24 September 2026 – Longwood to Seymour – 47 kms
Taungurung Country
I leave the dogs and the sleeping caravan occupants behind. The click of my folding tent poles and clink of the tent pegs sliding into their little sack are the only sounds I make as I pack up in my far corner of the rec reserve.
The sun is not quite to the horizon and the birds are just starting in with their morning chatter. It is so much easier to rise early on the road than it is for a day of work, even though there is more time involved in getting ready for the day on the road. But soon, I’ll start waking before the alarm, as my body adjusts to the rhythms of the road.
The road south to Avenel is an old Hume Highway alignment. The road is tree-lined, mostly flat and parallels the rail line. It is quiet as the sun strikes the tree trunks horizontally with an orange hue. Only a couple tradie utes with trailers pass me.
Avenel has a big park in its centre where I stop and eat some peanut butter on corn thins. The city centre itself is just a half a block of old one-story shops. But the tentacles of Melbourne are reaching as far north as here – there are heaps of housing developments on the outskirts of Avenel, and not too long from now, it will start to feel like a Melbourne suburb instead of a small village north of the city. Avenel now is sorta like Wallan ten years ago.
I’m a bit worried about riding the old Hume Highway down to Seymour in what is still peak hour. How many cars take the old highway instead of jumping on the freeway to get down to Seymour (the nearest bigger town)?
I most worry about two types of backroads travellers: 1) people who want to speed and use the back road as a way to get there faster without cops patrolling; and, 2) old people who are afraid of driving on the freeway and go on the back road so they can drive 20 kays below the speed limit. Both groups are a nuisance to other drivers and shouldn’t be on the road, and neither of them tend to be real great at knowing how to safely pass a cyclist.
So I’m a bit hesitant about a morning peak ride on the old highway, but I needn’t be. There’s not that much traffic and most of the road has good sight lines. Oh yes, I do get the speedsters and the oldies, and it’s easy to know which is which by how fast they approach in the rear view mirror. But overall, it’s an easy ride, and in the two places with some hilly and/or curvy bits, I scoot through with little traffic.
Seymour is a rail town and a service town for the nearby farms and the huge Puckapunyal military base across the freeway. It has a working class, down-on-its-heels vibe, and always has. One main road parallels the rail line and the large station complex. The highway from the east splits at the rail bridge at a roundabout and gives you the option of two roads with shops and services along them. Down the west end of town is the old highway alignment with pubs, service stations and motels.
Seymour was hit hard by the floods in 2022 and the majority of the city centre and old highway strip saw some level of inundation. There’s not much evidence of that flooding now, though.
I stop at the post office to mail some things, and the counter workers are really hanging out for the long weekend. It’s been too long since the last public holiday. This long weekend is AFL Grand Final Weekend. Yes, Victorians get a public holiday for the equivalent of the US Super Bowl. Then, in another month’s time, the state will get a public holiday on a Tuesday for a big horse race.
I tell them they are lucky – as I’m from NSW, and we don’t get either of those public holidays. We will get Labour Day long weekend next weekend instead of in March, when VIC celebrates. The workers feel a bit smug when they realise they get two more public holidays each year than the people in the state to the north.
Seymour is not blessed with many nice parks. The park along the river is a bit wild and mozzie-ridden, so I go over to the other main park that has the oval and some playgrounds. I find a picnic table in the shade and set about eating, catching up my journal and appreciating that I beat the gusty wind into town that is now developing.
A big group of people with a bunch of special needs adults comes over to a nearby BBQ shelter to have an AFL party. The special needs people are all wearing various AFL jerseys. They don’t have enough tables and chairs, so they come over to share my picnic table. I don’t know what conditions these people live with, other than the guy with Down’s Syndrome, but the carers are constantly saying, “No, XX, don’t do that,” “Here, XX, eat your biscuit,” etc. What a frustrating job that would be with such little financial reward.
Eventually, the group gathers itself up and heads off to another picnic area, because the BBQ in the nearby shelter doesn’t work. It makes me super grateful I have that life I have and that I did not suffer any brain injury at birth, as that was a definite possibility given the circumstances.
Later on, I head over to the motel I booked. I take a chance on the cheapo place that I know was inundated above floor level in the 2022 floods. I know they gutted the place and completely redid the rooms, but that does not mean that there still isn’t mould in there. I’m a canary in the coalmine for mould. However, I don’t have any issues. And I squeeze the bike in the tiny room.
This is the last time I will have a proper shower, and the last time my hair will get washed, for the next 16 days. It will be a new record for me. But I don’t know this at the time. I just knew the two caravan parks in town have terrible unpowered sites, so I grabbed a motel. It will be the last of the luxury for awhile!