Nhill, Rainbow, Jeparit, and the return of touring

Sometimes there is power in the new. For we need help if we are to remain (or rather become) alive to existence, and the novel captures our attention. Sometimes that same aliveness is achieved through repetition. Of course, every repetition dwells in a new moment. And every new thing is an extension of the old. I value repetition, the cyclical deepening of an experience or a place. I remember that I first motorcycled these roads, first placed my body in these places, twenty years ago. I think it all started on the back of my Yamaha SR500. I would have been in my late twenties, when I first rode from Stawell to Halls Gap, over its mountain and across to Natimuk, then up through the Little Desert at the end of the day. When I am on a motorcycle, it is deserts which call to me more than anything else. So that journey would become an annual event, but it was a long way when I was living in Melbourne. Often times since then I have noticed an absurdity: I now live much closer to that region--I am on the western edge of central Victoria--but that I stopped riding when I moved here. Later, when I took up riding again, it was only locally, despite the fact that any tours would no longer involve city freeways, and would instead start and finish in ideal riding country. Perhaps it was the recent re-purchase of my Yamaha SR500 (the very one I owned in my twenties and which I rode on the first journey out there, but which I sold in 2012) which awakened in me the desire to put my body out there again, in that wind, under that sun, flowing through those places out west, with a tent and with open days. Of course, right now it is the middle of winter, and I am middle-aged. The days are cold and the nights are chill. At dawn the land is frozen or wet with fog. But the pull toward that land out there--Nhill, Rainbow, Jeparit, the deserts--has grown, and become a compulsion. Last week I could no longer deny it. I set out on Friday morning.

I am still tuning the carburettor of the SR500, so I rode my Honda CB250, which is the motorcycle I chose for my return to motorcycling a year ago. As I drove the bike out west toward Natte Yallock, the fog become increasingly dense, and vision obscure. At times I squinted to see the roag, as tree trunks emerged like ghosts beside me, and I feared for kangaroos in my path. The small motorcycle achieved only 80km per hour, but that fine in these conditions. At Natte Yallock, and within the space of a couple of hundred meters, the fog completely dissipated and I was bathed in sunshine. Laid out before me was a route of back roads to Stawell. Indeed this whole journey would be one in which the road was mostly mine, mostly a joyful emptiness.

At Halls Gap I sat eating my bakery lunch when a kookaburra dove in from above and plucked my pie right from my hands with shocking force. Then, with all the confidence of a bully-boy who knows his victim will not retaliate, he sat at my very feet and ate my food in front of me.

Following this ritual of humiliation I revved my little engine and began a slow but wonderful upward sweep, out of Halls Gap and over the mountain.

In the vallee again, I took back roads through places with names like Mockinya--it seemed appropriate--and eventually reached Natimuk, which is one of my favourite stops on this journey which I have now repeated for twenty years. For Natimuk is the beginning of the journey into the Little Desert. I have ridden through there on almost every motorcycle I've owned since that first journey, plus I have cycled it twice. The first time I came this way, it was late in the day and I remember proceeding with anxiety into the desert. Was I low on petrol? Or worried that my old paper map was faulty such that I might become lost in a desert before nighfall? I cannot remember. I recall only that feeling, which at the time gave a striking pathos to the silhouettes of dead gums, as I pushed forward on single lane roads with no houses in sight. This time there were no such feelings. So many competencies and resources have come my way since those days, and the road is now an old friend. What once were a set of mysteries which held me captive, are now so many mechanical and fluidic and electrical systems that my mind can range across and my hands analyse and repair. What was once the young man's concern to get things right and to be alright, has been replaced with the older man's Stoicism and spirit of fate's acceptance, even despite the loss of a youthful body.

One of life's greatest joys lies in the moment before, the moment of anticipation of a pleasure whose time has come. So I rode on toward the desert, toward the silence and big skies and primeval flora and the sand of an ancient sea floor. The desert did not disappoint me, though it was very different this time. At first it was the moody sky which gripped me. This time it was the sky that was so full of pathos, but of a detached kind. Peter Falconio's murderer died last week, and I had been reading about Joanne Lee's horror night on that lonely road in outback Australia. I felt no fear myself, of course, but it was a background context which made me more alive to this sky and this silent landscape. To the beautiful strangeness of the places in which we live or through which we pass, as we get further and further from the coast.

