Today was certainly a particularly joyous rendezvous as I was looking forward to many things: my wife, mum, bike, potential proceeds of a drive through Jamieson (they have a micro-brewery), as well as some fresh meat and vegies, you sure miss them! All of which came to fruition as well as a slightly exposed, but very beautiful campsite near the summit of Mt Skene. Despite finally getting a fire going with very wet wood and an icy wind, the campfire cooked fare had us full and satisfied and heading to bed fairly early as it was what a uni lecturer famously called a 'lazy wind'; that is it doesn't bother going around you.

A slight sleep in this morning and much organising, particularly on my part as I switched from boot to tyre mode. Mum and Sal had decided they might as well camp with me in Woods Point at the end of the day, so I did get to carry just the essentials, which was nice. I set off along the Snake Edwards Divide Tk which promised a lot of downhill as we had camped above 1600m. This was tempered with some long but gradual uphill. I eventually rode past (by accident) the short-cut track to the Mansfield-Woods Point Rd and had to backtrack a few kms. No matter as the Holylands Link Tk, as it is known, delivered in spades. It was so steep that I was literally sitting on the back wheel (I could feel the tyre attempting to burn a hole in my shorts) and with both anchors plied I was still close to skidding and enjoying some gravel for lunch. I made it down eventually and waded the fairly swiftly flowing Golburn River. I joined the main drag in Knockwood and the slog began. If you've ever driven the road from Mansfield to Warburton, you'll know it rises slowly and for a long time up out of the Golburn Valley to regain the Great Divide before FINALLY running downhill from Frenchman's Gap (not to be confused with Tassie's Cap) into the extraordinarily Tasmanian looking hamlet of Wood's Point. Along the length of today's ride are a hotch-potch array of houses, shacks and huts, reflecting the areas long history of natural resource exploitation. The tall Mountain Ash were the regions original drawcard, but it was later discovered there was 'gold in them hills!'. In fact with the current price of gold, interest has been refocussed on the area with the reopening of the A1 Mine, in the unimaginatively named A1 Settlement along the road.

We decided to let the locals do the cooking for us and headed into 'town' for a pub feed. This is a classic Aussie pub, and worth the drive (word chosen carefully!). The pub was decked out in an eclectic and nostalgic way, with genuinely friendly and increasingly entertaining locals, the more their arms were lifted! There was a real buzz about the place as one of the fellas had with him a big chunk of rock with two seams of gold running through it. Turns out they'd pulled it from the mine that day. The tucker was spot on too with mum and my steaks cooked perfectly and Sal's Flathead Tails being bang on too.

On our return to camp we had to make our obligatory stop at what is reputedly the worlds smallest servo (photo accompanying). As I used to work at Mobil, now of course a brand of the past, it was a must see! With a day that saw me literally licking the salt of my arms to stave off the cramp that hit me 3/4s of the way up to the gap, our return to camp spelled a hard earned Thermarest session. Shortly after we tucked into a night cap piece of Jamieson Brewery(!) Fudge. As I lie here finishing today's utterings I reflect again on an awesome trip and the great people, I knew previously and not, I've come into contact with along the way. The kindness of strangers still blows me away. Without fail, every stranger I ran into asked if I had enough water, including a slightly scary night I forgot to mention way back at Selwyn Ck Rd. I was camped as near to the road as to basically be on it, through lack of decent spots, when headlights lit up my tent. They went past and stopped. The red glow switched to white and the vehicle was obviously reversing. At this moment I remember taking my last inhalation for some time. Two doors slammed.
"Oi!" a gruff voice. "Oi!?" a bit louder and more angrily.
"yeah?" I answered.
"Are you ok?" came the thickly European accented voice. I exhaled finally,
"oh yeah, I'm fine. Just on the AAWT. Southbound."
"you got enough water?"
"Yeah fine thanks. I found the spring down the track to your left"
"Alright then, see ya"
"See ya mate, thanks for stopping."
As the two left the one that spoke said "I seen another one out here once and had to give him water", doors slam and the car drives away. I'll be honest in saying I did think I might be murdered that night, but humanity prevailed again!!