2-3 October 2026 – Rawson – 0 kms
Gunaikurnai Country
It rains and rains and rains. There are tropical strength deluges, there are periods of lighter drops. But there are no showers. It is just rain, rain, rain. It is impressive just to see sheets of it outside and across the valley for hours and hours.
The weather forecast had deteriorated each day I had phone reception this week. And they were not overestimating the size of the event. I am grateful for my little cube to stay in – my tent would not have withstood this much rain over this time period.
So I spend the two days being lazy and being quite happy with that. I work very hard in my work contracts, and the winter Outback trip was not a very relaxing one, so I’ve been very happy to be doing just the sort of ride that I love this time around and truly relaxing (even if it very physically demanding). And I don’t mind a little delay when I’m safe and warm and dry.
There was 70mm on Thursday. 40-60mm was forecast for both Friday and Saturday. Melbourne gets nearly 3/4 of its monthly rainfall in one day. Some places will get three months of rain in three days. It turns into such a big event that I figure a few people in Australia might be wondering about me in the VIC bush, so I figure out how to do a blog post from my phone.
Other than that, I just watch some documentaries, catch up on my YouTube Watch Later list, catch up the journal, nap, nap and nap some more. I look at maps to figure out what we want to do now that we are off route and how we might still incorporate parts of what we missed.
In the evenings, I go down and cook up my lentils and rice in the camp kitchen – an undercover, outdoor area with some picnic tables, benchtop, sink and BBQ. It’s not super cold, so it’s not uncomfortable.
While I cook, I read this massive memorial board to one of the owners of the property. It appears she and her husband had a very successful transport business in Traralgon. When the previous owner of the property, who did horse riding stuff, got too old and insurance got too much, they bought the property. The property had a horse barn and the old lodge on it. They expanded the place with a bunkhouse and quite a few cabins and other buildings that they purchased when various other caravan parks closed. They also did adventure tours and still have a paintball area. They had some long-term, very good managers, and the cubbies were added in 2019 as flat-pack assembly things to help generate more money for the managers.
However, the wife died in 2017 from MND, COVID did what COVID did to a lot of businesses, and the long-term managers left in 2022. And so, today, I think the place is just sort of a shadow of its heyday self. The grass is long and untidy, my cubbie wasn’t all that clean, and the amenities block hasn’t been cleaned since sometime before the long weekend. It is also leaking through the exhaust vent that doesn’t work. The puddle on the floor in there gets bigger and bigger over the two days, such that you can’t get to the toilets without walking through it. When I pass by some cabins, they haven’t been cleaned since the last occupants (maybe they only clean them after they get a booking). The laundry room has crap everywhere and the dryers still have their loads in them. The camp kitchen is dusty and unkempt, too.
It’s a shame. It seems like it could be a nice place. I never see the managers the entire time I’m there. If I was the manager, you know I’d be out on the property every day knocking down cobwebs, keeping up with the weeding and mowing the grass, making sure the place looked 100 percent. And I’d try to be around at check-in time to give people a personal welcome.
Ah well, never mind. This was perfect for my purposes. A hot shower would have been nice, but I’m just grateful for the shelter and warmth.
At 2am on Saturday morning, I’m wakened by a sharp downward jolt accompanied by an advancing roar up the valley. As I wake, I think it might be thunder, but then when the little cube starts shaking after the jolt, my mind immediately recognises the roar as the earthquake advancing. The jolt and shaking only last about 3 seconds. It’s a 4.9 magnitude quake centred about 85 kms from where I am. It’s as if the earth says to the sky, ‘you let out a whole bunch of rain in a short period, ha! Here, hold my beer’.
https://www.ga.gov.au/news/magnitude-49-earthquake-near-leongatha-victoria
In the end, from Wed eve to Sun morning, the area I’m in gets 140mm of rain. We’re just down the road from Mt Baw Baw which got 150mm. That is a whole lot of rain in just 3 days.
And of course, because I’m here, the only catchment of the 16 that are/were on flood watch to actually go to flood warning is the one I’m in. And it has gone to MAJOR flood warning.
Hmmm… the ride to Heyfield tomorrow should be interesting. That town sits on the Thompson River, too.