9 October 2026 – Moroka River Bridge to Stratford – 88 kms
Gunaikurnai Country
Nope, the road leading away from the river that we looked at yesterday looks just as steep this morning. There’s nothing like hike-a-bike first thing to set the tone for the day.
It started with promise – there were no clouds to block the sun, I had slept well in my little cocoon even though it was cold overnight, we’d camped on grass so there was no muddy pack-up, and everything had clipped, fastened, buckled and velcroed on the first go. It was cold – there was even frost on the bike this morning – but my fingers didn’t hurt (seriously, if you’ve got achey bits, do some gut testing and fix up you gut microbiome – my terribly painful fingers and other achey bits the doc said was just arthritis went away after I got serious about gut health).
Caution – there is a lot of cursing in this one, not as much as actually occurred on the ground, but more than normal.
So it was a picture perfect start to the day before we rolled over the bridge, rode 50 metres up the Old Moroka Road and then started pushing. Luckily, it doesn’t last long and soon we are rolling along high above the river through marshy bits and open grassy plains mixed with mountain ash that is third growth or so.
This is called Old Moroka Road, but it is ‘road’ in name only. It is maintained like a track, and rides like a track – a 4WD one at that. This is a route that the cattlemen used to use when taking their cattle up to destroy the high country plains over the summers back in the day. It should be a clue that the ‘road’ is going to be steep and rough when the Forestry folks upgraded Marathon Road instead of this one when they were wanting another logging road up onto the plateau.
Nevertheless, I am still not exactly prepared for the next hike-a-bike that comes less than a kilometre later. My map, RidewithGPS and the More to Explore app make all of this look like gentle grades up to 6% up to the top of Lambs Hill. It appears like a gentle ramp to the range.
But this is like the Nicholson River track back in 2025. It’s got a whole bunch of short steep and rocky climbs that sit between the 50 metre contour lines on the map. And it’s rocky and loose and unmaintained enough that you can’t really get much speed on the short steep rocky downhills to get you part way up the next uphill.
There are a whole lot of short steep ups and downs to cross all the little ephemeral watercourses heading to the nearby river. Ugh. Slog. Slog. Too much pushing this early in the day.
I realise I’m doing a HIIT workout. I’m just out here doing it in real life rather than in a gym. Push like crazy, get that heart rate right up. Mount the bike, ride down the hill for your rest. Then repeat. Ugh. The big difference is that I’m going to do this for an hour straight, instead of 20 minutes. And then, instead of going home and going to a job and sitting all day, I’m going to be doing physical activity for the next 11 HOURS.
I’m off and pushing enough to be concerned about the rest of the day. The first 4 kms were supposed to be the easy part of the day with the best surface. If it’s like this here, oh my goddesses, what is the rest of the day going to be like?
I pass the track to Moroka Hut, or what I assume is the track to Moroka Hut. There is no signage, but real life matches the map, so I go left. And then the surface gets even worse. Gulp. This is already such slow work.
I pass over a small rocky hump in the shade of Lambs Hill. Jeez, if the day starts like a lion, does that mean it will end like a lamb? Let’s hope so, because this first 4 kilometres takes me 45 minutes!
I reach a saddle on the Moroka Range and get views all the way out to the plains through the hazy, rising mist. I didn’t have mobile service last night, so I update weather reports, try to book some accommodation in Bairnsdale to coincide with the next rainy day forecast, text my location to my safety contacts and then get ready to go DOWN. We’ll lose over 1000 metres of elevation today – we slept last night at a bit over 1100 metres and plan to end the day near Briagalong at 140 metres.
I ride about 10 metres before the road plunges off the side of the hill in a jumbled mess of rock shelves, deep carved out bog holes, fallen logs and just sheer steep gradient. I dismount and walk the bike down.
“Walk” is not an accurate descriptor. Slip, slide, hop, step and wrestle the bike with brakes clamped on is a bit more accurate. The surface is downright horrible. It’s all huge loose rock, loose gravel, sticks, branches, potholes and other chunky stuff. It is way too steep to ride with that surface.
The wildflowers are almost irridescent and the views out over the Avon Wilderness are gorgeous though. It gives some perspective on where you are on your descent. We start above the ridge and will slowly work down even with it. Eventually we’ll be looking up at it.
