Swan Reach South Australia 18th July 2015

This was a chilly mid winter ride for us. Forecasted temps were between 2 and 11C for the day, frosty in the morning before sunny skies for the rest of the day. Instead we had a mixture of cold, fog, misty rain and cloudy skies. So we rugged up for the 240 km ride from home to Swan Reach. MAP

Leaving home from Peterborough at 9:40 am saw us with the fog and misty rain and not forgetting the cold for the first 30 or 40 km before we just a cloudy sky with patches of exposed sunlight. Overall it wasn't to bad though my right hand was colder than my left one which had some warmth from the sun.

A 168 km later we were at Morgan, were had to cross the Murray River by ferry and continue our trip on the other side of the river. At 12:30 pm we arrived at the Swan Reach hotel and being last to arrive we met the rest of our group in the hotel dining room.

This a view of the river through a window of the hotel

 

From the same location a view of a typical ferry that's used to cross the river. The amount of traffic crossing a river at any given point doesn't warrant the expense of a bridge.

 

 

At the table after the meal

 

Heather

 

 

Richo from Adelaide and Garry from Victoria

 

Chris and Pete also from Adelaide

 

Linda from New Zealand who bought a bike over here then road to our event

Our small group

While in the car park before leaving we met a group of female riders who also were at the hotel for lunch. I took these after the second group shout.

I had taken a group photo of the girls for one of them but Linda (green jacket) took another one as some of the girls were missing.

At bout 2:45 pm we departed for our own ways back home. We had to be back in our home town before the supermarket closed at 6 pm. A refuel was required on the return trip so I decided on Morgan which would gives a little rest with the fuel stop and ferry for river crossing.

About halfway between Morgan and Burra we could feel the temperature drop as we started the gradual increase in height from the plains into the Eastern side of the Southern Flinders Ranges. As we head north the sun sinks below the hills on our left and we lose what little heat there was from the sun. It wasn't far to go by then; only 60 km or about half and we arrived at the supermarket at 5:30pm. Our ride isn't over 'til we get home which we did at 6 pm.

For the day we rode 465 km and averaged about 15.9 k/l, rode for 5.5 hours with an average of 84.5 k/h.

That was how we spent our coldest ride for the year.