New Day Rising – Day 24

Wentworth River to Livingstone Creek

Gunaikurnai and Jaimathang Country

18 March 2025

My nose and cheeks are cold. I’m curled up in the sleeping bag. Only my face pokes out. Sometime in the night I even had to zip the sleeping bag up to my shoulders. It is delightful after such a long and hot summer.

Poor Verne tumbled out of the sleeping bag at some point in the night, and when I rolled over and reached to move him and Kermit, he was not there. Poor little ectotherm was very cold to the touch when my hand finally found him there on the tent floor in the dark. 

We’re so close to the end of daylight saving that the sun doesn’t rise until 6.30 or so. This means I’m not poking around the tent and packing up until around that time. I look at my little thermometer. It says 4C. How wonderful – it feels cold! We haven’t seen temps like that since last July. 

As I’m packing up, I hear another ute downshifting through the steep bits of the road to the east. I can hear it kicking up rocks as it rumbles down the hill. It comes to a stop over by the track junction, and not long after 7am, the grader/dozer thing starts up. The 2am arrival must have been one of the workers who slept in their vehicle rather than doing an early morning start to get here on time (we’re probably about 45 minutes by vehicle from Swifts Creek). 

I am trying not to psych myself out about the first climb this morning. We need to gain 400 metres in 3.1 kilometres. That’s more than an average 10 percent grade, and I know there’s definitely some 14 and 15% in a couple places. There are some quite narrow distances between the map topo lines in that first four kays. 

But let’s go do it. I am not too proud to push. 

So I put on my gloves for the first time on the trip and we tackle that first hill. It is definitely steep and unrelenting. But the early morning light strikes the green of the hills to the east, and fog lays in wispy strings of thin clouds in the crevices between the hills. It provides a scenic view as we push hard on the pedals and weave up the road. This road is thankfully not that near vertical track I was looking at yesterday, but it is plenty steep enough.

One of the utes passes me in that first six kays. He doesn’t slow down. I don’t move over much. I pass the turn-off to the Wild Horse Track which I’d plotted as a possibility when we were thinking we’d be doing all this from the north instead of the south. The ridge does look rideable, but the drop to Pheasant Creek and then the track up to Jones Road would definitely involve some hike-a-bike. 

It is cold. I like it. I like it even better because I have no trouble breathing. Cold, dry air and exercise have always been one of my biggest asthma triggers. But no more – and all I had to do was pull out the inflammatory foods and work on my gut lining. I revel in having good lung capacity as my chest heaves and my heart pumps hard as we strain the chain and creep up the hill. I promise myself a stop at the turn-off to the helicopter pad. 

We ride ever higher, following the edge of the hill as it curves in and out. I’m proud to get all the way to the turn-off to Waynes Link Track and the helicopter pad without having to get off and push. I wobbled a bit in some of the steeper pinches, but we made it. 

The link track is a straight shot down to Waynes Track where those guys were working. Two guys in a ute come up the track and pass by. They don’t acknowledge my existence, so I do not acknowledge theirs. Later on, I crawl by the ute that passed me earlier in the day. The guy is just sitting in the ute – I assume you’ve got to get to that point to get phone reception. 

The road swaps to the other side of the hill at this saddle and now the sun is in our eyes as we continue the climb. The grade backs off, but it is still a slow crawl for another kay or two. We still need to climb another 310 metres in 6.4 kms, going from 250 metres to 960 metres in 9.5 kms. 

Eventually we gain the ridge and start getting some views to the ridge where Baldhead Road runs. Yes, we’re heading back to the divide between the Wentworth and Nicholson Rivers where we were last week after that 2-day fight along the river track. 

I look at the fire scars and try to figure out how the fire ran. We’re on the very edge of the burn here with small swathes of singed trees along this road and to the south along Baldhead Road. Everything to the northwest remains unscathed.

