When planning this section, I knew that it would be steep, but I did not realise how steep it really was or how difficult not having decent shoulders to the road would make it.

I was still also carrying the excess weight that I hoped to get rid of in Khancoban.

Leaving Jindabyne provided a nice long downhill run but again as I rested by the side of the road, I was passed by the two English lasses.

The next 20 kilometres to the park entrance took me five hours with probably almost half that distance being walked due to the terrain.

The two ladies in attendance were marvelous and my spirits were lifted when told that from here it was mostly downhill. If only that had turned out to be true! The pain continued with the last ten kilometres to Thredbo taking a further two hours until at 4.30 pm I rode into the small tourist town looking for the scenic camp site described by a local I had met on the road to Bredbo, three days earlier.

Enquiring at the local visitor centre, imagine my horror when told that Thredbo is a closed tourist town and that the camp ground was some 5 kilometres back the way I had come, up and down all those hills again. (Insert profanities here) There was no way I was going back over all those hills.

Retreating to the pub (you will find that this is a common occurrence) I have dinner, washed down several beers and consider my options.

Having refused to go backward, there seemed no other choice but to carry on to the Tom Groggin campsite some 25 km further on. If I didn’t make it that night, I was too tired already to really care. I would simply set up camp in the bush on the side of the road.

Leaving the pub I asked a couple who are also heading out, about the ride conditions to Tom Groggin and as luck would have it, they were heading back to their camp there.

Offering to give me and my gear a lift, I quickly accepted the offer and half an hour later I am setting up camp in a wide clearing on the banks of the upper reaches of the River Murray with a promise of a hot cup of coffee, cake, a board game for entertainment and something rare for solo cyclists, a long conversation.

Rob and Rachel were probably the most welcoming of the many kind folk I met on the three weeks of this ride and I owe them a huge debt for removing an otherwise long and difficult ride late into the night.

There were many days when I was shown kindness by complete strangers, proving that humanity is not as self-centred as sometimes portrayed.