Today was our last morning at Buller and as you would expect it was a hustle and bustle of packing as a lot of people had to leave on the bus to get to Melbourne Airport for connecting flights. Quite a few Victorians drove up as well. Interestingly Targa High Country is on this coming weekend and a couple turned up last night about 9PM saying they had the place booked. We had a fancy dress fluoro night so I am not sure what they made of Rusty in his green tutu and fluoro tights! They ended up in the managers room downstairs apparently. I am wondering if they just turned up because they had the code to the door and hoped for the best to get in early as nobody else turned up even in the morning?

At the IGA – don’t ask me why?

Anyway after all the goodbyes and loading up and about 20 people looking through our camper everybody left and we resumed normal operations after 4 days, it was nice to be back in our portable home again! Sharon had not done the CopperHead run so I took her on a run through before we left Buller. Sharon was pretty buggered from yesterday and it was just a run so she could see it and say she had done it really. The grind back up the hill was not really on her agenda today but she got through it ok. We wandered down the mountain to Mansfield and had a lovely lunch at a cafe with the 10,000 other people travelling home and did a 2 day shop at the IGA to get us through. You had trouble getting back on the road as it was bumper to bumper in the main street.

Buxton MTB park after a huge muffin

The traffic on the road was unbelievable there were soooo man cars heading back towards Melbourne after the Tuesday cup day holiday here. We headed in the general direction of Buxton, the next MTB park we are going to ride and probably the last for the trip. Looking at camping options along the way it was dearer to buy a permit to camp in the national park than the Marysville caravan park powered sites. Organising a permit online and stuffing around with all that was irritating so after sitting around at Buxton MTB park talking to some locals we headed off the Marysville.

The caravan park office was closed for the afternoon but Sharon hunted down a phone number and we got the gate code and a nice grassy site for the night. A couple have just pulled up next to us from Queensland who are riding the 7 peaks with 2 to go. We passed them riding up Buller as we came down today. Their next stop is Tassie for 2 weeks so we will give them a few tips for walking and riding.

Exit berms for tomorrow

Tomorrow is Buxton MTB park till I drop and then driving into Berwick where we stayed on the way out of Melbourne almost a month ago. Sharon can have a days shopping at Ikea Springvale and the DFO at Moorabin and then an easy roll through to the boat from that side and back home again.