And so we commence the clunking, slipping, sliding and bumping downhill. Over the next 50 kays, I establish that I still have a good sense of balance and good proprioception. My feet will each be sliding in a different direction downhill as I ski the bike along with brakes on. I am not sure how many feet my feet slid today, but we did not walk every bit of the distance pushed or slid. Some of the downhill was definitely just sliding and holding on!
Now, if it were all steep downhill on a horrible surface, that would be one thing. But, oh, no, we are following a ridge between two watercourses downhill. And ridges have knobs and humps and saddles. So we have some really steep and slippery uphill to torturously push the bike up, too, in between the steep downhills. And thank all the gods for the saddles, because those are the only bits of respite in those first 50 kms.
There are at least four steep and very slippery climbs that RidewithGPS suggests are just 6 percent or less. I say BULLSHIT. Maybe the average grade is that over 100 metres, but within that I can tell you there are bits where poor Ernie gets brushed with the sweat off my head or neck because the front of the bike is even with my head. That is more like 10 to 12 percrent or more when that happens!
So on we go up the super slippery and steep bits. It’s the kind of push where you push the bike up a couple feet, put both brakes on, reposition your feet, test if they will hold, reposition again if required, and then push the bike another couple feet up. It is hard work and very slow going.
At times, we flop over to the other side of the ridge at a saddle and find ourselves in the sun looking over the Valencia Creek valley. The sun is pretty toasty over here. To start the day with frost on the bike, it’s certainly warming up as we drop elevation.
And so we go. Torturously. Oh my dear buddha, the rocks, oh, the rocks. It takes me 2.5 hours to do the first 11 kilometres. There is so little I can ride.
We continue on. At the track junction at Motorbike Hill, I’m able to get phone reception and get accommodation booked for a couple nights in Bairnsdale soon. With my NRMA card, I can get a non-ensuite budget cabin for $70 a night. That is excellent. I will look forward to a stovetop and cooking up a heap of veggies!!!
The views are long and beautiful when the trees open up on occasion. We pass through dense scrub that’s come back from a recent fire as well as more open stretches that haven’t seen a hot fire in a decade or more. But so much of it is just pure rock – embedded bedrock, ledges, loose stuff as big as your head, loose gravel, and sometimes all of that at once.
At one point, going down a super steep bit that’s mostly big-arse loose rock and rock ledges, I start to lose the bike as my feet go different directions. I try to hold on, but can’t and the wheel turns in, rolls and smashes Verne and Kermit and the front of the tent bag into the rock. I somehow manage to stay upright, but I yell out, “VERNE!, KERMIT!” and then have an incredibly difficult time getting the bike up and sideways to the fall of the slope. They look ok. Verne’s Koala hoodie hood has protected his eyeballs from being scratched. The hood had dirt on the top, but he looks okay. Thank goodness!
Sometimes the drop-offs on the outside edge go into the never never. So I ride the inside track of the double track, so if anything goes wrong I either fall onto the outer track or fall/crash into the wall. Both are preferable to going over the edge and falling a very, very long way. The inside track is usually rougher with more rocks, but when you are faced with a lot of sub-par options, you will always choose survival.
This is the sort of day that PLBs were made for. Should anything go wrong, and there are many, many, many times and places that things could go horribly wrong today, I’m a fair way from anyone and any help. I haven’t had service since Motorbike Hill. And I haven’t seen anyone all day, and won’t see anyone until I get close to Paddy Lee’s Crossing about 2pm this afternoon. And based on the number of small trees across the road, and the lack of vehicle tracks after the rain 3 days ago, I don’t know if anyone will come this way today.
On and on. It’s like riding up a river bed, without water, at a very steep angle. My hands get tired from the brakes. My left trap muscle is tired of the pushing. On and on and on. 55 kms of this shit. I get the Holy Fucking Bejesus Intrepid Award today!
We get to the track junction called The Crossover where one track goes up and over toward Mt Hendrick Reserve and the other heads down to squiggle along Valencia Creek. We’ve done 20 kms. Ugh. But then, as we weave in and out of all the little creeks heading down to the main watercourse, we at least get rocks we can thump and clunk over. We cover the next 4 kays faster than anything previous.
