Day Four: Adaminaby to Corryong
Day four promised to be one of our most challenging and spectacular days at this year’s Tour de Cure, and it did not disappoint. We covered over 140 kilometres today and climbed just shy of 3,000 vertical metres. After leaving Adaminaby in light mist, the sun broke through when we entered Kosciusko National Park shortly thereafter. As we ascended into the national park, we reached a peak that revealed a vast valley beneath us. We could see the road wind it’s way down to the base of the valley over a little stream, and this provided for a breathtaking descent. Upon ascending out of the valley, we were greeted by a similar view on the other side and we once again enjoyed a descent down into a vast valley, all the time shrouded by sunshine and blue skies. This pattern repeated itself on a couple of occasions, until we left the Snowy Mountain Highway (regretfully) and started heading towards the Selwyn Snowfields.
The peloton winding it’s way down into a valley in the heart of the Snowy Mountains.
A wrong turn saw us add some extra climbing to the ride (not that we needed it) and we found ourselves at the top of Mount Selwyn. After getting back on track, we stopped at Cabramurra for some morning tea and a school visit, before descending down to the beautiful Tumut Pond Reservoir. This brought us to our toughest challenge of the day, a steep 9 kilometre climb up Tooma Road. A group of four riders (including myself) joined together at the base of the climb and rode up as a team, making the experience very rewarding. The rest of the day contained some more minor hills, but the majority of the last 40 kilometres saw us descending into Corryong. Hats off to Heidi Bramberger who completed today with only two gears due to a mechanical problem with her bike (for the record, I had 22 gears to choose from).
Descending into Corryong.
At the Corryong community dinner, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Daren Armstrong who is the rider I spoke about in my blog entry yesterday that has been diagnosed with three separate forms of cancer since 2001. Daren and I spoke about his most recent diagnosis where a tumour was identified on the palate of his mouth by his dentist. Daren explained in some detail the surgical procedure used to remove the tumour, and how it involved removing his palate and some nerves in his face. He told me how the procedure has left him with no feeling in parts of his face, and how with the assistance of a prosthesis he has had to learn to eat and speak again, simple pleasures we take for granted. It is one of the many examples that illustrate how insidious cancer is.
We are off to Wangaratta tomorrow, where I will reunite with Trish Shaw at the community dinner, a teacher who I met during a school visit in Wangaratta last year whose husband was subsequently diagnosed with cancer. I am looking forward to catching up with her.
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