As I rode further, however, something else emerged. Fire-fighting friends had told me of the devastation of the Little Desert during the fires last summer. Now, in mid-winter, I saw the outcome of its ferocity. The brush was gone. Places in which I had picnicked, setting myself down amongst that low jungle of endless salt bush, hidden from view even to a nearby bushwalker, were now stripped naked. There was only sand, and the trunks of blackened trees whose stubborn density had alone been able to withstand the destruction.

I have to admit, I loved this too. This too was beautiful. Repeatedly I stopped and simply stood, looking.

In time, of course, the desert came to and end, as my Honda carried me forward across the miles.

Finally I came to Nhill, and to the caravan park where I always stay. I set up my tent, and walked to the pub for pints in the main bar, then dinner in the restaurant. Afterwards I walked the town, stumbling through shadows and guided by street lights. I have a special love for Nhill, and especially for the old flour mill in the centre of town, whose silos stand like a medieval Tuscan castle surrounded by Renaissance palaces.

I love the Nhill pub with its old-time generous restaurant. I love the silos with their high mystery. I love the Vietnamese cafe, which is open late into the night.

My partner and I met six months after I moved to Maryborough. I encouraged her to buy in the region, and she now owns the 1890s undertaker's residence in Tarnagulla. Before we met, we lived in the same Melbourne suburb, at the same time, frequenting the same post office and fish and chip shop. Before we knew each other, we were both in love with Nhill, including with the same pub restaurant. If we were to move now, it would probably be to Nhill. One of our favourite Friday night treats is to watch John Hadley's North West Real Estate channel on Youtube, and to fantasise about which latest $150k house we could buy in the region. I thought about all this the next morning. The morning was cold. At least, that is what everybody else said, however I was acclimatised. My winter sleeping bag had kept me comfortable, but the Kmart tent was a different story. Sure, it was sound in almost every way. However, it was too short. My head touched one end, while my feet touched the other. You know what happens when the night is wet and you touch the sides of a tent. I tried sleeping in the fetal position but that kept me awake. So I struggled all night, trying not to become soaked by the sides of the tent, which would have been miserable in winter. I was grateful to be sitting at Mr Le's again, sipping my breakfast coffee.

It suggested above that this is one of the greatest pleasures of life: to consciously savour the anticipation of a longed-for moment which has almost arrived, which is about to be. That always happens at Natimuk, and it also always happens the next morning, in Nhill. The road north out of Nhill is less a stretch of tarmac, and more a memory of what life can feel like, an unpseakable sense of what it can be, when one is in love with the very elements of physical existence, experienced through the mechanical miracles of the twentieth century, especially the motor cycle. Often cold, often swallowed by wind, looking toward Wyperfield National Park, this road with its orange dirt is magic to me. And so I rode. My first stop was the silos at Yamac.

The roads in this area are indeed magic to me. The tarmac feels like a river. It bends and sweeps. It rolls up and down as if afloat on constant waves. To left and right, trees, old farm houses, and great paddocks of green, whose crops shine wet and translucent in the morning sun. That light was like a promise of the day. And so I rode on, through Netherby and further, until my favourite silo appeared in the distance. That silo appears to bob up and down, as one rounds the corners and crests the hills and the whole landscape feels like a kind ocean. In time, that which was up ahead, was present. You can feel the perplexity of time out here, where the present moment one notices is suddenly the past, and the time wrapped around a place up ahead seems, when it comes, to be a moment one was always making for. And if that is true, how far back does its truth go?

