sadsacnews2013: TRAMPS: Koonwarra - Inverloch 08 September.

Fourteen members made the long journey to Koonwarra for a day's riding in the South Gippsland countryside. I thought that this number was a rather good showing.
The ride started with a reasonably stiff climb out of Koonwarra. As I approached the back markers I noticed Maree struggling with a rather tall ratio which eventually brought her undone. On inspection of her new off road machine it appeared that the strange looking gear changers operated the reverse of what is considered normal. Once underway again things seemed to settle. The puzzle was later solved by the tech savvy Len who discovered that someone? had installed the bars upside down. Once the bars were re-installed the bike looked rather normal. The mysterious section of gravel that did not appear on the Bikely map and was just a short connecting road that minimised the exposure to the highway.
This area of South Gippsland was quite new to me and to others in the group. At one point we noticed a new display at the Outtrim cemetery. It turns out the area was a significant supplier of coal around the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, even had it's own railway. Tim intends to follow up.
On arrival at Inverloch the lead group chose to set up in a stone shelter shed already occupied by some locals? Despite my urging, this decision was kept. Considering the many options available I was somewhat puzzled. Despite this we managed to celebrate Maria's birthday in good style.
After lunch, on our way out of town, we passed the site of the GVBR lunch stop. The area was deserted, a marked difference from the last time I saw it when hundreds of hungry bike riders packed the space.
The run home was shorter that the outbound but did contain the climb. As it turned out the ascent was a stepped arrangement giving riders breaks to recover. The view from the top was as I remembered, impressive.
The arrival back at the carpark was reasonably early and allowed us to make use of the local Cafe for our post ride wind down and coffee. Yet another successful day out for the club.