Day 51: Setia Eco Gardens to Batu Pahat
/Morning brought an overcast day and happy cyclists. A bit of cooler weather makes life so much easier.
We hammered off up the road after breakfast of “dry noodles” - no dry, they are cooked, it’s just the are accompanied by a separate soup rather than swimming in it.
For once we had flat roads, a food surface and even a slight tailwind and we covered over 30 km in a little over an hour to arrive at Pontain, the destination we’d planned to reach the day before.
We took a break by the seafront in Pontain and had some of the more amusing cans of drink in the fridge, dorian fruit juice, tea with lumps in, that sort of thing.
As we were just leaving a man pulled up in a car and said:
“I am from Pontain Cycling Club. We have a place around the corner- follow me and I’ll take you there.”
Ok then.
The Pontain Cycling Club base, with photos of all the touring cyclists who’d stayed there.
What an amazing place. It’s a clubhouse for the members, but also a hostel for visiting cycle tourers, who can stay in the bunk beds for free. They also have a well stocked fridge, from which we consumed a local pineapple juice, as well as many snacks and a generous drinks cabinet, with whiskies and Penfolds reds to choose from.
We had to disappoint Jacky who was showing us around that we wouldn’t be able to stay. We needed to get a lot more miles under our belt today.
However, Jacky did us a couple of great favours. I mentioned that we’d been trying to find Malaysian flags as courtesy flags on our bikes, but local shops only had the Johor flag of the local region. Quick as a flash Jacky was off and moments later returned with two flags perfect for our bikes.
He also took us into town and helped us buy a local SIM card - never the simplest operation.
Thanks Jacky - you made our day and we only wish we could have stayed in your clubhouse. That would have been a treat.
A fair bit more riding and we made it to Batu Pahat. A nice hotel, an excellent Japanese meal and we retired very happy cyclists.