Grunt. Grunt. There is one steep bit just before we reach Baldhead Road. But I know it’s coming based on the map’s topo lines, so I’m mentally prepared for one more bit of heart-pounding, chest-heaving grades. The surface on this bit is crap, and even though I thunk and wobble over some of the bigger rocks, we make it the entire way without pushing. Go, Em – my back doesn’t hurt – there’s just some pressure there – and my legs are feeling strong. Three weeks into the ride and I’ve finally come good!!

I stop at the road junction to text my position, screenshot the updated forecast and send a proof of life photo to my contacts. I then have a protein and gut break, sitting there soaking up the sun on a cool morning. This actually feels like a proper ride day!

We then make our way up Baldhead Road, retracing part of the road we rode in 2023. We now just need to go from 1000 metres to 1270 metres in 6 kays. It feels like about a 5 percent grade most of the time, and the math works out similar.

We enjoy the long views over the Wentworth catchment, all the way over to Mt Birregun on the other side and up to the Great Dividing Range where we’ll be later today. I love looking down the catchment, thinking about all the places we’ve been up and down that watercourse. 

The road is in good condition. We get back into areas with walls of thin and spindly regrowth that negate any views. Soon enough we’re climbing around the edge of Mt Baldhead and then hitting the nice, curvy, loose downhill through a recent clear cut. 

I had thought about heading along McDonalds Road, back down to the high reaches of the Wentworth River. We’d then take Wentworth Road back up to the Mt Delusion Road. But, it is a clear day, and I’d love to head up Grassy Ridge Road again to the top of the Divide to catch some views. In 2023, there was a sea of cloud in the valleys which limited views. This route will also allow me to mark off the one small section of Dorothy Cutting that we missed in 2023. 

I stop next to the road where we camped in 2023. I’m hoping to get water here from down below the road, as I did in 2023. However, there is so much vegetation there now that I can’t even see the water. I look on the uphill side of the road. Nup, no good way to get it there either. 

So access is stymied. I still have some water I can ration, and it will be less weight to lug up the super steep hill on Grassy Ridge Road. So on we go.

This area has been heavily targeted for logging, likely because there are good access roads and it is not far to a timber mill. I try to concentrate on the topography and how the headwaters of the Wentworth River branch out below us, but there is an awful lot of tiny trees down that very wide gravel road (it is also a firebreak). 

We round a steep corner, crunching through big rock and loose sand on the uphill side of the camber. We put some power to the pedals and get ourselves up the beginning of Grassy Ridge Road. I stop in the shade of a decent-sized gum tree, lean the bike into the road in the gutter, and then sit down and have a nice lunch of corn thins and nut/seed butter. I’m getting to the bottom of the jar where all the salt and sesame seeds have settled. Whoa – that much salt is intense! That’s not great when you are rationing water.

But this is awesome. I haven’t seen anyone in a long while, it’s a gorgeous clear day that is warm but not hot. We’re sitting around 1150 metres in the shade with no ants trying to crawl in my shorts as I sit on the ground. We’re going to get some great views and feel on top of the world soon. All is right with the world today, at least out here where the news can’t reach us. I’m feeling very grateful to be out here on the road today.

We ride up part of the steep hill where scraggly little trees create a mass of green against the remaining burnt skeletons of trees now white with age. This burnt in 2007. They certainly obliterated this area when they salvage-(f)logged it. 

Once the grade gets too steep to ride, we are fortunate that the side of the road is, indeed, grassy, as per the road name. This means I have very good traction for pushing the bike. 

We get to the top and spend some time looking in every direction. We’ve ridden so many of these valleys and hills, and it feels good to look all around and see how much we’ve covered. 

There is not much up there to act as tripod, and it takes me about four tries to get into a shot with the self-timer. That proof of life photo goes off to the appropriate people before we enjoy the afternoon sunshine as we weave along the ridge. It is just about as perfect a day as you can get. Sun. Warm. Not hot. No wind. Plenty of muscle and energy for the hills.

