MOT Tour Day 78 Art's Farm to Cowra

Earliest start of the Tour: on the road at 7:45am! Early starts mean lots of kilometres under the belt, which for us is anything over 450kms. The six hundred days belong to our youth when aching knees and backs weren't part of the equation.

Starting inland of Merimbula, we took the path towards Cooma which takes you over Brown Mountain. We had to climb the lesser yet sufficiently steep Myrtle Mountain first on our way to Candelo and then a toilet break at Bemboka. After that its all climbing that goes on for longer than I can remember of any mountain climb along the Australian east coast. Although we didn't reach the 1,243 metre absolute peak of the mountain, we still climbed most of it. In the process we entered into fog and misty rain which stuck with us well past Nimmitabel.

The land up on the plateau is devoid of native trees. The only trees to be seen are those that have been planted up the long driveways to station homes and around the house yards of same. This is sheep country and the little Aussie bleaters are everywhere, although what they are eating seems scant.

Click here for today's photos

We stopped for fuel at Cooma and then it was on to Yass, via the bypass of Canberra on its excellent system of ring roads. At Yass, it was a late morning tea at Tootsie's, an unusual combination of cafe and art gallery. The gallery items were loud and modern and strangely appealing and worked well in their environment. We loved it. 

A short hop to Boorowa for lunch in the van and then the last 80kms to Cowra and 431kms down for the day. Our longest leg to date. Tomorrow we'll top that with nearly five hundred left until home.