Connecting the Dots
12th - 15th August
26, 482 kms - 26, 778 kms

It was a warm summer's morning when the Spirit of Tasmania drifted in to the calm and peaceful waters of Port Phillip Bay. On the top deck, a young Tasmanian man stood - alone, silent, excited, and a tad nervous. He watched the country's second largest city slowly materialise on the horizon. Melbourne. The starting point for his long and arduous lap around Oz.

It was a warm winter's afternoon, 535 days later, when that same man returned to Melbourne - triumphant, after having cycled over 26,000 kms around one of the largest countries in the world. This is the story of the final few days on the mainland of Oz.

One from the archives: first day in Melbourne - 23rd Feb 2006.

I'd had a lovely, mellow ride along the Murray River - I'd followed it for 1,600 kms from its mouth to Echuca, where I would turn south to cross the Great Dividing Range and head for Melbourne. On the morning of my last day on the Murray River, nostalgia began to set in as I realised how close I was to completing the lap around Oz. Flashbacks from the past 18 months raced through my head, as I lay in my tent daydreaming... until my phone went off. The text message read:

"GREAT DAY FOR A RIDE!"

The SMS was from Lutzy - a good mate of mine from Hobart who was now living in Melbourne. He'd mentioned before that he wanted to be a part of OzByBike, and this was the moment he'd been waiting for! He'd sent the text from Echuca, where he was waiting (very impatiently) for me to arrive, so that he could jump on the bike for the 4-day ride to Melbourne. I told him I still had 40 kms before I got there, and to calm down a bit, sit tight, have a cuppa, cause I was still a couple of hours away. It felt like only an hour later that I got a call:

"Anth... where are you... hurry up... I'm ready to go... absolutely chomping at the bit... come on..."

Yep. Lutzy was a bit excited. In fact he was so eager to jump on the bike that rather than sit around drinking tea at his grandmother-in-law's place waiting for me, he rode out to meet me. It came a bit of a surprise to me, as I neared Echuca, to see him on his shiny red racing bike there on the side of the highway waiting - with a huge grin on his face. He was pumped!

Look at that grin! Getting organised in Echuca

The Lutz and The Ant - Old Port, Echuca

Echuca sights

Not much happens in Lockington. We were told that by the under-18-years-old-looking barmaid, who was still wearing her school jumper, and greeted us kindly as we wandered on in - barely half an hour after arriving.

"So you're the guys on the bikes, hey?"

"Wow, word travels fast here!" came the reply from Lutzy.

A bit of banter followed, and I asked her what they do for fun in 'Locky'. "Ummmmm... we go to the pub... and.... yeah... have a drink.... yeah not much really." We were obviously in the best spot in town. It was freezing outside in the local playground where we'd set up our tent, and the pub offered not only a well-earnt beer, but somehwere warm and cosy to park our bums. After a couple of Carlton Draughts, we weren't really looking forward to going back out into the frosty night... and were tempted to ask if we could curl up and sleep in the corner overnight. In the end we decided we had to brave it - dinner was calling.

Frosty morning in the Lockington playground

It was mighty cold in the park that night, but certainly a better place to sleep than the offer we had from a loony local Locky woman... I'll save that story for the book, but for now we'll just say that old mate wasn't too happy when the wife arrived yelling "Ian!! Ian!! I brought a couple of nice boys home to stay the night..."

Day 2
Neither of us wanted to get out of bed the morning we woke up in Lockington. The ground outside was white with frost, the thermometer showed a sub-zero temperature - and despite clear skies, not even the sun wanted to come up. To make matters worse for Lutzy, he'd left his knicks out overnight... and wasn't looking forward to putting them on (I'd put mine in my pillowcase).

Yep. Cold.

