Lara Latte Cycle

Last weekend, an intrepid group from the LaraLatteCycle Peloton spent the weekend in Forrest, riding two big rides through the Otways and much rain and wind.

Arriving on Friday night and staying on the shores of the picturesque West Barwon Dam, we prepared ourselves for the first adventure on Saturday.

Saturday morning saw us leaving Forrest in reasonable weather, albeit on wet roads.  After only 500m, the climbing began with the Cat 4 climb from Forrest to Barramunga – a real test of cold legs!  Once that was negotiated, we rode along rolling hills until Turton's Track.  Travelling along Turton's, we were treated to a spectacular sight of rain forest (complete with rain by now!), giant gum trees, fern glades and a lot of debris along the road.  At a couple of points, fallen trees had us resorting to cyclocross!  Once on the Beech Forest – Lavers Rd, the road became clear, but the rain was steady, not surprising since this passed through Weeaproinah, the wettest place in Victoria with 2040mm average annual rainfall (most of it on that morning, I swear!).  We arrived at Lavers Hill to the welcome site of a cafe where we stopped for coffee and food and a warm up.  We were quite a site – five drowned rats, so to speak, with staff and other guests left shaking their heads, wondering who would be silly enough to go bike riding in that weather!  We left big puddles on the floor due to our wet clothes!  Thankfully, the cafe staff were quite tolerant and cleaned up after us as we made our way back into the rain and wind!

The sight of a man mowing his grass with a ride on mower in that weather, had us wondering if, in fact, this was the best (driest) it actually became on top of Lavers Hill!!!!

We resumed the ride and after a short stretch to Beech Forest, made another coffee/cake stop at the Organic Ridge Cafe – again leaving puddles as souvenirs for the lucky shop owners!  Thereafter, we struggled back out into the rain and wind for the remainder of the return ride to Forrest.

The route details can be found by following this link.

After returning from the ride and enjoying a hot shower, we fired up the stove and turned the lounge area into a drying room (furnace actually, with some debate about temperature and opening/closing doors and windows).  The normal "nanna-nap" after such rides was replaced with puzzle solving activities, blackberry picking, photo excursions and catching up on news and other reading.  In the evening we enjoyed a lovely BBQ on the covered deck of the house overlooking the dam.  Whilst there were still intermittent showers, the temperature was pleasant enough to enjoy the outdoors.   Jürgen finally conquered the puzzle that Graeme had brought along, after several hours (and many glasses of red wine).

Sunday morning saw Gus join us for the day's ride, as we again began with the Cat 4 climb from Forrest to Barramunga after only 500m from the house.  We continued through the rolling hills on to the big downhill run to Skene's Creek.  By the time we hit Skene's Creek, the rain had stopped, but we had to negotiate a strong headwind in to Apollo Bay.  There, we enjoyed our first coffee for the day, at the Bay Leaf Cafe, who distinguished themselves by having run out of muffins at 9am!  Returning from Apollo Bay to Skene's Creek was very fast with a strong tail wind, but soon we were brought back to reality – the 10km climb from Skene's Creek began with a 6% gradient.  Everyone paced themselves well on the first half of the climb, but the second half was marked by a solo break, that was only caught on the long downhill before the final 1km climb to Turton's Track.  The return from Turton's Track to Forrest was puncutated by short sunny spells, that suggested better weather to come (once we were all back at work!).

The route details can be found by following this link.

Again, the hot showers after the ride were most welcome and we reluctantly packed our gear for the journey back home after a great weekend.  But not before Jürgen had a close encounter with one of the locals (a red-bellied black snake – see photos), who had come out to enjoy the little sunshine there was on the weekend.

Mouse over the slideshow for controls (stop, pause, forward and back).