Hellbound And Pedalling
Jim’s Camp, Nangiloc, Victoria. Mishmashes family have been regularly camping at this spot for over 50 years, her ‘Poppy Jim’ ashes were spread there back in 1997 and we were married there in 2006, so as you can imagine it’s a special place for our mob. Rode down from Irymple yesterday to spend the night. Picked up a six pack from the Nangiloc Pub and a subsequent headache as well.. hence the lack of typing ability this morning. Dodged a big thunderstorm on the way home.
The planned multi-day bike camping trip was thwarted by some poor road conditions on the High Darling Road 50km south of Pooncarie. That said, the Low Darling road between Wentworth and Para Station was awesome fun! The black top ended 5km north of Pomoma with the unsealed road a beautiful, smooth grey clay surface.. very fast rolling and a dream to ride.
From Avoca Station the road surface was quickly deteriorating with only short patches of the grey clay, regular sand drifts, corrugations, and a heavy gravel unsuited to my lightweight cx tires. The vibrations from the road soon became that bad I was unable to feel my hands and bolts on my bike were being shaken loose. I had to stop more than once to tighten everything up.
Knocked out a solid 83km on the first day and decided to pull the pin at half 3 as a good camping spot had presented itself. Set up my bivy on the bank of the Darling River somewhere north of Hazeldel Station. The river was quite low but evidence of the recent floods was everywhere. 15 meters up a tree you could see flotsam lodged in the branches and a muddy high water mark! Crazy stuff and hard to visualise.
The overnight temperature dropped to well below 0c, and even with three layers of 200 weight merino and a fire going I froze by backside off!! During the night I was visited by a herd of feral goats, who fast ran away when I sat up in my bivy. Saw loads of animals on this ride, a mama Emu and her chicks, some Red Kangaroos, a whole raft of stumpy lizards, hawks, eagles, and nine freaking Magpies who all decided to try and take me out!!
Anyway, I’m back in Mildura with a beer and a map working out my bike camping route for the weekend. Stay tuned!
Note to cyclotourists: The High Darling Road is currently impassable by bicycle. The recent floods have done a number on the road surface. Wheel ruts, ankle deep bull dust, sand drifts stretching kilometers, and heavy corrugations make bicycle travel er, … ‘difficult’. 60km south of Pooncarie I had to dismount as conditions were so bad I could no longer pedal the surface on offer. Pushed the bike another 10km and the surface condition only worsened. Two options on the table. One, walk the remaining 50km to Pooncarie in 36c heat, into a headwind; or two, turn back and ride 75km to a beer and a swim in the river. The latter won.
Tomorrow morning I’m setting out for eight days of bike camping. Solo. Just me and a bivy. Cold camp. No bitumen. No cars. No mobile telephone service. No shops. Two pubs. Two beautiful rivers and plenty of dirt. Just the way I like it!
The rough plan? ..from Mildura follow the Murray River downstream to Wentworth, head north along the Darling River to Pooncarie then on to Menindee and return via the opposite bank. Radventure at it’s best old salt! See you suckers in a week or so!
I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but just for the record, Magpies suck. Little bastard nearly took my head off, twice, and then chased me for three blocks (which in Mildura is an impressive effort).
Huon helped me shakedown the new build this arvo..
Danger Tim in all his Youtube gory glory. I second Mishmashes ‘knitting’ call..
I’ll start with the best part of today and work backwards.. Mishmash went in for her 20 week scan and found out that we are adding a little girl to the Storer stable! Can’t express just how stoked we are!! Looking forward to meeting her this January. Ok, next best bit of today? My Salsa La Cruz finally rocked up after a marathon journey. It looks as every bit awesome as I had hoped it would be. Next? I rode my Wife’s pushie to the beach towing the surfboard behind and enjoyed a sunset surf. Reckon I smiled through every wave as I thought back over my great day. Epic.
My internal ‘motor’ is a single piston job.. problem is, I think I may have a blown head gasket. Y’see there is no compression in the cylinder when the trail incline is upward. …and when you live where the terrain is decidedly ‘Himalayan’ it makes riding a single speed difficult. No ticker means a lot of walking. Kiwi John suggested I ‘cowboy up’ a tad but the only horse can seem to muster up these days is ‘shanks pony’. I had a crack at the Taranna State Forest this morning, up Pirates Road and down Camp Road.. well not really down Camp Road, it was mostly up. These two Forestry roads seem to go against the ‘grain’ of the land, not following contours but cutting across them at odd angles. Lots of off camber corners and unnecessary pinches. A local told me that Bullock Teams cut these roads back in the 1880s. Story goes that the oxen were just pointed towards a coup and left to pick their own line through the heavy bush. The animals wove around the biggest of trees and avoided areas wet under foot. This could explain the odd line of road I suppose. Crossed a couple of beautiful creeks swollen by the recent rains and snuck down some overgrown singletrack before popping back out onto the black top a couple of hours after I started. Think I better cut back on the beer and pies and do some work on my engine before September.
