Day 84 – Thu, 21 Oct to Canberra

This morning started off like most others on this trip. Early rise, breakfast, pack and onto OP for a ride. I was heading to Canberra today and I would have all day to get there. No problems.

I headed N towards Wodonga then turned E onto the Murray Valley Hwy towards Corryong in NE VIC. This turned into another great ride through the countryside and along the S shores of Lake Hume. This is the first time I have seen the Lake full, well as good as anyway. The drought has obviously been broken and the Hume Dam is doing its job. The Murray River was also flowing as I rode along the S side towards Corryong. 

Here I refuelled spoke to another biker heading home from Phillip Island, the long way. I had plenty of time, still before lunch, which I’ll have in Tumut later today.

I decided to cross into NSW, then travel towards Tumbarumba then onto Tumut, Gundagai, Yass then Canberra. Well that was the plan. I headed out crossing into NSW at Towong and yep I’m in NSW, potholes and rough roads. Welcome back.

A little further on the sealed road to Tooma had a road closed signed so I took the detour. At the next intersection I took the road to Tooma (no closure signs this way) but gravel ahead. I travelled about 15km on gravel, climbing hills, wonderful views and back down into the valley. I reached the bitumen and found the road blocked – road closed. Bugger!

So I took the sealed road back to the start and checked what other way I could go. I decided to head towards Jingellic and then to Holbrook. I wanted to catch up on some time and I thought the best way would be not to cross the mountains again. So I was about to head out and a couple of bikers arrived and informed me that the bridge across the Murray at Jingellic was washed out. Great!

So it would be up over the mountain via Cabramurra. So I got to the turn off near Khancoban, about 20km from Corryong where I had refuelled. I looked at the odometer and it said that I had travelled 110km in all of this mucking around and I had lost 2 hours.

Up the mountain towards Cabramurra, about 60km in I was stopped by a Stop/Go man. It would be a 20-30 minute delay he said, they were clearing trees from the roadside. Well he could tell I was not impressed and I told him what I had been doing for the past 3 hours – getting no where quick.

After that it was a straight ride down to the Snowy Mountains Hwy into Cooma and then up the Monaro Hwy to Canberra. I arrived at my son’s home just before 6pm, it was 580km day, not my longest, but the longest riding day I had done.

It was wonderful to see Wade & Rowena and their gang of kids, Maddie, Charlie, Jamie, Hannah, Rita and the little one Alex. They were all hanging out for my arrival and I said to Robyn later that there appeared to be so many that I thought they had brought in some outsiders. Wonderful to be with family again.