stopped for an Aeropress and waxed lyrically about the beauty of our upcoming ride and particularly that it was mostly downhill. As it turned out it was probably the most climbing we’ve done in a day! I think for a young fit guy like Chase he sees uphill as just a slightly harder version of downhill. It was mainly a sticky mix of sand and pea gravel on forest trails and we were finding it quite tough going.

Just as we were scouting a spot for lunch around the 30k mark my back wheel hit something fairly hard just as I was trying to get some momentum up the next hill. I lost immediate pressure and got the death bounce of a flat tyre. Goop started leaking out on the tyre wall which had become unseated from the rim. I kicked my self for breaking the first rule of cycle touring which is to not talk about not having had a flat tyre. The second is don’t gloat about having a tail wind.

My good old trusty pump comes to the rescue

Chase stopped for a chinwag. A really nice guy

After scoffing down some sandwiches we’d made this morning it was on to trying to reseat the tyre which proved a miserable failure. The only option then was to give up on tubeless and put a tube in which is easy enough especially with an electronic pump. Even better if we’d have remembered to recharge it. Also the sealant that is in the tyre inevitably goes everywhere and despite my efforts my custom cycle shirt gets a good dose of sticky blue goop, just enough to break up the beige.

The last 10 kilometres was particularly hilly, with the last bit up a switchback single track to the Yirra Kartta hut. It is set just below a granite outcrop called, surprisingly, the Yirra Kartta Dome. It’s like a mini Uluru. We’ve got the hut to ourselves unless of course we get some late arrivals, which is always on the cards.

The old bridge survived more than 100 years.

Dinner was all sourced from the co-op with udon noodles, a locally made pasta sauce, shiitake mushrooms, chillies, carrot and cucumber (I thought it was zucchini!) and capsicum all washed down with a local Shiraz I lugged all day in my Platypus wine container. Happy days!

Mother Nature is impressive. They’ve had no rain in 4 months and plants grow on a granite rock.

It tastes pretty good. The plating up needs a bit of work though.

There were no snake sightings but Pete did read in the hut visitors book about a guy recently who had a tiger snake caught up in his front spokes. And that’s what I ended up dreaming about when I finally fell asleep.

Today's ride: 49 km (30 miles)
Total: 817 km (507 miles)

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Amy RobertsERMERGERD whose idea was it to get white shirts!! If you’d stuck with nipple pink with blue sleeves like I suggested, you wouldn’t have these issues! 🙄
But seriously, MASSIVE EFFORT on the fundraising front! $4990 tonight! YAYAYAYAY!!!! Thanks, you’re SUCH good blokes. Safe onward travels xxxxx Amy
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