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A nice relaxing birthday fishing session

I’m in Bris­bane, Queens­land for the Matil­das vs. Nige­ria foot­ball match on Thurs­day night, as part of the FIFA Women’s World Cup. As today is my birth­day I decid­ed to take the day off work and spend it fish­ing and relax­ing in the sun­shine. So I packed my light gear and trav­el rod and hitched a train out to Sandgate, and fished the beach around Shorn­cliffe and the riv­er inlet into Cab­bage Tree Creek.

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Melbourne to Brisbane by train for the Matildas

The FIFA Women’s World Cup is in full swing and this lucky lit­tle bug­ger has tick­ets to the Aus­tralia vs. Nige­ria match in Bris­bane on 27 July. To make a real jour­ney out of it, I decid­ed to opt for the overnight XPT train from Mel­bourne, via Syd­ney, to Bris­bane instead of flying.

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Great Ocean Road Winter Tour Day 5: Lorne to Geelong

I took the oppor­tu­ni­ty this morn­ing to sleep in a lit­tle in my nice hotel bed before lug­ging all my gear and bike down­stairs (the hotel does­n’t have a lift) to have a buf­fet break­fast at The Larder, the hotel’s restau­rant. I had a lib­er­al help­ing of hash browns, bacon, eggs, sautéed mush­rooms, mues­li, fruit and lots of gua­va juice. And of course: a dou­ble espresso!

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Great Ocean Road Winter Tour Day 4: Apollo Bay to Lorne

I was awok­en at var­i­ous times dur­ing the night by the sound of cows moo­ing in the fields on the oppo­site bank of the Barham Riv­er. What nor­mal­ly might have been irri­tat­ing was actu­al­ly and per­verse­ly quite pleas­ant. I even­tu­al­ly rolled out of my sleep­ing bag just before 08:00, and imme­di­ate­ly packed up my gear, tent and bike and got moving.

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Great Ocean Road Winter Tour Day 3: Lavers Hill to Apollo Bay

I left Lavers Hill this morn­ing in heavy fog and light rain, but with good spir­its as I rolled eas­i­ly down the hill, savour­ing the ear­ly morn­ing smells of wet for­est, the ghost­ly gums fad­ing into and out of the fog, and gen­er­al­ly enjoy­ing being on my bike in the out­doors. At the bot­tom of the hill I stopped to take a pho­to of a kook­abur­ra on the side of the road, and as I checked my GPS to see what kind of inclines I had await­ing me today, I noticed some­thing ter­ri­ble: I was on the wrong road!

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Great Ocean Road Winter Tour Day 2: Port Campbell to Lavers Hill

I woke up ear­ly this morn­ing, packed my gear and got away as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, want­i­ng to max­imise the time I’d have to spend at The Twelve Apos­tles, Loch Ard Gorge et al. before tack­ling the long slow climb up to Lavers Hill, the high­est point in the Otway Ranges. Even fur­ther press­ing was the severe storm rag­ing its way across the west of Victoria.

I did­n’t want to be rid­ing a steel bicy­cle in a light­ning storm, so I had to reach Lavers Hill by about 13:00, when the storm was pre­dict­ed by the weath­er bureau to arrive. I left Port Camp­bell at 7:00, not even hav­ing break­fast as I hit the open road from Port Camp­bell to Loch Ard Gorge. The sun was ris­ing as I rode along and the tran­quil qui­et was very soothing.

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Great Ocean Road Winter Tour Day 1: Warrnambool to Port Campbell

I spent yes­ter­day soak­ing and unwind­ing in the Deep Blue hot springs at War­rnam­bool with my part­ner Danielle, and it was a beau­ti­ful day of rest and relax­ation before tack­ling the Great Ocean Road.

Today start­ed off just as nice and calm, as we had a break­fast in the hotel’s restau­rant before check­ing out at 10:00, and rid­ing my bike up to Logan’s Beach to meet Danielle at the whale watch­ing look­out (she drove after drop­ping by the super­mar­ket to grab me a replace­ment lace for my shoes). Here we saw a South­ern Right Whale moth­er and new­born calf frol­ick­ing in the shal­low surf.

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Planning a winter getaway tour along the Great Ocean Road

Although I’m absolute­ly lov­ing my job at Starlight, I’ve been work­ing pret­ty hard this year and between the pres­sures of work, fam­i­ly, home and par­ent­ing I am des­per­ate­ly in need of a lit­tle break. So I’ve booked out a week’s leave at the end of August to tack­le the Vic­to­ri­an Great Ocean Road. And because I’m a sil­ly bas­tard I’ve opt­ed for the wild and wet weath­er that the Ship­wreck Coast is renowned for at this time of year. Fun!

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Planning a tour of the Apple Isle: Tasmania 2022

With inter­na­tion­al bor­ders closed (for Aus­tralians, any­way) until god-only-knows-when, and a nice local trip look­ing very attrac­tive as an intro­duc­tion to tour­ing for my part­ner Danielle, we’ve been plan­ning a Tas­man­ian East Coast cycling trip for a few months now. We’ve out­lined a nice 15-leg route that will take us 13–14 days in total rid­ing, across per­haps three weeks (giv­en rests and sightseeing).

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