Pete’s ‘Sth Gippy’ Excursion

This ride was to be in the dead of winter and so as we planned it we realised that the weather could be for us or against us so we planned a few points where the ride could be shortened if necessary. Fortunately, the day turned out to be a beautiful sunny winter’s day with the top temperature in the mid teens – wonderful!

After having met at Lilydale for the last four or ve rides we decided to make the second meeting place at Frankston and then lead the ride down into the South Gippsland area and then to criss-cross the area through the hills to the beach and back.

15 of us turned up for the ride (Mark, David W, Phil, John C, David P, Paul S, Adam F, Steven, Max, Michael, Craig, Michael J, Tim and myself). Welcome back to David W (NOTE: we had 2 x David Wilson’s on the ride!) who hadn’t been on a ride with the group for about 10 years.

We headed from Frankston out to Kooweerup (where my Mum was born!) and met Craig & JT there. From there we headed off through the rolling green hills of South Gippsland and did a surprise stop to view our Victorian desalination plant where we read up on all the stats related to the plant such as:

  • it can produce 440 MegaLitres of water a day
  • it’s surrounded by 225 hectares of nature reserve
  • it can produce 150 billion litres of water per year

    After the viewing we headed up to the top pub in Korumburra for a hearty winter lunch. They did a great job serving our group (ginen that they had two other large groups in at the same time!) which had swelled to 16 and all the meals were served within 15 or 20 minutes.

After lunch we headed down to Coal Creek where they had a pioneer trades day happening and steam engine rides on the old Stezlecki train. Most of us piled into the passenger carriage and enjoed the loop of the park while others looked at the old village and the trade displays.

After a brief sat nav error which took us down a dead end road instead of onto the highway we then headed off toward Leongatha but instead of going there we headed off toward the airport and onto some more back roads (unfortunately with the sun in our eyes!) and re-emerged back onto the highway close to the South Gippsland Highway and the ride ended back near Lang Lang where some of us had coffee before making the journey back to Melbourne.

An enjoyable mid winter ride was had by all. Pete.

Ride Photos:

Skills

Posted on

14 August 2016

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