DAY 12 - ANGLESEA - LORNE 37.3M

It was time for a bigger ride and there’s none better than straight down the surf coast to Lorne. I’d checked out the route the day before in the car and it looked fairly straightforward except a difficult climb at Grassy creek (and technical descent).

It was going to be quite a hot day at 29C so I set off early, about 7.50am to avoid the worst (or best?) of the sun. It’s funny to be saying this when everyone in England has snow!

Yesterday I did Aireys inlet so todays ride was the same way going right through Aireys, but no stopping at the bakery this time.

After Aireys you get a tremendous panoramic view of the coast, see photo.

Then you get the Great Ocean Road sign, where I stopped for the mandatory photo. There was a handy post to put the camera on to get the image.

After traversing that long beach, I hit Grassy Creek. It wasn’t quite as bad as I’d feared, about a 100m climb with hook turns. I tried to take photos looking down onto the road below but the dense tree coverage didn’t do it justice.

Then into Lorne, a nice beach resort, popular with families and the younger crowd, somewhat more developed and bustling than places like Anglesea. Lorne has a very old theatre used as a cinema. I took on a steak and onion pie at the award-winning local bakery before heading back.

Going back, Grassy creek was quite a ride down, I did brake on a couple of hairpins (and I think it was necessary!) It was well worth the effort of climbing to get the thrill of going back down the other side.

I had a bit of a breeze in my face heading back and that slowed things down a bit, ended up averaging 14.3mph not too bad for a ride with some big hills.