Further along there was a fork in the road. Would I go to Jeparit, or save that and head north west around Lake Hindmarsh, to Rainbow? I chose the latter. As I noted earlier, the roads were mine, shared with very few. Not a single vehicle came up behind me, despite my reduced speed on this small bike, which would drop even to 70kph when driving uphill and headlong into the wind. If I came off the bike I would have to wait for help. But I would not come off. The day was too good. It was kind. It had nothing to offer but beauty, as well as that hint of mystery that came to me as I stared at those ancient pines, and wondered at what lay beyond my vision--the struff wrapped up in the folds of time as much as the stuff that was there but unseen now.

At Rainbow I drank coffee at the coffee, and then headed south to Jeparit for lunch. And so I had circumnavigated the ancient lake. In Jeparit, the birthplace of Robert Menzies, I chatted with a 90-year-old motorcyclist who had ridden all over Australia. He had been shopping in the general store where I ate my fried chips. He didn't mean to, but what that man was doing as he spoke, was pointing to a possibility which has been unlived, and which perhaps might remain so. But it could also be a moment up ahead, toward which I am making, and if I get there then it will always have been there, a truth about now that is waiting up ahead. Until I get to that moment--if I do--then I will not know which is true, of course. Such journeys across this wider country would need the right bike, of course, and the time from my work which I value so highly. It would be very different to my previous many tours around Victoria and Tasmania. Most of all, such a journey, or journeys, would need to become a longing which compells me. We shall see. What lay before me now, was the route home. It remained a path of back roads: to Warracknabeal, Minyip, Banyena. At one point a swarm of cockies flew alongside me for a kilometre with clear intention. It was one of those moments when, like so many, I felt the need to use the word "joy", and to perhaps over-use the word, for language constantly fails us in the face of such realities. At St Arnaud I stopped for coffee, then rode out through Emu, Bealiba, and Dunolly. Then it was south on my usual local roads, late in the day and so with eyes out for kangaroos. As I pulled into my street it began to rain. It was indeed a joy, this tour, and although only two days, it was a re-entry: another of those moments in life when one dusts off a neglected part of the self, and begins a new chapter woven out of an old passion.

1978 Yamaha SR500

Remember this? I sold it to a friend, who sold it somebody else, who sold it to somebody else. This is the bike I regretted selling. Then last week I was surfing Facebook Marketplace, and was shocked to see my old bike! I had to have it back. I first bought this bike when I was in my late twenties. It's the same age as me, so it will be nice to continue counting down the years together.

Moments from rides with James

The back road to Bealiba.

From Maryborough to Redesdale, via Fryerstown.

Honda CB100, CB125, XL100 project

Either I just wasted my money and filled my shed, or got myself a bargain. My hope is that by the end of this project I'll know how to rebuild every part of a motorcycle.

Black Jacks Track

Yesterday I rode across the Moolort Plains east of Maryborough. It was the first day of winter, which is as good a riding season as any if you seek out its special beauty. On this day I rolled along single lane sealed roads amidst paddocks and hills of grass, and here and there bluestone cottages. At one point the road took me north along the waters of Cairn Curran, and then on to Eddington and Eddie's Garage: a surf rock cafe in the paddocks. From there I wanted to pass through Donully but not on the tarmac, so I found a zig zag of farm roads which took me south, then west, then north, by flowing creeks, a deer farm, and old mud brick settlers' homes.

Today I felt greedy to ride again, so I repeated that initial route, but then explored farm and forest roads from Betley down to Bowenvale. The clouds broke apart but remained, to create a stunning oil painting bathed in winter light.

I finished the ride by exploring the Black Jacks Track between Bowenvale and Maryborough.

