Yes a wet day from Richmond to Orford. Rained probably 90% of the way, drizzle and light but a few heavier showers. When the forecast says 90% rain I’m not sure if means 90% chance of rain or it will rain 90% of the time. And we were into a head wind all the way. It was warm though and the only time we got cold was when we stopped at the Buckland Roadhouse for a coffee and vanilla slice (custard square to kiwis). The roadhouse was nice and warm but putting our wet jackets back on and cycling into the wind and rain we were cold until we warmed up on the next Hill.
And hills there were many today. We started out from Richmond flat farming country on a bypass before joining the A3 highway. We were able to turn off this and use an abandoned road for a few kilometres. This was great with zero traffic but a rough deteriorating surface. Back on the A3 we had some big climbs, the first to 260m at Charlie’s Opening, then to 336m on Post-me- Gall Hill, and finally up Break-me-neck Hill. From there it was fast downhill to Buckland which has a pub, a church, a roadhouse and 3 or 4 houses. The roadhouse was busy as it sold petrol and diesel and seemed to be the gathering place for the locals for Sunday brunch. The fare was pies and fries and surgery sweet treats. The coffee was large and hot and a saviour for three drowned rats. Or is that wallabies over here?
Through some rolling farm land, up one more little hill and then down a spectacular gorge with the Prosser River on our left and rugged rocky cliffs on our right. The road was narrow with no shoulder or pull offs but being Sunday traffic was light.
Finding our accommodation in Orford was at the time perplexing and infuriating but in hindsight a bit funny. Manfred’s notes are generally excellent and very detailed but the bit about entering Orford was written as if you were coming from the north and going south while we were doing the opposite. We couldn’t work this out until we realised all his landmarks were on our right instead of left and coming at us in reverse order. So reading it all backwards from the bottom of the page up it was obvious. Manfred lost a lot of brownie points while we did an extra 5kms and 15 minutes in the rain. That would have been a massive reduction in his tip!
Earlier in the day just out a Richmond there was a cycle race and we saw some of the pelaton , all of whom didn’t look any younger than us. We did meet a young man from China on a touring bike with panniers and we played leap frog with him all day as he is doing the same route as us. Chatted with him a few times and he loved the pies and fries.
Accommodation is in a nice cabin in a quiet suburban street about 200m from the beach. The cabins are quite large with full kitchen and can sleep 5. And we have two of them!
Orford had 24 hours of torrential rain two days ago and suffered a lot of flooding. The pub is closed and the school needs new carpets before school starts on Wednesday. There are only three dinner options in Orford: a stylish pub (closed due to flooding in bar), Scorchers wood fired pizza or a seafood takeaway. So it was pizzas and Tasmanian ice cream. The pizza was yummy but we all went home hungry and raided some of the breakfast provisions. We needed something more like the meal we had in Richmond, a good old fashioned farm roast with roast beef, brown gravy, potatoes, peas, pumpkin and courgettes, and lots of it.
Pat the proprietress was very kind and offered to clean and dry our sodden clothes in her washing machine and dryer. The panniers were fantastic and kept all our gear in them absolutely bone dry.
The cabins and Scorchers have no wifi so this is being posted a day late.