So we were resting in Wodonga for a couple of days after the Jingellic loop. On Tuesday the 4th of January, 2022 we departed Wodonga with Mum and Dad. After navigating us through the suburbs, Dad turned back. It was very hot. At one point I turned a corner and waited for mum and Hannah to follow me. I waited five minutes and eventually mum turned up. “Hannah’s eating plums” she said. Ten more minutes in the belting heat, and eventually she arrived carrying a big bag of roadside plums. We stopped at a cemetery a few kilometres down the road to eat some of the haul. We arrived at Boyd’s Bridge campsite on the Kiewa river at lunchtime and immediately got into the river which was as lush as you can imagine on a very hot day. Mum camped the night with us and it was lovely to have an extra pair of hands around the campsite. The next day we were aiming to get to Mount Beauty. We left at 6:45am and the first part of the ride was a lovely 25 km on a quiet country road following the eastern side of the Kiewa River. Just before we had to cross the Briggs Bridge and go onto the highway, we stopped for a rest next to the river - it was about 8:30am at this point. I checked the radar. We immediately put up the tent and called dad to get us. We knew there was bad weather on the way and always planned to get picked up, but we thought we would make it to MB before it hit. Apparently not. A couple of hours of pelting rain and thunder in a tent later (Rupert having a ball) and we were kind of rescued. Because of bike rack capacity, Dad and I drove Hannah’s bike the remaining 7 km to MB and dropped it at some warmshowers people’s place, then went back to pick up the remaining bikes and humans. We spent the next two days of very bad weather in Wodonga, which meant watching cricket and getting a covid booster. We were very grateful to have family backup nearby! On Saturday the 8th we left in the car with dad, leaving mum behind. We collected Hannah’s bike from MB and drove over Tawonga Gap to Bright. We’d been warned off riding over Tawonga Gap as the road was narrow and winding, but going over it in a car felt a bit of a cop-out and after seeing the road, we wished we had ridden it instead. After saying goodbye to dad, we set off on the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail which went all the way to Wangaratta. The start of it was very busy with locals and tourists going for walks and short rides. By the time we could really get going there was unfortunately a nice looking cafe at which we needed to stop for a snack and iced coffee. Our bikes hadn’t loved being in the rain, so we stopped in Myrtleford to get lube. The guy said there was no need to clean the chains, just lube them then wipe until the rag is clean. He said continue until you’re so bored you’re thinking about tax law. If you’re thinking about ex-girlfriends, you haven’t cleaned for long enough. After lunch we continued on to Everton. On the way, a huge goanna (like 1.5 metres head to tail) ran in front of me as I was going maybe 25 km/h (bit of a downhill, I’m clearly not going that fast normally). I ran it over with my bike and the trailer with Rupert in it. Hannah said it didn’t look disturbed and it was actually fine for us too. We turned south in Everton and went to a campsite on the Ovens River that Hannah and I camped at on our way up to Wodonga in January 2018 on our test ride to see if Hannah liked cycle touring - Pioneers Bridge. We paddled and chatted to fellow campers and Rupert enjoyed playing with the trangia. We slept in a little, not leaving until 8am the next day. I think this is because we had a plan to stop at a cafe in Milawa which didn’t open until 9am. This is what we did and it was delicious. After that we were taking back roads going south to try to make it to somewhere near Whitfield. This worked for about 5 minutes until the roads became very coarse gravel, and heavily corrugated. After an hour of going literally 5 km/h, we took a turn to get onto the main road, even though we were trying to avoid them. It was much less relaxing with the cars whizzing by and we were constantly calling out “car back” and “clear” to each other while Rupert slept through it all in the trailer. We made it to Moyhu for lunch at a park, and I filled my mental basket with some local knowledge at the General Store before we went back onto small roads which were either sealed or good gravel roads. This got us to Gentle Annie Reserve on the King River which was just lovely. More swimming while I sped to the shop in Whitfield before it closed to get some accidentally way-too-spicy-for-Rupert pasta sauce and some other various treats. The next day was short in terms of distance, but included a lot of climbing. We were aiming to get near Tolmie, which is in the hills. We got up very early and broke camp at 5:20am. The first part of the climb was tough, with parts that felt nearly too steep to ride with a loaded trailer. We had a break at a lookout, then kept going up and up. As it neared lunch time, we finally found a place to stop in Tolmie at the Rec Reserve. It was lovely, so we decided to stay there