Bendigo Hub and Spoke - Day 1

Today was the travel day to our motel at Bendigo.

It started with me packing the panniers on the gravel bike and setting off for the short ride to Union Station. I was a little early so made my way to the local coffee shop at Mont Albert where I met one of the Wheeliebinners, Anthony Walsh who was out on an early morning walk. He is not coming on the Bendigo ride as he is recovering from a recent health issue.

After coffee I met Steve Seymour and Phil Eager at the station to travel to Southern Cross to catch the train to Bendigo. The trip on the local Metro train was ok but with free travel operating on all trains in Victoria it was hard to get a seat with bikes!

The trip was a little more complicated as the train to Southern Cross with us requiring a change of trains and platforms at Flinders st.

We managed to get to Southern Cross to meet Jeff Jones and board the 11.00 am train. It was delayed due to an incident with some youths trying to misbehave and causing a situation where Protective Services officers were required to intervene. These youths were filming all their activities for later publicity on the web!

The train to Bendigo was full of day trippers which made finding room for us and our bikes quite challenging!

We arrived at Bendigo at about 2.15 pm and after a short ride we arrived at the Cathedral Motel which will be our home for the next 4 nights. The motel is very comfortable.

After unpacking we made our way to the Beechworth Bakery for lunch. This is a branch of the famous Beechworth Bakey in Bendigo and I was not disappointed with much of a toasty and vanilla slice.

After lunch we shopped for some breakfast items and waited for our fearless leader Ellio to arrive on a later train after his family luncheon in Melbourne.

After Ellio arrived it was time to watch the Dees win again the Lions by 2 points…. What a win!

After a brief celebration it was time for dinner at the Boundary Hotel which was a typical country pub with great food.

It was great to catch up as a group of 5 and enjoy the company and talk about many things goon in the world now. Catching up with Phil who is down from Brisbane was great.

After the longish walk to the pub over a few hills we managed to find a more relaxed route home to our motel.

A great first day and I am looking forward to the days of riding ahead.

Pictures are as follows:

At Union station… note Phil’s personal purser Abdy

On the Bendigo train…. Bikes in the foreground

Our home for the next 4 nights