Lineage

At Ease Between Wars

The motor cycle fires and misfires, hesitates, surges ahead, misfires and splutters. There is nothing wrong with it, a new 1948 BSA Bantam. The fault is in the petrol. In all this drought-stricken Mallee, the inside of a petrol tank is the one place that a traveller can be sure of finding water.

I stop to rub my bruised kidneys. The corrugations of these roads are as constant as the orange clouds of dust that rise behind me into the cobalt sky.

Up ahead sits a gallon drum turned sideways and mounted on a fence. A mailbox. Somewhere beyond those trees will be a farmhouse with a corrugated iron tank to the side. The farmer will not deny me some water, however I will not be able to tell whether the grim tightening at the corners of his mouth is in resentment at sharing the precious stuff, or whether it is his normal expression which will grow on any face should it struggle long enough out here.

These are soldier-settler lots.  Dry farms. One of these men, leaning against a red-gum verandah-pole and wearing that grim look, complained to me that he was better dressed when fighting The Great War. “And look at me now!”

Each man I meet out here seems to envy my BSA. Perhaps, as he watches me ride away, he fancies that it is him leaving a trail of dust. One morning he will just up and throw the towel in. And away he'll ride.

But of course he doesn't. And I do. I am at ease between wars. The last one was public - explosions, newsreels - but the next will be private. I have not seen it yet, it is an occasion up ahead for which I am making.

In the meantime this Bantam two-stroke shows me the country. When, that is, the petrol has not vaporised in the carburretor, the spark plug has not fouled, and water is not condensing in the petrol tank.

Perhaps I will not settle. Perhaps I will buy a big Triumph twin and remain at ease. Letting other people fight the battles which I no longer believe in.

Royal Enfield versus Yamaha SR500

I have always been in love with the Royal Enfield motorcycle, the Bullet. I almost bought one instead of the SR500. But alas, choices exclude, and all I can do now is live vicariously - I lurk on an Enfield forum. So when, with a beautiful spring day's riding planned I saw some members on that forum contemplating a ride, I invited them to form a group for the day.

For those who are unfamiliar with Royal Enfields, the basic story is this: Royal Enfield were once one of England's best bike manufacturers. The Indian army starting purchasing their 1954-designed 500cc single, the Bullet, en-mass. They bought so many that Royal Enfield opened first an assembly plant, and then a production plant, in India for the Bullet. When the British home-company collapsed along with the entire British motorcycle industry, the Indian factory simply kept producing the 1954 Bullet for its home market. And it kept on keeping on, so that today you can buy a new 1954 Royal Enfield Bullet.

Remember that my SR500 is a 500cc single. So too is the Bullet. So here on this ride we have a first-class example of both a 1950s, and a 1970s, version of that great motorcycle engine in a classic road-going bike.

It was just the two Enfielders - Norm and Don - and me, heading north in search of back roads.

We stopped at Lake Eppalock for lunch.



Don's bike gave repeated problems.  Which provided great opportunities for laughter and photos....







Notice how lean is the SR, how rounded the Bullet:



As it turned out, not all of Don's problems were the bike's fault! Norm was forced to share some petrol with him, collected with the aid of roadside litter:



We made for Seymour on wonderful roads, hoping that a liter of petrol would get Don there, when we came across something resembling a servo. Appearances deceive, and this turned out to be more a Mad Max experience. There was no petrol, but the owner was very friendly and gave us some fuel from a jerry can. Then he showed us around his dream in progress, a rev-head hang-out garage where bikies could stop for soft-drinks, amidst half-built turbo cars and mad choppers.





He actually rides this thing (below).  Unregistered of course!



We made on to Strath Creek, Whittlesea, down those wonderful sweepers, and on tight, fast, back roads to Hurstbridge. There were more break-downs, but it must yet be said for the Bullets that they made it home on their own steam. Of course, the SR500 started easily and didn't miss a beat.

Revolutions: of the tacho....

