Day 6 - Ararat to Ballarat

We woke to what felt like quite a mild morning, donned the wind vest and The Long Road polo tops and headed off to the Ararat Advertiser to meet one of their reporters and photographers for another interview about the ride, then off to one of the town cafes for breakfast before hitting the highway.

Chinese Heritage Centre in Ararat, not totally sure of the connection with Ararat but an interesting building none the less.

We headed out of Ararat full of excitement knowing that we were heading for home, (We had decide to finish the pre-tour in Ballarat rather than Melbourne as that is the start point for our main tour, so we can carry on from where we left off.) We followed a little bike track we found that followed the side of the highway (A nice change from the road shoulder for a while.) and stumbled across a local lake with a nice view of the surrounding mountains.

Green Hill lake with Langi Ghiran State Park and Mt Buangor in the background.

It didn't take long for the heat to start taking hold as we made our way to our lunch stop, the temp just seemed to be getting hotter and hotter as the week went on, but at least the wind had died down.

Old Cob & Co changing station in Buangor that has since been converted with a more modern extension.

Much like the day before we were beginning to feel better on the bikes and were moving along at a much better pace, that was until we came to the climb just outside our lunch destination, Beaufort.


Well we thought Mt Lofty in Adelaide was a tough way to start the ride, but after a week of hills, headwinds and heat this short but steep climb nearly stopped us in our tracks and the complete lack of any road shoulder just made it worse, we were very glad to put it behind us and make it to Beaufort for plenty of cold drinks and two big bowls of pasta before tackling the final stretch of the day.

The view back down the hill, it may not look to long or steep but at the time boy did it hurt.

It had been hard after each stop getting back out into the blistering heat, but we knew we only had one more stint to go and we were all done, we past Lake Burrumbeet on the western outskirts of Ballarat, not so long ago this huge lake was bone dry due to drought, we stopped at the local pub for a couple of ice cold cokes and once again headed out into the sun.

Lake Burrumbeet.

We made it in to Ballarat at around 4:30pm, our fastest day for the trip, as we rolled into town, it was good to get a few calls by friends and see some friendly faces at our finish at Ballarat Cycle City.

Seeing the Ballarat sign at the edge of town was a welcome sight.

Jason and Garry at the finish outside Cycle City in Ballarat after 650km's in 6 days.