After a wonderful sleep in proper beds, we headed into Lakes Entrance and met up with Simon, Bindy and Baby Alison (who was all smiles for the strangely clad riders) at their motel and then it was on our bikes and up the hill that leads out of the town.....Simon led the way but Carolyn well primed by previous hills wasn't far behind and both scaled the climb without trouble. In fact there was some discussion as the day progressed on the email we had received from a friend (Russ) who had written to warn us that the road between Lakes and Bairnsdale wasn't the flat nirvana we had often spoken about......our conclusion is that although we appreciate his concern, the last 7 days of riding from Ulladulla to Lakes Entrance has given us a different perspective on hills....and the short 90 minutes we spent on the bikes today on fairly flat terrain, in sunshine and not a magpie in sight was as close to riding nirvana as we are probably going to get on this Tour.
While Simon and Carolyn were enjoying the riding conditions, PJ and Jo were busy listening to Margaret (who hosted us overnight), who DJ's a show on the radio and spent a good proportion of her show today talking about human trafficking and the cycling tour. They particularly appreciated her shout out to Pete and Jo. In fact it was a great day with the media overall - as well as Margaret, we were interviewed and photographed by the Bairnsdale Advertiser, rung by the Snowy River News and arranged an interview with ABC radio in Sale tomorrow.
After our visit with the Bairnsdale Advertiser, we headed over to Nagle College on a beautiful campus on the outskirts of Bairnsdale, where we were warmly welcomed. We made a couple of presentations over the afternoon to 160 Year 9 student who were great and then to a group of teachers and adults from various churches. Carolyn also received a wonderful surprise when her ex-principal (Sr Barbara) actually turned out to be in the audience of the last session.....!
In between the sessions the staff of the college had made a wonderful effort and provided us with a lovely afternoon tea and then had a variety of home cooked meals for our stay overnight at the College.....it is going to be very difficult to return to normal life again after all this wonderful hospitality and care!!
As an added bonus this evening, the team numbers swelled again with several of Carolyn's friends from the Box Hill Hospital Emergency Dept (Bernie, Alison, Charlotte, and Genevieve) arriving in Bairnsdale to join us on the road tomorrow.....it was wonderful to share the stories of last 12 days with them over a fine meal and discuss the plans for the next few days. Great to have them with us...
So even though the ride itself was so short today - it was actually a great day for awareness raising with a lot of talking done by Carolyn....so much so that even she can't muster up up a song tonight (some would say that this is actually a perfect end to the day.....)
746 km down.....292 km's to go!!
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