Having climbed up into the Adelaide hills at the end of stage 362, and carried on climbing out past Mount Barker on stage 363, stage 364 offers a little respite in descending three hundred feet more than it climbs: the bad news however, is that the two climbs that it does offer will hit your legs for seven hundred and fifty feet of climbing.
The rollout from Kanmantoo is downhill and south east for four miles to Callington. There, the first climb kicks in and it’s steep for two miles as the road and the railway part company: the railway takes a much more leisurely route up the hill as the Old Princes Highway hits it head on. The climb peaks at the double junction of Highland Road (north) and Thomas Crescent (south).
That’s the signal for a long descent through Coodra Ngoora and Monata South to a left/right/left combo of bends where the road and the railway meet up again, and on to the Adelaide Mushroom Farm. By the time the Old Princes Road reaches Misty Valley at twelve miles, you’re already onto the next climb but mercifully, this is the lesser of the two significant ones. It peaks at just under six hundred feet above sea level after two miles of climbing before the road descends steeply again to enter Murray Bridge at sixteen miles.
The route trundles along the southern edge of town on the Old Swanport Road on a three mile run to the junction with the South Eastern Freeway at eighteen miles. The remainder of the stage is relatively flat, albeit for a short rise at twenty miles after the road swings right over the Murray River and that sets up a one mile straight with a kick up right at the finish just after Monteith Farm.
Distance: 22 miles / 35 kilometres
Ascent: 741 feet / 226 metres
RGT Magic Road: fYwus2SEVNX7
Max elevation: 765 ft
Min elevation: 187 ft
Total climbing: 742 ft
Total descent: -1092 ft
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