We took a lovely country bitumen road past sheep and opium poppy fields (for legal pain killer production) and off on a dirt road for the hard climbing. A night in the historic town of Bothwell and we climbed steadily again to the plateau of the Great Lake. Along the way we had a long visit with the Ride For Reconciliation, which we first heard about through Grace Newhaven several months ago. Unfortunately the ride has only the two organizers. It has not attracted the support they had hoped. Gabriael and Peter are committed, but I wonder how long the cause can hold the ride together. We would have joined except they were going south and we were going north!

 Had beer and cricket on the telly, and a poor pub meal but free camping at a somewhat run down fishing hotel. The possums were cute, and thick as flies, but their poop wasn’t so cute; they seem to particularly to enjoy pooping on human’s objects, like bicycle seats, picnic tables and tents.

 Thirty kilometres of good dirt road had us to the end of the plateau and some very lovely high country of open heath and tarns with blooming heather. It was some of the most beautiful and exotic landscape we have seen in Australia. We were even reluctant to begin the long downhill off of the plateau. We had to stop a few times on the descent to cool the rims; at one of these, I noticed that the rear tyre was down to the cord in one spot, and the other one was looking equally dicey. We had less than twenty clicks to Deloraine and figured the tyres were good for that. Less than ten from town, a bee flew down my throat, at about 25 kph, and felt like he stung me on the way down, and I was more than a little concerned about an allergic reaction, a real possibility for an asthmatic. I quickly took a couple of antihistamines and used my medication. There was some swelling in my throat but no other indications of a problem, and we were relieved.

 We camped in a lovely town caravan park in Deloraine, a nice shady spot. We napped and snuggled the afternoon away, enjoying the rightful pleasures of marriage. I have noticed that as the sun approaches solstice, in the northern hemisphere, my interest in conjugal dalliances with my sweetie increases considerably. This seems to be the case here in the southern hemisphere also, so it must have something to do with the hours of daylight. And we get an extra solstice by coming to Australia. Poor woman gets no rest!