for the night. There was a wood chopping arena, oval, hot showers and plenty of tables under cover for us to use. To get away from others (Rupert occasionally woke in the night), we camped in the middle of the oval. I awoke at 5:30am to the sound of nearby peals of thunder and checked the weather. I learnt that at about 5:40am there would be severe thunderstorms and rain for about two hours, and on reflection being the only thing in the middle of an oval during a thunderstorm seemed like a bad idea. We decided to pack up instead of wait it out and got everything undercover except the tent which we left up. Rupert was a champion, being woken abruptly and carried back and forth in the rain, thunder and dark carrying armloads of camping gear. Two and a half hours later we left with a soggy tent. All downhill to Mansfield which was a delight - whizzing down through foggy forest with occasional glimpses through the cloud. In Mansfield we took way too long shopping, including boiling eggs in the dog park like crazy people. Oh yeah, between Wodonga and getting back to Melbourne I was vegetarian, not vegan. It was basically just too difficult to cook/eat enough protein on the road. Not impossible, but too difficult. From Mansfield we got on the Great Victorian rail trail through to Lake Eildon. We stopped there for the afternoon to sit in the water because it was, once again, hot. Apparently when we came through here last time I was 100% against the rail trail because it was too slow and 100% against stopping at the water because it was too hot, which is insane, but I was looking forward to the air conditioned pub and a cold beer. This time the water and rail trail were delightful, the alternatives foul. How things change. We met a guy on a tractor who was clearing up a dropped redgum (?) limb which was enormous and probably hundreds of years old. He recommended the Merton Cemetery to camp so we got back on the rail trail and rode there. I remember it being either late, or we were just tired, or hot, or sore, but putting up the tent and making dinner wasn’t fun. We were also trying to book an AirBnb for a day off as there were more thunderstorms forecast, but weren’t having any luck. The next day we had a late start at 8:53am and rode for an hour to the Giddy Goat bakery in Yarck. The onion and mushroom vol-au-vent was all time. We played in the park for some hours, then did another 25 km to Yea. We had a look around the wetlands and decided that it would be nice to camp there, with sufficiently low traffic. There was a creek to splash in, and two average quality large size takeaway pizzas with beer later we found a sneaky spot up the back to pitch the tent. Big moon. We had accommodation booked for the night in Tallarook about 50 km down the road, so we set off around 8am. We stopped outside a fancy looking country estate adjacent to the rail trail for a coffee, feeling quite awkward going inside to order in all our sweaty dirty filth, then ambled into Tallarook the town for lunch by the creek. The accommodation was located such that we had to either go 3 km on the flat, including 500 m on the freeway, or go the long way around on a gravel road including hills in 35 degrees. We went the long way. When we got there we turned on the AC and relaxed, Rupert playing with some toys that were there. It was a farm with an outdoor bar that had been made of timber from an old shearing shed at which the locals began to gather at around 4pm. There were a bunch of border collies for Rupert to be licked by. The next day we just hung around, watching a bit of the Hobart test, venturing outside for brief periods. There were just two relatively short days to go until we reached Bendigo. On Saturday the 15th, our plan was to make it to Heathcote via some backroads. We set off early, around 6am as it was set to be another hot day. The back roads were quiet but steep, so it was relatively slow going. There were some beaut boulder fields that we cycled through, one of which we stopped at for lunch. We made it the 65ish km to Heathcote by around 1:40pm and spent the rest of the afternoon at the playground where Rupert played and watched others play. Another two large average pizzas later we went to the Valley of Liquidambers, a free camping site right in Heathcote. We were the only ones there except for the kangaroos. Next day was the O’Keefe rail trail all the way to Bendigo where we would have a few days off with Hannah’s brother Fergus and his family, including a delightfully new baby. We left at 7:15am and woke up a few mobs of kangaroos as we were leaving town. Everything pretty much went according to plan. We had coffee and some food at Axedale Tavern which was about halfway. As we were riding along the next section we saw Fergus running along the rail trail. He’d driven out with Rachel, Esther and Oliver to meet us. He ran and we cycled back to their place in Strathdale which is a suburb east of Bendigo.
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Chris JonesJust a guy going for a bit of a documented ride. Archives
May 2018
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