Despite the slow start, we actually hit Bendigo by lunchtime - knocking off a whopping 75 kms by 1 pm. The Lutz was going off! We could get in 100 kms by the end of the day, easy! But by the time we'd done the media thing, the shopping thing, and the lunch thing... the old muscles were starting to complain. Suddenly Lutzy's enthusiasm plummeted. Late in the afternoon we hobbled our way out of the historical gold mining town, hoping to manage another 25 kms, but not really expecting it. I kept a close eye on my tired apprentice, keeping a tantalising distance ahead to ensure he'd keep on pedalling, but not give up. Every 5 kms I turned around with the old "how ya goin' mate... only 20 kms to go... only 15 kms to go... only 10 kms to go..." I could see he was feeling it, but I knew how good it felt to hit the triple figures in a day's ride - and I wanted him to know how good it felt too!

75 kms by lunchtime... Put 'er there!

Once the countdown hit single figures I told him there'd be no stopping, we WOULD be doing the 100 kms whether he liked it or not. It was a slow 10 kms, with both of us pretty knackered, but just as the light was beginning to fade we came across a picnic area in a welcoming bit of bushland - a perfect place to camp the night. I looked down at my odometer: 99.38 kms. By the time we reached the end of the gravel road, it read 100.11. We'd done it, we'd hit the triple figures! I felt like a proud father shaking Lutzy's hand at the end of that day... what an effort!

We gathered some firewood, lit a big warm fire under the clear starry sky, ate some gourmet campfire pizza and a deliciously-rich campfire mudcake, and talked about what a marvellous day it had been. A perfect end to a perfect day.

Campfire pizza

Day 3 - Hills! At last!

Our little Axe Creek Rd campsite was pretty much at the base of the Great Dividing Range - the backbone of Eastern Australia. This mountain range stretches from SW Victoria and follows the entire east coast all the way up to the top of Queensland. The last time I saw the Range was when I stood on the very tip of Cape York, 14 months ago. Now, here I was at the other end of it, peddalling slowly up the northern side of the range, with Melbourne waiting for us on the other side, just 150 kms away.

The plan for day 3 was to climb up the Range, through Kyneton, Woodend, and on to Gisborne to stay the night. That would mean a short final day into Melbourne, and more time to celebrate the completed lap of Oz. It was a good plan... but it didn't happen. A small but friendly pub changed things, and we weren't complaining!

Following the Calder Highway over the Great Dividing Range and towards Melbourne

Something special caught my eye on our way through the small country town of Woodend - a big old building with the words "BREWHOUSE" on show out the front. I yelled out to Lutzy "keen for a quick beer before we move on?" I knew exactly what his answer would be, and before we knew it we were sitting down at the bar, with a 'paddle' of 7 small glasses of locally-brewed beer in front of us. The first one went down well, the second one a bit better, the third better still, and by the fourth I think we decided we'd call Woodend home for the night... the only problem was there was no caravan park in town - and no bushland around for us to camp in. A couple of locals suggested we might be able to get away with camping on the local footy oval - after all it was a Tuesday night, and the cops wouldn't be around to tell us off. It might be a bit cold and frosty (now we were on top of the Range, at 700 metres!), but at least it was somewhere. So we had another beer.

The Holgate Brewhouse, Woodend

I don't know how it happened, but it seemed that every beer we had that afternoon, a better offer for accomodation came up. It started off with the footy oval. The barmaid felt sorry for us and offered her property - 10 kms away - where we could light a fire and camp next to the lake, and she'd even be able to put our bikes in the back of the ute and drive us out there. Next up was the backyard of someone's place in town, in fact I think we had two of those offers... but our fate was sealed when our new friend Karmichael offered his living room floor - complete with wood heater. We even got a hot shower, and a most amazing meal of salmon, couscous and salad - cooked up by Woodend's iron chef Annie. The beers flowed freely too, as we celebrated OzByBike's final night on the mainland, and toasted to our new and amazingly hospitable friends in Woodend.

Legends, hosts, and OzByBike sponsors for the night - Karmichael and Annie

Day 4
As if giving us yummy food and warm shelter for the night wasn't enough, Annie and Karmichael had bacon, eggs and toast waiting for us when we woke up the next morning. What a way to wake up - much better than to a cold tent and a frosty footy oval! When it came time to say goodbye to the Woodend crew, out came the tissues and we all had a teary... then pedalled over our last bit of uphill before coasting down the southern side of the Great Dividing Range.