Japanese bikes need to be revved. That's what I mean by revolutions of the tacho. I used to ride between 3000 to 4000 rpm on the SR, but I've been enjoying the range between 4000 to 6000 on the new engine. And last Friday I really took pleasure in it. The Black and Reefton Spurs, empty on a Spring day, were the perfect places for such a dance. I played my old game: I am not a fast rider, but I get into a rhythm at the speed limit and attempt to maintain that speed no matter what corner I come to. With the bike in the higher rev range there's no need to brake; I simply wind the throttle open and closed.

But I am getting ahead of myself. First of all there was a stop at Sugarloaf Reservoir, which I feature now and then on this blog. Usually with reference to what a puddle it is in this drought. Today was different!





The Reservoir is 97.7% full!

I rode on toward Healseville, and just outside the town I fell in behind a 70s Triumph Bonneville, and we pulled up beside each other at the servo. I looked the rider in the eye and smiled. He snobbed me.

I left Healesville musing on the little cliques among bike owners, and continued along the Spurs. At a quiet spot on the Warburton end of Reefton I stopped, taking photos of the bike, landscape, and sunshine all in one.











What a beautifully skinny bike. You can see its nimble potential:







The day was quiet except for the occassional fellow rider.



At this point I decided to turn about and go back to Marysville - the road was too nice on this day. Toward the end of the Reefton Spur Road proper are a series of fast sweepers intermixed with tight turns and, well, I open the bike up, raised the revs, took some risks, and had one hell of a time flicking this skinny little bike through the corners. Then I stopped to absorb some more Spring sun.





Damn it, I think I might go riding again tomorrow! Why not?

From Rainbow after dusk

All night my headlight dazzles the leaves. And kangaroos too, who climb out of the sleep of farmtown edges, under the same moonlight where bronze Anzacs doze; “at ease between the wars”. That light's a dreamscape where paddocks, restless with mice, frame moonstruck silos practising stillness.

To thunder across the country like a daredevil bikeboy of the '50s: tyre marks of country dust, in low gear shifting skyward up a hill. The tail-light glows. Just. Strung out on those hills, like the many others alive only at nightfall, to span a continent. Or part thereof. Nameless, but placed, the night I rode for Ouyen on no petrol.

***

This is red earth country. It looks empty and open, but is crowded with ghosts. Those figures are hidden away in the folds of it, invisibly here, and there, letting me know I am watched, tracked. At day I Iook up into the blaze of sunlight and know I am not the only one. They go on like I do, and my having been here makes a ghost of me too, a moment in time that will always have been. A moment toward which I have always been making. Spring dusk sweepers on the road to Ouyen.


Inspired by a David Malouf poem

The Dought has Broken?

The road today between Wallan and Romsey was a dance of massive sweepers. I hit them at top speed, banking the SR over like a Spitfire diving into action, firing a percussive blast from the exhaust.

And so on the Burke and Wills Track I joined my SR to a series of past photos of the Hornet, and GR650, at the sight of Australia's first home-built aeroplane flight.













I didn't have a map and did not plan where I was going - I meant to turn east below Lake Eppalock, but found myself instead on those wonderful lakeside roads. Sandy edges broke into sparse forest; this place always evoke summer.

At the Lake Eppalock kiosk I stopped for lunch, then decided to look at the lake. Last time I was here in May there was very little water. Below is a photo, quite a distance into the old lake bed, looking down into the final crater.



But today when I rounded the turn from the kiosk I was gobsmacked to immediately face water. The lake has gone from almost nothing to 80 per cent! It was almost frightening. Those roads I had ridden, and that ride I promised to do out to an island, are now under water.

Spring Riding

I rode with my friend Rosy today, on a route I have done several times recently: to Yea. Initially I wanted to try different roads, but I am suffering insomnia and only had a few hours sleep. When early in the trip I rounded a corner on the center line, to be confronted with oncoming traffic, I saw the wisdom in sticking to a well-known route when fatigued.

I didn not take many photos, but let me tell you the SR was so much fun to ride today. I was awash in sun and wind and speed through the corners, and like a shower they woke me up. And so I did not baby the bike compared to usual, but pushed the revs up higher, sliding my bum back, knees tucked in, leaning down and clinging to the bars in an old-time race-style, taking every tight corner at the speed limit. There is more power up high, but still a low blaring of the exhaust like in those black and white movies of vintage racing.

Here is Rosy at Yea, and below are some photos of us from further along the way.