Day 7: Omeo to Thornton
12 February 2024
Master Map
We rugged up for the early morning chill and made our way back over Mount Hotham. That explains — if, indeed, any explanation is called for — why we rode an anti-clockwise loop the previous day. More fuel from the same service station in Bright, before breakfast at the Cherry Walk Café right opposite the pub where we'd met AussieFlyer in 2018.
Heading down the western side of Mount Hotham. Right of these posts is a long, nearly vertical drop.
Men at work, down under — see what I did there?
A couple of well maintained machines outside the Cherry Walk Café
Have I mentioned that I have a love-hate relationship with GPS? It had been OK this trip, but let me down badly today. That's code for I didn't program the bloody thing properly. So we spent time on dirt roads that I would have preferred to avoid before getting back on the asphalt somewhere near Docker.
Hot, flat through the King Valley until Whitfield after which the road climbs over a minor mountain I don't know the name of. That made the trip both interesting and a little cooler till we returned to the plateau and the straightish ride to Jamieson where we refuelled and had a cup of tea.
This was the starting point for the new road the bloke at the Golden Age Hotel had told us about. Sixty-three kilometres to Eildon. Bliss: corners, undulations, little to no traffic, lovely Australian bush. Pterodactyl took the lead and wasn't sighted again until we found him leaning nonchalantly against his bike at the other end.
There's a bridge ever so slightly right of centre. Cross over that for 63 kms of riding fun.
The Pterodactyl had long disappeared. NoRoomtoMove and I made our way more sedately along this lovely road.
We went in search of accommodation in Eildon and stopped outside the first motel we found. I've been thinking for days about how to describe what happened next.
"Right, you bastards," announced NoRoomtoMove, "I've had enough of you and your peg scraping, your crappy corners and your even worse jokes. I'm going home!"
The howl of a CB1100 exhaust shattered the silence of Eildon. Pterodactyl and I looked at one another, puzzled. What had we done?
Nah. It wasn't like that at all. We needed some drama so I made it up. NoRoomtoMove simply announced he'd been ruminating. He'd decided another night in a motel was not appealing and more relevantly, he was not confident he had enough juice in the tank for a big ride the following day. We suggested he stayed and headed home in the morning as it had been a long, hot day. No, he said, he'd put up in a pub somewhere nearer home. Pterodactyl and I waved farewell. He looked at me and said, "he'll go home."
Back on the bikes and off to the Rubicon Hotel in Thornton where AussieFlyer would be able to find us in the morning.
NoRoomtoMove sent a message at 20:30 saying he'd made it home.
So much for the band.
