June 3, 2023
Day 24: Tooborac to Mia Mia
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We woke to steady rain but, fortunately, we were able to drag everything up to the BBQ shelter to pack up in the dry.
It was about 17km to Heathcote and mostly downhill. A welcome easy ride given the weather conditions. We wanted to get to Heathcote early as it was Saturday morning and Annette needed a hardware shop before it closed. Some new (OP Shop) shoes she bought along the way were falling apart and needed gluing. We headed through town and out to a large Mitre 10 with a big log fire going. We got the glue we wanted but leaving the fire was difficult. The trains to Adelaide only run on Mondays and Fridays, it seemed like Friday would be a likely time that we'd make Ararat. The coming Weekend was a public holiday and we worried the train might be full so I phoned up and booked. We were on the train June 9th from Ararat. It can be a bit nervy knowing that you actually have to be somewhere. Anyway, there was plenty of time to make it. All this done we headed back to town where there was a monthly street market. Not much to interest us except an Italian guy selling bread and Italian food. We bought some ciabatta rolls that were the best I've tasted in a while.
The weather started to ease around lunchtime and we headed off for a town called Reesdale, only a short day, about another 20km. The original plan was to take a rail trail to Bendigo, probably in the original plan the rail trail was the reason for going to Bendigo. WhenI looked on the mapped I realised just how big Bendigo is, for some reason it no longer seemed like a place that I wanted to go. However, as mentioned before, rain has a detrimental effect and the going was very tough, we were into some very hilly country but Reesdale had a place suitable for camping right over the road from a pub. Hill after hill we arrived at a place called Mia Mia that was just an old football oval, it was another 5km or so to Reesdale and Annette could not be persuaded to go any further, I didn't take much persuading to stop. The oval hadn't been used for football in a long time but maybe someone played cricket there. There were just a few houses in the hills round about. There was still a functioning club room with a verandah, (Annette found electricity) and a toilet. Up near the toilet is a tree stump with a plaque informing the reader the Burke and Wills set up camp 6 here and had their first rest day. That was a bonus, now another couple of burkes were going to camp there. We got a wash in the toilets and set the tent and sleeping bags out to air on some cricket nets. A well equipped four wheel drive pulled in after a while, the guy was following the path of Burke and Wills as closely as possible. Interesting trip, hope he was more successful than the original.
Dinner was very good utilising the ciabatta rolls we bought in Heathcote.
Today's ride: 33 km (20 miles)
Total: 1,313 km (815 miles)
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