Fleeing Wodonga with my confidence in the Garmin still shaken, and without the valve adapter I wanted yesterday, I reverted to using the routes I planned on justgoride.co.uk. These at least go in the right direction.

Getting onto the Hume Highway was simple and finally, I had very broad road shoulders to ride that give me about 4 metres of separation from the screaming giants that inhabited this busy stretch of highway.

It does not take me long to reach the turn off onto the Old Barnawartha Road for some peace as I thread my way in a random fashion towards Yarrawonga and Mulwala.

Yes, that’s right, I have moved off my planned route again and going where whimsy takes me. But this sometimes comes at a cost as several photos above show.

In this case having to wade through muddy water and then just after, ride around a Brown Snake sunning itself on the track.

With hardly a hill to climb all day, it had just been a case of head down (figuratively) and ride as far as I could. The back roads were great and I had them mostly to myself, but anything shared was crap. Not having a decent road shoulder is not fun for a cyclist.

It was not the truck drivers, they knew how to drive (and avoid cyclists), it was the young lads in their Skylines and the Silver Topped Road Warriors who until today, had never exceeded 80km an hour and had no idea of the width of their caravans.

On one particular side road, as I hit a particularly deep hole, the pack pannier bolts snapped again. This time though it was not just one, but both of them.

Stripping all the bags off the bike, it was time to use a blend of sticks, hose clamps and galvanised wire to resolve the ongoing issue of the rear rack just not being up to the standards required for touring.

Later that afternoon, not caring how I looked or smelled after a big day on the road, I hid the bike and gear behind a bush to one side of the Yarrawonga Country Club front entrance and found a quiet corner inside for a schnitzel and beer(s).

Time to feed the inner self again!

As the sun was setting a few hours later, wedging the bike between the tent and the barbwire fence, it was a well-fed cyclist that found a not-so-secluded campsite about twenty metres off the Mulwala to Barooga Road, some ten kilometres out of Mulwala.

Best of all, I didn’t hear any of the traffic all night.