Long Tours – Page 4 – Ramble Out Yonder

Unscripted – 2nd Half Week 21 – Orbost to Errinundra Rd Quarry

August 3, 2023August 2, 2023E Sharp

15-17 March 2023

130 kms

Total Part 2 kms: 2509 kms

Total trip kms: 5757 kms

15 March 2023 – Orbost to Yalmy River – Gunaikurnai Country – 51 kms

Once again, we’re riding off at first light. At least all the early starts should make it easier to go back to a job at some point. Of course, it’s easier to pry yourself out of bed for a day of riding than it is for a day at the office. I do miss those early start jobs I had when I was younger, because they also had early finishes. White-collar jobs start early and end late regardless of your official hours… too much to do and too many responsibilities these days with all those lean, mean company and government corporate structures.

But that is for another day. Today’s task is to get ourselves back up into the hills. At 6.45 am, the petrol station and café next door are busy. Fuel for the vehicle, fuel for the soul (I’m assuming most of those café orders are coffee, not food).

Unscripted – First half Week 21 – Suggan Buggan to Orbost

July 30, 2023E Sharp

11-14 March 2023

Kms: 196

Total Part 2 Kms: 2379

Total Trip Kms: 5627

11 March Suggan Buggan to Wattle Camp – Ngarigo, Bidawal and Gunaikurnai Country – 84 kms

We’re up at 5.50am and packed and riding just after first light. There is a 9 km climb, gaining about 600 metres of elevation, to the top of the Wombargo Plateau this morning. The road is only one-lane wide in some places, so I want to get going before the traffic does.

The morning is cool again – it’s obvious that summer is slowly ceding its grip. Some years it can be hot right through March, and the temps don’t start to cool until mid-April. But it doesn’t have that feel this year – it feels like we’re already on the temperature decline.

The road immediately starts climbing away from the river, curving up the edge of the hill and rolling up past scattered farmhouses into open forest. As I climb, I really enjoy looking at all of the Snowy River Volcanics and all of the tributaries carved into those old ignimbrites. There were quite a few volcanoes in this area 350-400 mya, and we’ll ride through part of a huge collapsed caldera later on. Climbing legs: on. Geology nerd: on.

Unscripted – 2nd half Week 20 – Leatherbarrel Creek to Suggan Buggan

July 22, 2023E Sharp

8-10 March 2023

Kms: 146

Total Part 2 Kms: 2509

Total Trip Kms: 5757

8 March – Leatherbarrel Creek to Jindabyne – Ngarigo Country – 52 kms

The wind absolutely ROARS through the trees at the top of the valley walls all night long. The sound, even down in the narrow valley where the creek runs, is intense. It is like being in a car wash with the SHHHHH sound of the spray on the top of the car simultaneous with the scrubbers throbbing up top and the loud thumping and whirring of all the brushes.

Unscripted – 1st half Week 20 – Granya to Leatherbarrel Creek

July 18, 2023E Sharp

4-7 March 2023

189 kms

Part 2 kms: 2037 kms

Total trip kms: 5285

4 March 2023 – Granya to Walwa – Dhudhuroa Country – 64 kms

I’m catching the Nigel ferry today so I don’t have to ride the crappy route out of Jindera and use the Wymah ferry. This saves the crew and me a day of riding on roads we’ve done a million times. It also cuts out the day with no good water refill options and crappy freeway shoulder sections.

It does mean we’ll get a late start, however. And the day is meant to be hot. But I guess you can’t have everything, so we’ll exchange riding in the heat for some free kays.

Unscripted – Weeks 18 and 19 – Zeka Creek to Wangaratta/Albury

July 14, 2023E Sharp

18 February to 3 March 2023

Total week kms: 195

Total Part 2 kms: 1848

Total Trip kms: 5096

18 February 2023 – Zeka Creek to Riley Creek – Gunaikurnai Country – 20 kms

Up very early. The stars are out, the sun is just a hint of pale hues over the hills. Last night the cars kept coming. 16 in total heading down to camp in the valley. A couple vehicle occupants stopped and asked if I was okay, but I’m sure after the storms came not long after they’d gone by, they would think it made more sense to be setting up a tent for shelter. Unfortunately, all of the road runoff ran as a river under the tent, so the tent bottom and both folds of the tarp are all wet and muddy this morning. The tent did not leak inside, though.

So that’s not the best start to the day. As an appropriate follow-up, I find a leech attached to my left boob. Luckily, it’s not too hard to detach, but it explains why it was so itchy there. My bra is really quite soaked, but at least it’s black so you can’t see all the blood. It will just dry and get crusty as the day goes on.

