The town of Bright must be cursing that Australia day falls on Wednesday and there’s no long weekend. From memory, in the past Bright has been packed, today it seems like a ghost town. There are quite a few cyclists around, but nowhere near the numbers, and nowhere near the number of families, partners and friends.
The morning was taken up by some very important sitting around and relaxing, followed by a visit to the local street market and a chance to catch up with other cycling friends, including Andy and Suzie from Wide Open Road, who we haven’t seen since the tour in in Switzerland and Italy.
Late in the afternoon we unpacked the tandem and took it for a shake-down cruise along the rail-trail and roads, down to Porepunkah and then Boynton’s winery. Sure is quick and cruisy on the flat roads, tomorrow will tell how we can handle it on a real hill! We resisted the impulse to ride up Boynton’s drive-way, the rough loose gravel is enough of a hazard on a single mountain bike.
Saturday night in Bright on the day before the big ride was more dead than I would have imagined. The Alpine hotel had a loud hendrix-inspired band practicing feedback, and was charging $5 just to get into the pub, consequently it and its beer-garden were nearly empty. The Star Hotel had a total of five local punters, all sitting silently glued to the trotting, the dogs or the Keno screens. The barman suggested that it might liven up at eleven when their $3 disco started … we didn’t hang around long enough to find out.
