Wake up, pack up…. Bacon & eggs for breakfast, finish off the bread. Clean up, wash up…. Bicycle cleaned and ready, bags all packed. Put the bike in the car — no mean feat when one is a tandem and the other a Holden Astra. All ready to go. One last look around, “Have you got your shoes?” “Oh hell, no!” Pick up the offending pair of cycling shoes and have one more last look around.
Out of the house at 10:15 and only 40 minutes to drive around the CBD and out to the Hume highway — a vast improvement from last .
Three hours of freeway with far more sensible drivers than , bypass most of Albury then detour in for lunch at the Mermaid café, an old favourite hamburger joint.
Back onto the highway and north up to Holbrook, refuel, turn off and head east to Tumbarumba. One bad moment as we were run off the road by one terrifying gravel truck, straddling the centre-line and thundering past downhill, then an uneventful drive the rest of the way though rolling hills and late afternoon sun.
The Red Café in Tumba’ runs a ‘B&B’ — more of a relabelled motel I think, but they like the name. We got the last available room, unpacked and settled in, then wandered around the town. Up the main street, down along the creek to the parklands, then back around to the Union hotel for a few beers. Sadly, no bistro, so at eight we left and walked two doors along the street to the other pub for an enormous steak dinner amidst TAB screens, pokies and seemingly hundreds of mandatory government signs warning of the dangers of problem gambling.
Stuffed full, we staggered out the door and back to the hotel to bed.
