Last weekend, Rowan and I did a sort of hub-and-spoke tour with a combination of cycling, driving, motel and camping. It turned out a little differently than we intended, but that happens sometimes ...
Friday - Machka's birthday! 
In this particular part of Australia, birthdays and other events, are celebrated with hot chips, and occasionally cream cakes or something similar. I've done the hot chips thing, but wasn't really in the mood for them this time. To my surprise, a coworker suggested popcorn ... a traditionally Canadian (or at least in many of the places I've worked) celebration food.
And I supplied the Tim Tams to add an Australian flavour to the party.
And then Rowan and I drove out to a little town, Lancefield, where I had booked a room for 2 nights. When we got to the place, it was all in darkness and no one answered the phone. It took us about 45 minutes traipzing around the area (to a local petrol station, to another related accommodation facility) to finally track down the manager, and get the room we had booked. Very strange situation. Nevertheless their rooms are lovely ... we stayed there 2 years ago.
Saturday - You Would Have to be Crazy 200K
The "You Would Have to be Crazy" Randonneuring event is a collection of randonneuring events of different lengths. Riders can choose from the 200K, 300K, 400K, or 600K starting on the Saturday, and then do a 100K or 200K on Sunday if they want.
We debated about a longer event, but opted to go for the 200K. We rode the 200K two years ago on singles, but this time we decided to do it on our tandem. If I could make it on our singles when I was still recovering from DVT, I figured we could handle it on our tandem now!
I had 3 goals with this ride: 1) Ride my age to celebrate my birthday. 2) Ride a century for March in the Century-a-Month challenge (to make a century in each month for the past 18 months). 3) Ride the 200K to get our 3rd randonneuring event this year.
This 200K event is sneaky. The first 100K are quite easy because the general lay of the land is downhill to a city 100 km away. Then we turn around and climb back up. To add to the challenge, we also had a tailwind on the way out, and headwind on the way back.
We covered the first 100K in 4.5 hours ... we were cruising! But we finished the event in 10:50 ... we were not cruising on the way back!! It was definitely a bit of a slog on the way back.
There was a decent group of cyclists doing the events so we had cyclists within sight for some of the event, and encountered them again at the turn-around point and at the end. This event is also lightly supported, and we were provided with a large bowl of pasta at the end as well as several other food choices. That pasta hit the spot!
At the turn-around point something rather unexpected happened ... an old Rolls Royce vehicle pulled up! It had been a bus in its early years and had been converted to an Egg Merchant delivery vehicle in 1952. (Yes, we have photos)
The area is quite scenic ... rolling hills, forests, pasture lands. And the weather was beautiful. When we did this event 2 years ago, it poured rain until just before we started, it was so socked in with fog that we couldn't see any of the scenery at all, and then we were followed back by a storm which nailed us with a bit of rain and some of the other riders with hail. This year we had blue skies and sunshine. The temperature started cool, and warmed up to about 21C in the middle of the day.
Right toward the end of the ride the temperature dropped (the low that night was 8C) and the combination of the headwind and drop in temperature left us feeling a little chilled. Good thing we had that lovely room with a heater and hot shower!!
Sunday - Cycling Tour
Our original plan was to leave the van somewhere in Lancefield and cycle to Castlemaine (about 80 km away) on Sunday and back again on Monday. But we didn't feel comfortable leaving the van with the tandem and suitcases inside overnight, and we were still a bit tired from the 200K.
So we drove to Castlemaine, and headed for the largest campground. When we got to the campground, no one was around ... a replay of a couple days before, and on a long weekend!! Fortunately they were just gone for lunch, and were back a short time later. We walked around the adjacent botanical garden while waiting, and the walk helped loosen things up.
After we set up camp, we explored Castlemaine and the Castlemaine area on our single bicycles, including a few more walks of various lengths. Along the way, we came across an outdoor cycling velodrome, and decided to give it a go. It was 500 metres around, and we racked up 4 km there in no time. I had never ridden in a velodrome before and discovered it is a lot easier than it looks (riding a geared bicycle in a non-race situation). All up we cycled just over 20 km.
And then we attempted to find a place for dinner. Keeping in mind again that this is a long weekend, and Castlemaine is a touristy town, we were surprised to discover how many places were closed or had limited selection. We ended up driving into Bendigo for dinner.
That night we tested our camping mattresses, sleeping bags, and pillows. We're trying out various things to see what might work for a longer cycling tour.
Monday - Touring
We didn't cycle on Monday (today) ... instead we did some touring type stuff. We did a steam train trip to a neighbouring historical town, and walked around the town. It was a gorgously warm, lovely autumn day.