Unscripted – Second half Week 17 – Wellington River to Zeka Creek

July 10, 2023July 9, 2023E Sharp

15-17 February

334 kms (for the whole week)

Part 2 kms: 1653

Total trip kms: 4901

15 February 2023 – Wellington River to Moroka River – Gunaikurnai Country – 60 kms

There is much crashing through the bush and through the river as I contemplate another early start. I think it must be deer as it is not the sound of a hopping kangaroo. But when I get out of the tent, I can see that it’s a big wild dog heading uphill across the river. A short while later, another black one barks and follows behind. I wonder if they are the animals I heard around the tent last night. Bit creepy.

Unscripted – First Half Week 17 – Dargo to Wellington River

July 7, 2023E Sharp

11-14 February 2023

Total weekly kms: 334 (for whole week)

Total Part 2 kms: 1653

Total Trip kms: 4901

11 February 2023 – Dargo – Sportsmans Creek – Gunaikurnai Country – 44 kms

Thick fog covers the campground – everything is damp or sodden. It’s still dark at dawn down in the fog, but the kookaburras carry on anyway.

I haven’t slept well, but I still pack up quickly and get rolling along a six-kilometre gentle climb out of town. We are riding up a tributary of the Dargo River, as we make our way around a mountain that pokes up in the centre of the valley and divides the Wonnangatta catchment from the Dargo.

Unscripted – 2nd Half Week 16 – Timbarra River to Dargo

July 3, 2023July 3, 2023E Sharp

7-10 February 2023

311 kms (for the whole week)

Total Part 2 kms: 1319

Total Trip kms: 4567

7 February 2023 – Timbarra River to Swifts Creek – Gunaikurnai Country – 55 kms

I imagine the river with fire all around, the roar of energy, the heat, the trees flaming like candles as the bushfire crowns. I imagine the animals fleeing ahead of the fire front as it creeps or races across the ground. I imagine the wombats heading to the depths of their burrows and the lyrebirds stealing some space in the burrow, too. I imagine the reflection of all that orange on the surface of the water, as the firies come to fill up their tankers. And then I imagine the black and the silence afterward when ash still flutters down from the sky and smoke still curls from stumps and snags still burning deep within the wood.

Unscripted – 1st half Week 16 – Buchan-Orbost Road to Timbarra River

July 1, 2023E Sharp

4 – 6 February 2023

311 kms (for the whole week)

Total Part 2 kms: 1319

Total Trip kms: 4567

4 February 2023 – Buchan-Orbost Rd to Mt McLeod – Gunaikurnai Country – 37 kms

The first shafts of sunlight filter through the trees. I’ve slept well in my roadside accommodation. There was no traffic through the night. The silence this morning is enveloping – no birds, no people, no vehicles. There is just the sound of a tent fly being shaken, tent poles clacking and a bike being pushed through the bushes back to the road. It’s 6.15 am, and we’re heading out hoping to beat the winds forecast to be 30-45 kph out of the northwest.

Unscripted – Week 15 – White Bridges to Orbost-Buchan Road

June 25, 2023E Sharp

28 January – 3 February 2023

277 kms

Total Part 2 kms: 1008

Total Trip kms: 4256

28 January 2023 – White Bridges – Gunaikurnai Country – 0 kms

I’m standing on the road surveying the situation. I walk to the upside of the road and peer down into the vegetation. I can’t really see the creek at all down there. The drop-off from the road is pretty much straight down. So I go over to the downside of the road. I can see the water flowing out of the culvert before it spreads into a wider course through muddy banks.

We’re going to have to get water from that side. Now, how to get down there. The grass is about boob-height and you can’t really see the ground itself. But it looks like the embankment they’ve built for the road has large rocks down by the culvert itself that I could stand on. I’m sure at some point there was a bridge here, hence the name White Bridges, but it seems that in more recent times they’ve funneled the creek through a culvert and then just built up the road on an embankment so there was not a steep drop to the creek. The area is state forest, but it really just has an industrial plantation feel given the extensive logging that’s gone on here. Nothing seems natural here at all, so who knows how the creek used to run.

So I gather my water bottles, my cooking pot and filter. I put it all in my little backpack and look for the easiest way down through all that grass. I have no choice. I have to get water. I step down off the road and pound my feet, warning any snakes that I’m coming, so please move off and don’t end my life with a bite here today.