Day 21 | Nornalup Road: deep in Frankland River National Park

57 km | zzOz total: 1,057 km

FRNP, that’s the Frankland River National Park, has been on the agenda since the early “planning” of this voyage.

The theory was that I wanted to have a snoop around Manjimup, not a big fan, I’d noticed that there are plenty of roads leading into Manji, but on reflection, an equal number, if not more, leading away, Lake Muir, umm, where’s the lake part, and the Muir Highway, it’s a great ride, not as wildly oscillating as the more usual bike tourist route along the South Coast Highway, and certainly not as much traffic. But I’m not so keen to revisit Mount Barker, which happens to terminate the Muir Highway, and then end up heading down the Albany Highway.

Cutting through the FRNP on a dotted line on the map to change to the other highway, humm, those dots fade a bit in the middle there, looks the perfect mini adventure, even if I end up going through Denmark, the town, not the country, I might remind you, once again.

Last night, in view of a suspected overdose of inclement weather I crossed it off. More sensible in light of the current weather patterns, ie there’s plenty of it, to do Mt Barker/ Albany direct and land at Thursday lunchtime.

Then again, this morning was so perfect I thought cast sensible asunder and set off on Nornalup Road, that dotted track through the middle of that large vague green area on the map.

I’ve had the best surprise since, err, maybe the whole trip.

The road was generally soft, but it headed slowly, remorselessly, sometimes even imperceptibly, downhill, km after km.

OK, there were a few short, flattish uphill sections, but overall it has been a dream run. One car went past.

Humm, today might have been nearly the perfect bike tourer’s day’s ride we all hope for on a trip where everything goes surprisingly way better than you could imagine, it might have been a slog but it turns out sublime, but the next 3 days may help out in relieving the drought in the area.

On the other hand next week is looking exceptionally good for the average winter long distance bike rider.