I scare off a family of emus as I bomb down the hill to the Mt Delusion Road. I have not seen emus this high before, but all that logging has created an environment they seem to like. I see lots of emu poo for about five kilometres.

We ride through more extensive clear cuts with its scraggly regrowth, blackberries and standing dead trees.

We round a corner and head down Groves Gap Road. We did this one in 2023, but we don’t get all the way down into the big trees before we turn off on McGuinness Road.

There is a bulldozer sitting at the top of the road. Ahhhh, thank you!  The freshly flattened, rolled and cleared road doesn’t last very long, but it’s a good yahoo-ing 2 kilometres downhill.

A track crosses the creek and takes off in parallel to McGuinness Track on the opposite side of the valley just as the good, bulldozed section of road ends. There is no way to get down to the water in the tiny creek, so on we go.

The road is just a two track with grass in the middle and lots of vegetation growing into the road. But there are some bigger trees through here and a more diverse understorey, so it feels totally different. 

And the road goes down. Blissfully down. And down and down. We’ve done a whole heap of climbing today, so this is a fantastic reward.

It gets even better after we pass through a saddle with tracks heading off in every direction from a small, round flat spot on the ridge. Beyond this has not been logged in a long time, and there are some big second-growth trees that tower over the road. There are tree ferns with wide fronds that grow in the shady gully. We’re not really part of the Scenic Reserve here, but somehow this area has been spared from recent logging. It’s not as majestic as those groves of big trees on Groves Gap Road, but it is a gorgeous ride through a sheltered valley.  And it almost all happens to be downhill. I’m having the time of my life this afternoon!

Eventually we lose enough elevation and turn onto a western facing slope, and the bush is more open with scragglier trees. The Jirnkee Race crosses the road just as we start down a really steep bit over 15% that would have you pushing if travelling the other direction. The water race is an amazing example of what the miners would go through to get water to their workings. This race draws water from the Upper Wentworth and runs for 90 kilometres to a mine. 

We roar down that steep bit and out into the wide, flat valley of Upper Livingstone Creek. There is private land with an old shack out in a pasture. There are a few cows. It’s a nice spot. 

I can hear something clicking in the spokes.  It doesn’t go away, so I stop, get off the bike and squat down to inspect the rear wheel. A twig has managed to wedge itself through the inner part of the rear cassette, with the end poking out into the spokes. It is a bit of effort to extricate it, as it is stuck in there quite well. Eventually, I break the stick in two and can pull each bit out opposite sides. 

We roll out of the private land into the Scenic Reserve where short gum trees with branches that flail in all directions are spaced apart in an open woodland. Livingstone Creek meanders through the trees among rounded tufts of grass that drag blades in the current. 

There is a little cleared spot here and it will be just perfect. It’s late afternoon now, we’ve done at least 1400 metres of climbing today, and I haven’t had as much water to drink as I’d like. So let’s get rehydrated and get my back stretched out.

Those big tufty grasses look like prime leech habitat, so I grab my water pouches, fliter and pot. I wander down a faint path and find a flat grassy mound below the bank to stand on. I gather the water as quick as I can, but by the time I’m filtering my second litre, I see a leech inching its way along one of the pouches. Okay, done!

I grab the bags, except for the leechy one, and high step back to the tent. I’ll go filter that last litre later for the morning. All through this ride, I’ve been glugging down one litre of water before I head out each morning. This has worked so well. I don’t get thirsty for at least an hour on hot days and it is a litre in me instead of my pannier. I’ll continue to do this on future rides. 

It is quiet and still as I cook up dinner and lay down in the tent. Today has been a fantastic day – I finally felt like I was on tour. I loved the feeling of accomplishment making it up those steep climbs and that gorgeous, fast and fun downhill to end the day. The weather was perfect. I felt good. I saw very few people and spoke to no one. Nothing hurt too much. This will end up being my favourite day on the whole tour. It’s nice to end it in silence and satisfaction.