I'm starting to pick up the pace on the dirt, and want to focus on such roads for upcoming touring. When these tyres need changing I'll go for dual-sport options, and I've ordered some barkbusters to protect the levers in a drop. I must say, however, that as with my other bikes in the past, for example that Hornet 600, standard road tyres do a fine job on farm and forest roads. Many days during the week I have been testing that theory out for an hour in between clients, in the various forests surrounding Maryborough on all sides. Of course, in my grandparents' youth most roads were dirt, and people traversed them on a daily basis with what we now call "road" motorcycles with "road" tyres, which in our minds means the bikes are unsuitable for the dirt. They rode motorcycles which were a lot like this CB250. A part of what I am loving about this bike is not only its frugality, simplicity, and reliability, but also that same do-anything spirit. When recently I decided to ride again, I had this trip strong in my memory. There was something metaphysical, essential--of the essence of things--about that ride. On that five day tour through the Wimmera and Mallee fifteen years ago, my always reliable GR650 developed problems and could not cruise over 80kph. What terrible timing, why do that to me now? And yet it became one of my favourite rides, perhaps partly due to the increased emotion of anxiety which can make things feel more alive--I had very little money, and expected my motorcycle to break down hundreds of kilometers from home--but in large part it was due to the reduced speed, and the way the landscape was experienced at that slower pace. I learned a strong lesson which I have never forgotten. I was forced on to back roads, to change my route and discover new things. More importantly, I discovered a world of 60-80kph which is of a whole other order to the pace of the cyclist, or the rush of the modern motorcyclist. This is the world which is unfolding for me on this billiant, but in today's terms low-powered and slow CB250. There were moments today when I rounded a corner, skipping over the gravel while passing a flowing creek or facing an avenue of 1920s pines, and the sun flashed, and I let out an involuntary exclamation of joy.

Kooroocheang and onwards

I've been riding this wonderful bike almost every day. The CB250 Nighthawk is such an unsung hero. I work for myself from home, and most afternoons will go write in a cafe in town (Maryborough) for a couple of hours. Afterwards, I have been a spending a half hour exploring different bush roads on the edge of town as a long way home. Once a week I'll take a longer ride. This week I was greedy and took two such rides. Friday was to Ampitheatre, then south to Beaufort, lunch, north to Bealiba--including some exploring on the dirt--then Dunolly and home. Today I rode west in the Autumn light. I cruised at an easy pace on single lane roads, simply rolling the throttle on and off in top gear, through patches of forest and dale, and always emerging into green farmland. I passed through Smeaton, Clunes for lunch, then through the forests south of Talbot.

I could not bring the ride to an end, so the last hour or two were spend riding forest and farm roads south of Maryborough. It's so good to be on a bike again, and this is Nighthawk is such a simple, reliable, pleasurable choice.

2024 and a New Chapter

We were gathered around a table in the bar of The Clyde, on a warm Carlton afternoon. It was the typical Friday gathering of friends: retired philosophers, some of whom had taught me, and some of whom I had taught alongside. However, we had a lot in common beside philosophy: we were ex-seminarians (or an ex-monk in my case), we were all from working-class families in rural north-western Victoria, and we all loved motorcycles. You have already met Peter Drum on this blog, posing astride his Kawasaki W650...perchance outside The Clyde. He was there. This is me with his Model A on a very, very "drenched" New Year's Eve:

Why is this scene coming to mind now? Because of Brian Scarlett, a particularly fine example of a human being, who has since died. He was talking about when he gave up his BSA motorcycle after a nasty spill. Then he paused, and remembered how his wife had later said: "You know, I think you gave up too much, when you gave up that motorcycle." After a second pause--with both a fear away look and a glint in his eye--he exclaimed "What a paragon of a woman!" We fell into laughter. Brian was a very funny man, and yet those words, "You gave up too much, when you gave up that motorcycle," have in the last year gradually, increasingly slid into my mind's ear. It was from the periphery at first, like a wish for an old lover combined with the happy acceptance that life moves on, but then it became a longing, and eventually an ache. I live at the edge of a country town. A motorcycle would arrive from the highway and pull over, perhaps waiting for friends, and I would stare out the window, my mind lost in its sound. I had given up too much. But of what? The thing, formless, nameless, invisible, but fundamental, alive in the chill winter day of blurred moments of ferns and silver wet roads outside Toolangi. On the coldest days of winter I had those roads to myself, and it felt mystical to be in the silence of that flowing space on two wheels. Or out west, in a wholly different country, the sky blue and sunlit, spreading myself across wheat fields and prehistoric flora as my struggling old bike pushed northwards into the desert. It has been almost a decade since my last post. Naturally much has happened. I will be brief, but will tell you the story in its relevant essentials. From touring 40,000km a year for a decade, heading out every weekend no matter the weather, I had begun to slow down. One morning, commuting through Melbourne, I crashed my W650 in the wet. I was taken to the hospital with severe pain in my neck but was ultimately fine, if very sore for a couple of months. I was also quite shaken by the hours of lying in a ward with questions about my injuries unanswered. Despite the shop repairs, the bike never felt the same. I sold it to a friend. That left me with the Royal Enfield, and I continued my trips around Victoria and Tasmania:

