Yay! An invite to a Christmas Party: Tumut to Tumbarumba via Batlow

November 26, 2017

Today’s ride highlight was my gorrmless and unintended inclusion in a meeting of the Gundagai Vintage Vehicle Club at the Laurel Hill Berry Farm cafe between Batlow and Tumbarumba.

The lure of a “Pancakes & Ice Cream with Blueberry Sauce” roadside sign was too tempting for me. I U-turned into the cafe and parked the Thorn next to a BMW vintage motor bike. One vacant table. The rest were taken by a lovely group of people just completing a meeting of their vintage car club.

Clearly not all club members knew all the other club members because soon I was being warmly included in conversations as if I was a club member despite wearing my grotty Ground Effect jersey and ranchslider longs.

The invitation to contribute to the Club’s Secret Santa, and attend the club Christmas party next Saturday were appreciated but gracefully declined. I have to keep cycling toward Adelaide which is a long way from next Saturday’s secret Santa.

A not so high point of today was my fellow tourer Will decided this morning to pull out of the ride. The heat and the hills were making him unwell, and he wasn’t enjoying the ride. The afternoons were leaving him overheated and fatigued. Understandably he made the right call to stop riding before we got too far from home, and the weather gets too much hotter. Fortunately we weren’t too far from home via the highways, and his wife was able to collect him and his bike from our Tumut accommodation this morning.

Today’s ride was another day of big climbs and big descents in sub alpine valley country. It’s a beautiful region. Grand views, lovely small towns and almost zero traffic on the backroads.

The day in pics:

Dawn with a raucous chorus of bird song.

Many idyllic views today like this across green valleys with quaint farmhouses, orchards and woodlands

Apple orchards in the distance. Covered with nets to protect from hailstorms.

How green is their Valley? Looking back to Tumut.

Novel rural mail box. Had to bee seen to be beelieved.

Choose parking companions well at the Berry Farm Cafe

My accommodation for the night. The Tumbarumba Pub. Only $45 for a very clean, renovated single room. Shared bathroom and breakfast room.

And the Thorn Sherpa even gets a lockable shed.

Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 235 km (146 miles)

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