Weather and Whisky - Miena to Bothwell Day 3

Overnight it rained hard, good job I was in my dry room at the Great Lakes Hotel. My tent had dried in the room overnight. It was still raining hard in the morning but it eased as I left around 9am.

 

I only had to ride for about half an hour before it stopped completely. The road had a mixture of up and downhill but mostly downhill as I was now heading off the central plateau.

I rounded a bend and could see for miles The road dropped in altitude considerably from that point and I prepared myself for a fast downhill, hopefully keeping enough momentum to help climb the next rise.

I aborted this run half way down, because I spotted another cyclist, not just any cyclist either, another recumbent even if it only had 2 wheels.

Andre, from Italy, was travelling my route in reverse back to Devonport. His font wheel drive bike was having trouble climbing the hills however other than warning him there were plenty more hills I wished him well on his ride.

Once off the plateau the road was a series of steep undulations. The strong tailwind didn't seem to help me up the hill at all but it made my arms cold when I stopped.

Finally I spotted the sign I wanted to see. "Nant Distillery 1km" after following Nant Lane for almost 2km I wondered if I'd gone the right way. It turns out the distillery is 1km from the Bothwell end of the lane and they made both signs the same.

I may have been the first recumbent tricyclist to visit the distillery, it's only been open 6 months.

After some quite generous tastings of all 3 of their whiskey varieties I had a tour of the distillery. It was good to sit out of the wind so I sat in their glass room and had a coffee before continuing on my way.

I made the short flat run into Bothwell. I bought a schnitzel roll and paid for a night at the caravan park ($10).

The caravan park at Bothwell has a bad reputation amongst cyclists, mainly because most of it is a huge expanse of gravel really only suited to RVs. Fortunately I went into the information centre which is in front of the park, where the lady informed me that the grassy park next to the building was also part of the camping area and that I should camp there and shelter the trike on the veranda.

I met a Korean cyclist that was travelling at a faster pace than me. He was hesitant to pay the camping fee and was thinking of travelling further. In the end he stayed, I don't think he paid either.

It was a lively afternoon at the pub, a local was having a bucks party they were fairly far gone by the time I got there. I had a few beers and went back to the campsite where I cooked some of the food I had with me to stay on budget.

 

Distance travelled today 62km
Trip distance 193km