During this time I developed also a strong interest in cycling, riding daily plus taking some long trips, for example from Lancefield to Maldon via those same steep hills on which I loved to motorcycle. I deepened also my interest in electric bicycles, which had begun years before when we still used car batteries, and when lycra cyclists would lose their temper at our existence. Now I had lithium-ion, which could go so far (I always pedal my electric bikes). Below is an English-made Pashley with a 250w mid-drive motor that I fitted. This photo was taken on a trip to Warburton:

Here's a photo from a ride that began at Castlemaine, across to the border with South Australia, and then up to NSW:

I was still playing about with bikes, including borrowing and riding various machines from friends:

However, as I say, I had slowed down in terms of riding. Then came December 2016. While on a motorcycle trip around Tasmania something happened. It was not related to motorcycling, but it shattered me for a time, and became a fulcrum, a turning point which led to much inward and outward change. For one thing, I got out of Melbourne. I had moved to the city at 17 to pursue a career in music, but I grew up in the dust of the Mallee and the mountains of southern Tasmania. My heart has always been in the country and the bush, and I longed to return. So in 2018 I pulled all my money together, and even sold my Royal Enfield, to buy a house in Maryborough, Victoria.

Like many people of my age and inclinations--doing work that puts passion first and pay second--I had despaired of ever buying a home, at least in a place I wanted to live. I had not been saving for a house. It was a sudden decision and a scramble, which became heightened after I signed the contract for the house--subject to bank approval--and the bank went from wanting a 5% deposit to 20%. It cleaned me out. I moved two hours away, with no car and a few hundred dollars to my name. It so happened that the day after the bank required a higher deposit a friend called, asking by chance if I wanted to buy his car. I offered him a payment plan for his station wagon, and it served also as accommodation for the half of the week that I continued to work in Melbourne. The latter was an experience--living in a car half the week--but I come from working class people and remember my father doing so when he travelled to distant job sites, and my grandfather doing do in his station wagon when he went fencing on farms. It was the obvious choice, and I enjoyed the project of making it work. By living frugally I got into a position in which I considered it prudent, given my distance from work, to buy a second, back-up vehicle. A cheap motorcycle was the obvious choice. And so I bought this:

The purchase of that bike was a whole experience in itself: I bought it from a young, very bogan mechanic in Dandenong who had lost his license. Throughout the whole inspection and later purchase, his mother, unseen from somewhere inside the house, nagged at him, while in between explaining the bike to me or filling out the forms, he screamed back at her "WHAT!" and "Fucking shut up!" and other delights. I was reminded of this. Anyway, the V-Star was great fun. I have never sought great power in my bikes, and this 250 could do most things perfectly well, with the exception of losing speed on hills. But then some things happened. Two things, to be precise. In the decades prior I had ridden all over Victoria and Tasmania, in all conditions and at all hours, and had never crashed outside of a couple of spillsin the city. Around my new home, however, there are kangaroos in numbers I have not seen elsewhere. I have since had many near misses, and have smashed up the front of one car from such a collision, despite driving slowly from dusk onwards. It is local wisdom here that if ever you become lost in the bush, simply follow a kangaroo, for very soon it will lead you into the middle of the road. Well, on the way back from Rheola on my exciting V-Star, I hit a kangaroo at speed. My left foot still aches, five years later. Fortunately I managed to keep the bike upright, to the astonishment of my passenger. Then, a mere couple of months later, the same happened again. This time it was night, in the short stretch of highway speed between Carisbrook and Maryborough. I had not intended to be out that late, but there you have it. I collided with the animal on the front right of my bike, and felt its continued impact across the right of my body, which hurt like hell. In the collision my headlight was smashed off and so blinding me. The combination of the impact and my evasive manoeuvre sent me off the road at 80kph. I only knew this because the surface below me changed--I could not see a thing. I grabbed the brakes but started fishtailing in the gravel while still at high speed. One's mind can move incredibly fast in such moments, and as I considered the choice between braking again and probably going down, or just rolling to a stop but with the risk of hitting a pole while still at speed, I chose the latter. I have never believed in "dumping the bike to avoid an accident". As it was on that night, I was lucky.