Then, we get to the little bump I could see on the RidewithGPS map. Only it’s not a little bump. It’s a big fucking pointless hill. It is so steep and slippery, I maroon myself in a vertical erosion ditch a little ways up. I’m sliding, the bike is sliding, and I can’t even push horizontal to the fall of the slope. So I lay the bike down, slide a few feet backwards like a cartoon character, clamber back up to the bike like Spiderman, push the bike up enough to get the panniers off and then relay the panniers and then the bike up the rest of the hill. Take the panniers up a ways. Set them down. Go back and get the bike. Repeat. 5 times.
It’s hot now, my water’s getting a bit low, and the biting flies are circling my ankles. I get the panniers back on and ride for about 2 minutes up the gentle top part of the hill. And then the track plunges back down on rock shelves and loose rock through ridiculous grades. I guide the bike down on foot – I guess this is my version of engine braking.
There’s more slip sliding of the feet. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve lost traction, but that proprioception and still having good power and balance saves me each time.
We slowly make our way down the super steep switchbacks and finally have a bit of downhill we can ride to the ford. In the back of my mind, I’ve been worrying about this a bit all day, when not preoccupied with the rocks. With all the rain we’ve had, and how loud the creek has been down below us, I’m a bit worried about getting across.
But it’s a nothingburger in the end. The crossing has a concrete causeway and the water is only just over the bottom pedal. The soles of my shoes get wet but not the tops. Phew! One thing has gone right today!
Once we roll through this, we get to private land, but the road is no better. We stop and eat. I haven’t really stopped much at all today. It’s already almost 2pm. I’m not even hungry, I’ve been working too hard!
We follow the creek closely at times, and other times we climb high above. Cliffs force the road and creek into sharp curves that remind me a lot of the Freestone Creek Road which is just a few watercourses to the east.
Slowly we get up to more private properties as the valley widens. Some are gorgeous homes with neatly kept rose bushes or driveways whose grass is trimmed and edged. Some properties are the back block types that have security camera signs and tattered Australian flags flying. I imagine there are some sovereign citizens living in those.
I come up to one property with tons of dogs barking. As I get closer, I see that it is someone breeding hound dogs. I think, “oh goodness, the poor neighbours”. Yet, when I get to the next property, which is a crappy house with various-aged additions and curtains that hang at all angles in the windows, there is an assortment of dogs that are just as loud! These are pretty aggressive and I’m really looking at the fence to see if they are going to come out on the road to get me! (The fence contains them).
Now I get out onto sandy gravel that’s been heavily eroded and washed away in places in the recent rain. The strong easterly makes itself known in a big way, as we ride out into dairy farms with long green grass, the acrid smell of rotting hay and cows whose udders suggest it’s about time for the afternoon milking.
We weave around in the flat part of the widened valley and eventually get chipseal. I get up to the main road. I see on my map that there is a road just to the south that parallels this one, so I ride down to that and then go pushing into that strong southeasterly wind. This is more chipseal, has a few ups and downs and a bunch of swooping birds.
I’m looking forward to ending the day soon. I’m not sure where I’ll camp – I’m thinking I’ll ride out to the quarry if I can’t find somewhere in town or close by to stealth camp for the night. The only accommodation option in town is the pub, and that is not somewhere I want to be on a Friday night.
Then, I get up to a sign that says “ROAD ENDS”. What? You mean it ends at the crossroads, right?
NOPE.
The road ends at a ford of Freestone Creek. Now, this may be rideable most of the time, but after all the rain in the last week, and the bit of a weir that is there, it is too deep to cross. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I’m tired. I’m ready to be done. I just used up half of my brake pads over 50 kms and negotiated enough rocks to build a castle.
So I sit there in the sun and look at the map. What do I want to do? I’m so hot and tired and so not wanting to stay at the quarry. Let’s go on to Stratford. The only problem is that there’s no good way to get down there, no rather direct way from here at least. And it’s all going to be into that 35kph wind. Stratford is south and east of here. But I’m done with the idea of Briagalong. However, going through there and just going out to the C-road looks to be the best option.
