DAY 3 – WOODEND – TYLDEN – TRENTHAM – ASHBOURNE – WOODEND 28.8M

Fresh from yesterday’s warm-up, I went for a more ambitious ride.

Heading out from Woodend high St, turning left down Forest St, starts a long climb into Trentham. It was tough for me being at the start of the trip, and the drag is about a 200m climb over about 16 miles.

The road past Tylden is pretty exposed and if you have any wind going in your face you’ll know about it. Guess which way the wind was blowing today?

Once you get to Trentham it’s a small pretty place with a couple of bakeries, and a charming looking tea shop that used to be a bank.

There’s also a very nice waterfall at Trentham Falls, I visited there 5 years ago.

The ride back to Woodend from Trentham starts with a sharp climb, then about 12 miles of undulating hills, big downhills and smaller uphills. As I was a bit knackered from the ride in to Trentham I didn’t enjoy the downhills so much as I could have but got down on the drops when I was hitting near 40mph.

The scenery on the Ashbourne road is very pretty, tree lined and interesting. The roads are very quiet in this part of Australia and I only met 1 other cyclist on Ashbourne road, who was far too cheerful, stomping his way up a steep hill.