In the weeks that followed, I found that I had lost my motorcycling mojo. I just couldn't relax on the bike, even in the middle of the day through open fields. Kangaroos are less common here at day, but certainly do jump out even then. I sold the bike and bought a 1980s ute. In time I took up drumming again, having stopped when I was 19, and like many musicians I became extra protective of my hands--another reason not to ride. You can hear some of my music on Facebook at "Matthew Bishop Drummer".

In my work, where I draw on philosophy to help people with hardship and flourishing, I have seen many clients with chronic pain, and the emotional misery and despair which they confess to me in all its dreaded dimensions, sometimes week in and out, has changed the way I feel about risks. I don't want to experience that. So, motorcycling became something "I used to do." A risk that was a great passion at a certain time in my life, and for which I was lucky to walk away mostly without injury. And so I have not ridden for five years. And yet, there's a danger in doing some things, but also in not doing them. I have a good life. I am more happy than I have ever been in my life. During Spring and Summer I play multiple gigs every weekend. I make a moderate but, given my old-fashioned frugality, very adequate living while doing work I am passionate about. I spend my spare time reading and writing in my field of work. I have a romantic relationship with a deeply intelligent, empathetic, and talented woman, which is now half a decade ongoing, and we share many similar passions and ways of being. And yet, something has been missing. Life is good, secure...safe. I've become comfortable. And soft. This of course is the usual answer we give: I need some more adenture. Well, hiking or gravel cycling is an adventure, and is much healthier, and much safer. No, there was something more that was missing. Something beyond mere adventure and the virtues associated with it. There has been an aliveness that was missing. An aliveness of a distinct kind, which comes from flying through the air, whether cold and grey, or golden and blanketing. Which comes from lying your body down on the forces that push back as you corner at speed. That comes from the journey at speed, where you forget yourself and your seperateness and become the sun, the heat, the landscape. There is also a beauty, almost undefinable, in chrome and wheels and the hot smell of leaking oil. There is something irreplaceable about motorcycling. As when I bought the V-Star, I am in a frugal situation, but of a different kind this time around. Last year I paid off my house. I am mortgage free, after only half a decade, but those extra payments were also my savings, so I have to start again financially. Hence, as a kind of history repeating, I gave myself a budget of $2000. I found and bought a 1997 Honda CB250 Nighthawk, with 23,000km on the clock. It is very good condition, very well stored and maintained. It came with a box of high quality consumables including a chain and sprockets, even though there is no need for such things at this time. Perhaps like myself, the previous owner had what I call sparanoia. As promised by the previous owner, the motor purrs and runs perfectly, and the bike rides beautifully. For the sake of my own sparanoia I have purchased a spare engine for $200, which I intend to dismantle and refresh with the help of a friend who also rides. After all, I now own two sheds, full of good tools and much bench space. This time around, I want to become the kind of motorcyclist who rebuilds his own engines. This is the life. This time around, I want to do riding differently. No more long days which mean getting caught out at dusk or returning after dark--no dodging kangaroos. But that's the beauty of where I live. It used to take an hour of commuting out of Melbourne to begin the real ride. Now I am in the midst of riding country. I pull out of my gate and turn right on top quiet roads leading to other towns, or left and into the bush, on good dirt roads which lead also to other towns. I live in the land of contemplative motorcycling. And, so, I begin my next chapter.