Day 2 - Wangaratta Hub & Spoke- To Beechworth

Last night we had a great meal at the Wangaratta RSL which was quite popular with the locals. I had a Guinness and Steak pie and most of the others had either the roast lamb or barramundi. All good food for us to start the week of riding.

Overnight we had a fair bit of rain which could be heard on the roof. It is a wonderful soothing sound to hear rain after a period of hot weather I find. So we woke up in the morning to a fairly cool day with some wind from the north. The temperatures varied most of the day from mid teens to about 20 degrees depending on whether there was sun.

After breakfast in the room we had time to walk to a cafe in Wangaratta for a quick coffee ahead of heading out on the ride at 9.00 am.

The ride today was on roads until we reached the Beechworth Rail Trail. The roads were fairly busy probably due to school holidays and being the first day after Easter.

We had a break for coffee at Tarrawingee for coffee at a lovely coffee caravan which seemed very popular with the locals. After coffee again!….it was off to the Rail Trail which was a long 25 km ( approx) climb up the hill. The gradients were about 3% which was ok and the wind was coming from behind us thankfully.

We arrived at Beechworth at around midday and headed to the bakery for lunch. It was packed with families having lunch ! We managed to find a table to accommodate us all which was great.Lunch for me was a Beechworth pie and vanilla slice and a cool drink. Others had sandwiches and cakes of all kinds.

After lunch it was the trip down the hill back to Wangaratta. The wind was in our faces unfortunately but the downhill run was just what we needed to enjoy the ride back!

About halfway we turned off on the rail trail and enjoyed the ride on a smooth paved surface.

Mike and I enjoyed letting a few of the other riders in our group have a head start then do a hard ride to catch them!

All good fun on a longer ride.

We arrived back at Wangaratta at about 2.30 pm to find the hot water in the rooms were off due to repairs and to bide the time a few of us went for an ice cream and / or milk shake.

The ride today was about 80 kms with a climb of about 540 metres.

After showering and resting we are off to dinner tonight which is being organised by Ric…. Italian I think!

I will report the dinner in tomorrow’s blog.

Today’s pictures are the route we took, the group photo at the start of the ride,coffee at Tarrawingee,a couple of photos on the rail trail and the Beechworth Bakery where we had lunch