Movin’ right along – Day 14 – Detours

4 October 2026 – Rawson to Heyfield – 58 kms

Gunaikurnai Country

After more than 48 hours in our little cube, with the rain pouring down on that flat, metal-sheeted roof, I am kinda relieved when the rain finally stops and the de facto white noise machine ceases.

The rain had a good hard go from 10pm last night before tapering off in the wee hours. Then there was one last hurrah around 5am.

Now, at 7am, there is still low cloud around that looks like low, misty fog. I lie there until 7.30am, waiting for that to lift and for the sun to finally peek through.

I am experiencing the laws of physics today – an object at rest tends to stay at rest. After two days of rest, it takes me awhile to get going. Pack-up is slow because everything has made its way out of the panniers over the two days and things have been spread out to dry. I don’t leave until around 9am which is super late for me.

I slowly spin back up the steep hill to the main road. Leaves, sticks and branches have left high water marks and clutter the gutters, and the road, in spots, too.

But the sun is out as we climb and descend on wet chipseal through steeply rolling country. It’s very green and sparkly this morning as the sun catches all of the water drops on leaves and grass blades. There is a bit of traffic, but it’s all polite as we roll through fairly open forest and cleared areas that show just how steep and rolling the terrain really is.

I turn off on the gravel Cowarr Road. It is like two different roads. The first part has good gravel, larger trees with a fairly open understory and pretty gentle undulations. After we get a bit past the junction with Bruntons Bridge Road, it gets messier – the road and forest. The bush is much more scraggly with smaller trees and recent prescribed burns. The climbs and falls are steeper and the road surface much poorer. All along, the contrast between the black trees and the bright green vegetation is striking.

But I just climb and descend whatever comes our way. The road is a bit gluggy and rides a bit slow, but not as bad as you might expect for the torrential rain that’s come. There are a few places where the rain has carved out some deep ruts in the first part of the road, and a few places we splash through water still running over the road. Ernie gets his first taste of mud. A bit gets in one of his eyes, too, but he still looks enthusiastic, so he must not mind too much.

We get some nice views through the trees of the very incised river valley to the north, but after that, there’s not much to see at all other than the scraggly trees and the line etched into the wet gravel that a motorbike rider has picked earlier today. I eventually see him going the other way, then passing me again, then going the other way on a sealed road later on.

Eventually, we come to a long, steep downhill out of the forest and onto the plains. We get some good views down onto the plains before we have to concentrate on picking a line and negotiating the awful surface. This isn’t just from the recent rain – it’s been shit for a long time it seems.

The descent is on a white and red rock and is very, very rough. There are lots of rock shelves to bump down and deep drainage ruts running across the road to bump through. There are long vertical ruts to avoid and figure out the best place to cross. It is rough as guts.

We finally pop out onto the plains where it is so bright green that you can’t imagine chlorophyll ever doing a better job than it’s done here. It is bright, bright green and the grasses tall and lush. There are places where sand from somewhere has been deposited in banks along the road. Other places you can see where all the grass has been laid down as run-off has gone cross-country. The frogs are soooooo loud, and there are so many different croak languages being ribbit-ed all through the standing water all along the road.

I eventually have to get on a C-road for a bit. Thank all the gods because it has a shoulder and most definitely needs one given the traffic volume. I ride along this and avoid a gazillion sticks and branches the best I can. In places, water is standing halfway across the lane and is 6 inches or deeper in the shoulder. Luckily, I don’t have anyone right behind me when I get to these sections, and I can get out and around.

Thankfully, there’s only a couple of kms on that before I can turn off on the road to Seaton. Unfortunately, this is carrying nearly as much traffic. It’s a cut-through from the north so that people don’t have to travel through Heyfield to go points west and south. Later, I learn some of that traffic is people from Heyfield detouring because access to Heyfield directly from the south is cut due to flooding at Rainbow Bridge on the main C-road.

I cross Rainbow Creek on a one-lane bridge. There’s too much traffic around to stop and take a photo of the frothy, muddy brown water that is surging down below. It’s roiling and pushing along logs intermingled with fuzzy whitecaps on waves and strings of brown detritus following currents downstream.

I turn off onto a farm road and ride through some water that comes to just under the pedals. I can see sticks, grass and mud caught in the fenceline indicating this was waist-deep at some point. I ride up to the rail trail.

There is a couple walking back to their car. They tell me there is no bridge ahead and the water is 2-3 metres deep. They are locals out looking at all of the flooding. They aren’t confident I’ll get through on the farm road I just came down, as I’d still need to use the Rainbow Bridge on the main road, and it is under water at the moment. They doubt I’d even get there. They think the next road up to Dawson might have the same issues.

If I can get up to Seaton on the road with the cut-through traffic, they think that should be fine, as that approach to Heyfield is higher in the landscape. But they are unsure if there is still water over the bridge at the Thomson River itself and if I can even get to the Heyfield -Seaton Road. They think I just might need to go back to wherever I came from and wait it out there for a couple days. They wish me luck.

Okay, we’re not going back the way we came. But I do need to get to Heyfield. I’m quite low on food.

So, back to that busy cut-through road we go. There is water way out into the road on this one, too, but I can time the traffic so that I can get around it wherever it is encroaching.

I get up to the Thomson River bridge, and it is just a small creek and is not flowing over the road. It has been at some point, but it is not doing so now.

