Day 6 Wangaratta to Eildon
Today’s 200km stage lived up to its ‘epic’ prediction. Our longest stage of the tour, so everyone set off an hour earlier to get through a very long day in the saddle, with over 2,500 meters of climbing thrown in.
We headed out of Wangaratta to the very picturesque King Valley, renowned for its tobacco growing and dairy farming heritage, and infamy as being one of the main bushranger areas in the 19th century. Including one, Ned Kelly, who committed his first felony in the area.
We stopped at a local primary school along our way, delivering our be fit/be healthy message, and the kids played a song they’d written to celebrate tour de cure visiting their school. Each school we visit also receives an IPad and Canon Camers from our sponsors, which they must use to demonstrate how they have shared the tour de cure message, with the winning school to receive a range Canon educational products.
We then tackled our first big climb, 30kms, to then enjoy a great descent into the town of Mansfield for lunch. Here we picked up some guest riders who will join us fr the next couple of days, including Belinda Goss, (female pro cyclist), Rick Kelly (V8 race car driver) & Phil Andersen (Aust’s 1st Tour de France yellow jersey holder).
Following lunch and still over 90kms to go, plus two significant climbs, we departed for our destination of Lake Eildon. This whole area has some of the most spectacular scenery and cycling terrain akin to riding in Europe. To add to our challenge the rain arrived! Which slowed our progress making the descents very challenging and riding generally difficult…and cold! We managed the pace carefully to make sure everyone would make it through and eventually rolled into Eildon, one of Aust’s largest man-made lake systems, at 6pm….after leaving Wangaratta at 7.30am! A truly epic day’s riding and raising awareness for our cause. Another community dinner with a bunch of very tired & sore cyclists….no one is not feeling some physical effect from the distances & time on the saddle.
The unsung heroes of the tour are our support crew…35 volunteers who manage every aspect of keeping the tour going. From driving & navigating the front & rear cars for each peloton, to setting up hydration points, to cooking & serving all meals, to driving the food & baggage trucks, to handling media & digital comms, to Physio’s & Medico’s…and always cheering us along the way.
Tomorrow we have a ‘short’ day of 155ks to reach Melbourne and the overnight ferry to Tasmania, as we complete riding across 3 states & 1 territory.
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