I then ring the motel in Stratford. After a day like today, we deserve a shower. The caravan park in Stratford is crap, has crappy old showers and charges a fortune. I do not deserve that. Luckily, the motel (the only one in town) has a room. The lady is friendly. She takes my card details and immediately sends the room number and PIN code for the door lock.
So we turn around, sail along with the wind at our back, ride through the swooping birds again, and then cut back up to the main road on a small lane that has trees on one side and open, green paddocks on the other. We ride on into Briagalong with the afternoon school rush.
Briagalong once had an amazing cafe serving lots of global dishes and vegan options. But it closed after a family tragedy. So now, our only options are the pub and the general store. Briagalong is just sorta one street with the pub on one corner, some houses, a park, a community hall and the general store. There are a lot of new homes on the edges of the existing 6 square blocks of residential areas, so some folks have had a recent ‘tree change’.
I ride down to the general store. I ease myself off the bike and set it against a bench. I am beyond gross. I have not had anything other than a few bird baths since Seymour back on the 24th of September. I keep myself decent with liberally applied hand sanitiser followed by deodorent in my armpits every night and careful wet wiping of my other bits, but it’s been hot today. So I’m gross. And the exact same shirt and shorts I’ve been wearing every single day with no washing out (because it’s too cold and wouldn’t dry before wearing again)… beyond, beyond, to infinity and beyond-gross.
I go in and get a soft drink. I stopped drinking soft drink in 2017, and anytime I’ve tried one since, I just don’t like the taste anymore. But all 600 mls of that goes down almost like a shot and tastes absolutely divine. It is just what I need to do the final 20-some kilometres down to Stratford into a 35kph wind gusting to 50kph, on a C-road, at 5pm rush hour on a Friday.
I get back on the bike, get a bunch of stares from all the 4WD blokes clustered outside of the pub, and then commence the final push. Remember, I get the Holy Fucking Bejesus Intrepid Award today.
Thankfully, most cars are going the other way and the only potential squeezes have patient drivers. Of course, I’m riding just far enough out into the lane to force some patience. There are some small hills here and there as we pass through treed sections that help block the wind a bit.
There is a final hill heading into Stratford where the 60 kph zone has been moved ridiculously and laughably far out of town to capture all of the new housing estates. None of the cars that pass me are doing 60, and I would not be either if I were in a car!
I make my way to the motel. It’s old, but it’s been tastefully renovated to look like a beach cottage. There is a little space at the front of the room that is like a breakfast nook with a small table and chairs against a corner window and slate flooring. The bike fits in there nicely, as the rest of the room is small. It is just on 6pm. It has been a 12-hour day of riding.
I don’t even dare sit on the bed in my nasty clothes. I just get naked there on the slate and leave my pile of nasty clothes. I go take a shower. This is the longest I’ve ever gone in my life without washing my hair. And boy does it soak up that shampoo. I have to wash it twice and use both little bottles! What an amazing luxury! Yes, I love bike touring because never ever is a shower more appreciated than when you are riding, particularly if you’ve gone 15 days without a shower like I have just done.
I waddle over to the IGA like I’ve just gotten off a horse and get all the stuff to make a Mediterranean salad, plus some chocolate and some chicken. I eat like I’ve not eaten all day (because, really, I haven’t had more than 2 snack breaks).
This will end up being the hardest day of the whole tour, even though the ridewithGPS profile makes it look super easy. I decide I hate rocks. Not all rocks. You know I love rocks. But I love rocks in situ that tell the story of all of time. Not super loose and chunky rocks that tell the story of recent erosion. I have had enough of rocks.
I settle down on the bed. I talk to Nigel. I eat. I eat a little more. I rest. I try to figure out tomorrow. But I’m just a bit fatigued, so I figure I will figure out tomorrow when tomorrow arrives.
Just as I’m going to bed, I get a text from my old boss. She’s wondering if I might be interested in a job starting quite soon. Hmmm…. I can’t even figure out tomorrow! I text back, “maybe. I’ll be in Bairnsdale for a couple days with good phone reception on Sun and Mon and maybe Tues. Can you ring me then to discuss”?