Ahhh, I see what is happening. Rainbow Creek is an anabranch of the Thomson River, and it is carrying all the flow. But at least I know I’m going to get to Heyfield. That was meant to be the last potential dead-end. Phew!

This road climbs and falls over the hills that spread out from the range we came over this morning. There are large farming properties scattered with trees and bright green paddocks. This is dairy country, so the flies are bad when you aren’t riding into the wind.

There are two short granny gear climbs on this one, but I have no traffic issues. I get onto the Heyfield – Seaton Road and have a quartering headwind to push into as the road undulates up and down through trees and more big farm properties. This is all pretty gentle though, and I appreciate the wind pushing away the flies.

I get to town and go down the hill instead of heading to the northeast at a t-intersection. Mistake. I pass the rail trail and its super steep climb up a hill. But the road I’m on heads down toward the floodplain. I pass through some new houses on the side of the hill, get swooped by an aggressive magpie and then see an 80kph sign. Uh, no. We don’t want to head down to the main highway – I don’t know where it’s cut. And I can see plenty of water down there on the floodplain.

So I turn around and go annoy the magpie again. I turn up a steep neighbourhood street that has to be at least 10% grade (regardless of what RidewithGPS says!) and grunt my way up that while the magpie thumps me repeatedly. To make the spectacle even better, it appears that it’s council clean-up day tomorrow, and everyone is dragging all of their household goods they don’t want anymore out to the kerb. So all of these people out in their yards watch me crank up that hill slowly, yet no one says anything, cheers me on, laughs or makes any remarks. Nothing. They just watch.

I make it to the top of the hill. Out of breath. I hook into the rail trail and immediately go down a steep and switch-backed trail down the other side. This spits me out at the end of a neighbourhood street where there is a car with all four doors open obstructing my path.

This is the thing about council clean-up days. You can put whatever the heck you want out on the kerb, and council comes and takes it away. However, the scavengers roam the neighbourhoods and take half of it before the council truck ever comes around. These ladies have a roll of carpet strapped to the roof of their small car and are now trying to figure out how to get a high chair and two big suitcases crammed in with the other things they’ve found, plus themselves.

I squeeze by in tall grass and say, “Looks like you’ve found some good things.” They say yes, this year has been good.

This road is all new houses, and some of them have backyards very close to where the water in the floodplain is creeping in. Can they get insurance?

The road gently climbs and then eventually spits us out at the city’s main park. Phew! I’m actually getting a bit fatigued. I’ve ridden further than I had anticipated and a lot of the terrain has been challenging for one reason or another. Plus, 2.5 days of rest means my muscles are not primed for work.

I go to the little IGA and do my resupply. I go have lunch in the glorious sun. I soak up all that vitamin D that has been absent for a few days. I contemplate my next moves, as I was unable to get any metho (my stove fuel) at the IGA. Do I wait until the hardware store opens tomorrow at 8am. That’s a later start than I’d like. Can I make my half-bottle last?

I decide I can make it work. If I run out, I should have enough peanut butter and crackers to cover dinners, too.

I head down to the oval where they let RVs and cyclists camp by donation. They let cyclists camp here because of the rail trail. Who cares that I’m not riding that. I have ridden the full thing before and a bit of it in 2023 to connect Maffra and Heyfield.

There are at least 8-10 caravans here, all backed up to the oval fence. In the far corner on the opposite side of the vehicle track, at the top of the hill, is an encampment with an old, boarded-up caravan and some awnings and tents all adjoined to it and covered by tarps. There is a big Australian flag flying and old bikes and junk in a pile out the back. A big sign on the tent/tarp thing says “Bill’s Hill”.

So I head down a ways, but still on the little hill, because anything flat is very soggy and in the shade. No, thank you. (It is really cool today with the wind). So I set up the tent on “Emily’s Spur” – down the little ridge that runs off the hill.

A helicopter keeps flying overhead – I’ve seen it multiple times today. It’s flying up and down the river. It’s the only river with major flooding in the state, so I’m just lucky to be in the catchment that got the most rain. Ha! Flashbacks to the outback….

I decide we’ll ride up to Cheyne’s Crossing tomorrow. We did this ride in 2023. Then, we’ll head up on top of the plateau along the Moroka Road again, but descend by a different route and direction than we did in 2023. This means I’ll be on sealed road tomorrow and the next day. Hopefully that gives everything a bit more chance to dry out before I hit dirt again. We’ll get ourselves into a different river catchment, too, that hasn’t had as much rain. (Our original route out of Heyfield sends us back into the Thomson River catchment).

So the facilities here are good. There are pay showers (I don’t bother as I don’t have the coins and it is too cold to want to be wet), clean toilets, some picnic tables, water, a phone charging station (requires coinage) and a dump point for the caravans.

But oh my goodness, they need to get rid of the homeless people. Bill and friends swear and smash things at various times through the night, they come and go in cars and bikes and generally make a fair bit of noise until about 3.30am. The occupants of another homeless-looking bus near them sit up and talk loudly by a campfire until very late. I don’t feel unsafe, but I don’t feel particularly easy either. I did put the bike right up next to the tent with the front wheel under the fly and locked to the tent pole near my head (if someone came to steal it, it would wake me up that way).

Well, it was definitely an interesting day. Definitely won’t be one of my favourites ever, but there were definitely some memorable Type II sorts of moments that I may look back on and miss one day when I’m stuck in a stressful office job.