Riding Australias’ Southern Alpine Loop – Part 3

Having stayed up late into the night chatting away with other backpackers reminiscing of my past trips and discussing my upcoming plans for South and Central America, it was once again a late start on day 3. I had contemplated having a run back up the Great Alpine Road as it was a bright and sunny day, but having checked the weather forecasts, I was sure that it was only a matter of time before the clouds rolled in.

With this in mind, I decided to take on the next part of the trip, the road to Bega via Bonang and Orbost. On my atlas map, this seemed very tight indeed and even had about 50kms worth of dotted lines on it indicating unsealed roads. Surely my mate wouldn’t send me on a sportsbike off-road..?

Parked outside Riviera Backpackers in Lakes Entrance, Victoria

As I got out of town, the roads got tighter and twistier, this sign was a sign of things to come, at this point I was thinking, hell yeah !!

However the further I got, the tighter it was, no high speed stuff here, especially with a lot of leaf liter on the road and the occasional big branches. Wasn’t quick enough to avoid one which flung up and got me right in the shin…was going to be feeling that for a while.

At this stage it was all on sealed roads but due to how tight it was, and how hot it was getting I found myself taking more regular breaks to just get off the bike and into the shade, was getting tiring.

I thought that was bad, until suddenly, there was no more road…

It was tough at first crawling through all the dirt and gravel, but slowly I got my confidence up and with that, my speed. Did suck when I was passed by a camper-van kicking up a huge dust storm though.

After a couple of hours of this where I was really regretting not taking the easier coastal road, it suddenly opened up and I was thrown into the other extreme, wide open sweepers, nirvana !

Todays plan was to try and make it back home, a mere 800km, which I thought I could do as a stretch as I had been doing 600km a day for the last two days, so instead of turning off to Bega I decided to keep heading up to Sydney. About 10 after the turnoff, my body just started to fatigue and I had to pull over on the side of the highway for a breather. There was no way, I was going to make it to Sydney, 450km away, it was already 330pm. So having only covered 400km in the day and with rain setting in, I found myself at the Bega Backpackers and settled into the historic town that loves their cheese !

Cheese Training…

Cheese Heritage :/

The next morning, thankfully the skies had cleared up for the slightly less exciting ride back home. Still taking in some key roads along the way

Kangaroo Valley

I didn’t take too many photos on the way home as I was back on the highway, but moreso, those rains I had worried about in Melbourne, had finally hit Sydney in a big way. So with my boots full of water and my leathers drenched, I slogged it out and was finally back home after my first touring experience 🙂