Cooma is a nice, medium-sized town with the best facilities and shops since leaving Canberra, but getting out of town was a 5.5 km slog uphill. Having reached the crest after this climb, you can imagine my shame as I sat panting on the side of the road only to be passed by two (English as I found out later) girls riding from Sydney to Melbourne and looking as fresh as a daisy.

It was also much cooler today, requiring that I rug up and protect my face from the biting wind as I took advantage of some gentler slopes during the morning session.

There was not a lot of opportunity along here to top up the water bottles between Cooma and Berridale so I didn’t ride past the abandoned service station outside the Snowy Mountains Airport where there was a public water tap.

Thankfully the hills have been further apart this morning and reaching Berridale just after lunch, I stopped for a $10.00 Schnitzel (Oct. 2015) and beer from the local pub.

Anyone who knows me will also know how important a “schnitty and chips” meal is to this bloke. There is nothing better to top up the energy reserves.

There is one very long (and steep) hill out of Berridale that took me some time to conquer (translated means “walking up”) and after that, it was a reasonable ride until the last 15km into Jindabyne where the riding again got tough.

This scenery in this last section was a welcome distraction from the steep terrain, made harder by the extra weight I had loaded onto the bike. By now I had a fair idea of the surplus equipment that I would be packing up and sending home at the first opportunity.

However by the time I had got into town the post office had closed, so it was off to the local caravan park for a campsite by Lake Jindabyne and a stunning sunset. I would have to carry the extra weight for a little longer.