Wimmera and Mallee Day Three

Monday morning I woke early but slept in till 8am, as I intended to wait in town until the shops opened in hope of finding colder spark plugs for the bike, reasoning that I was less likely to burn pistons from overheating when on colder plugs. I was unable to locate the right spark plugs and was recommended to head to Mildura. I had planned to head west to Pinnaroo in South Australia, then north to Renmark, then east via back roads to Mildura, but I didn’t want to spend much time on busy highways with the bike running as it was, and I was eager to get better spark plugs and maybe some mechanical advice at a motorcycle shop. So instead of heading to Pinnaroo, or back into the land east of me, west of Nyah, as I otherwise thought I might when I resolved the night before to abandon the South Australian route, I decided to ride the 100kms of highway north to Mildura. It only occurred to me afterwards that, were there no appropriate spark plugs available in Mildura, a phone call could have saved me a 200km round trip!

But the trip north was well worth it. The highway was classic Mallee scrub.


As well as this more sparse scrub which was unfamiliar to me


The trip to Mildura was a wonderful part of the whole ride. As I passed a sign welcoming me to the Sunraysia region the sun came out and grape vines and palm trees appeared and glowed in its warmth. The Mallee scrub was no longer and I felt as though I had entered a sprawling fruit garden, ordered into neat plots and lines.

At Mildura I found the right spark plugs and decided to head from Red Cliffs to Colignan – a road which touched the Mallee Cliffs State Reserve and then dropped back on the Ouyen–Mildura highway (the Calder) near Hattah. I had ridden to Mildura at no more than 90kph and the bike was running fine, without any wavering loss of power. It had run well all the day before, though I had not ridden it over 80kph, which might have been the reason. With the new sparkplugs in I expected better running, but the contrary was true – the bike was wavering constantly when between 80 and 100kph, still with white plugs across the range. The wind had begun to blow in strong gusts, and I wondered if this was effecting it as well, creating a kind of pressure on the bike akin to riding up a hill. I decided to ignore the problem and to push the bike at speed. This was still Sunraysia country, grapes and oranges, and the Murray was approaching on my left as I wound through the corners and enjoyed the straights on a road which I mostly had to myself.

I was cruising along at speed enjoying the sights when suddenly I entered a swarm of bees which exploded as they hit me. One hit my neck and I was distracted for a moment expecting to be stung and, at about 80kph, looked up to see gum trees in front – the road had suddenly veered to the right and I was about to crash! Lean! Lean! Lean! I tipped the motorcycle over hard. Fortunately good riding technique showed itself enough of a habit in me that I did not touch the brakes – which would have stood the bike upright and left me like one of those crushed bees against a big gum – and I simply leaned harder and ran my line of sight up the sliver of road-edge that still promised grip, hoping to keep my tyres at least there (this is an example of target fixation used to one’s advantage). I made it through the corner.  It was one of the closest moments I have come to having a serious accident.

Exhilarated I rode on, and pulled up at the river when the road met it.


Then I said goodbye to Sunraysia and headed back to the highway






I met with the highway and headed south to Hattah where there was a general store at which I had lunch.

Out the front of the store was this sign


The general store is owned and run by a friendly elderly couple. Goods displayed on the shelves include fishing tackle that appears to have been there for years, and wooden shelves of canned food. I thought of Keen’s general store in a novel I had recently read by David Malouf, The Great World, and of the proprietress Jenny Keen, of whom “the kindest thing to say of [her] was that she was simple”. That novel has played on my mind since reading it. Both because of the way it brings to life the inner world of a woman who, in life, many would find silly and a nuisance – a vision and capacity on the author’s part which is a justice and calm compassion; and because of something more: the way these different lives are brought to life for the reader, sympathy aroused, such that I am left afterwards with a sad and haunted sense of the preciousness of so many things which pass. Perhaps because of the feelings I was carrying after this novel, I spent some time sitting out the front of the store, and would have spent longer had I not the urge also to move on. I went for a walk around the side and I heard an echoing upright piano playing an old tune in a hall, but a fence separated me from the building and so the source of the music.

As I was having lunch the wind picked up and rain had fallen. The wind was worryingly strong and it sounded huge overhead. The sound was like the wind through pine trees, only much bigger and higher and deeper, and the fact that it sounded so without the aid of trees impressed me even more. There was something unsettling in the massive sound it made.

I mounted the bike and immediately turned east down the Hatta–Robinvale road. I was not sure where I was heading, and I did not even have a destination for the night. I will do more of this style of touring because it is so liberating: each time you reach an intersection you just choose your direction at whim, sometimes without really knowing where you are going. With a tent and a full tank of fuel you cannot go wrong (for the most part).

I came across this old structure for shifting livestock onto a truck


The wind was powerful and gusting, and I was blown from side to side. It felt like somebody was grabbing my head and shaking it, and it didn’t take long to develop a headache. It also felt like an invisible hand was pushing back against the bike, and this exacerbated the problem of the wavering power – it felt for the next few hours like the bike might die at any time. As I ride along in these places I keep an eye on farm houses should I break down, and I saw none out here – the place was more barren than on previous days – which combined to give angst to the sensations aroused by the wavering engine. The wind was dangerous. I had to slow for oncoming traffic, fearing I would be blown into their path, and I had to grip the handlebars and constantly deal with powerful gusts from unexpected directions. The weather seemed to be developing into a heavy emotion, like rage or lust mounting to an explosive peak which was as yet far off, but all the more impressive for that, given its current strength.





At an intersection I turned left to Annuello with the bike running as badly as ever, and on to Manangatang where I stopped for my afternoon tea. A lady in the street said they were expecting hail.


I decided I couldn’t make it far south with the bike running so badly and a big storm approaching. I rang my Grandma in Swan Hill and arranged to spend the night with her. I had wanted to do this anyway, if the chance came up. So again I headed south, thinking I might go into the western end of Nyah West, then through Woorineen and then Swan Hill. The storm was growing with anticipation of what I might finally find out west.

To my left – the east – lightning began to dance in the sky.


At Chinkapook I stopped to gaze at the ghostly derelict tennis courts


And then made straight for the west of Nyah West, with the lightning getting bigger and closer








And finally I had found it: what lay out west:











It was nothing and a mystery.  It was beautiful and desolate. The wind had ceased its bluster and at ground level had gone into a deep calm, no less impressive – its immanence now felt high and distant, sounding like a didgeridoo holding everything in its drone. The Earth glowed pink and showed that the essence of all this was not at some physical centre, but in the spread and connection, the contrast of salt and grass, of dry dead wheat and places where the moment was wet and green, of an indifferent and beautiful earth seen with human eyes and human affection, entwined with lives where it became and becomes more than it might otherwise have been. The land is alive with spirits so long as human beings look with the look that brings them to life, and so long as people live and belong here, living out their stories and letting these be absorbed into the earth just as their bones eventually are. This place was alive with the mystery which I saw as a child, which I could now feel and which could only be perceived and gestured at as a thing so real and close and yet which, when you stare at it, blurs, and yet feels as real and vital as your own blood.



And so I rode in from the west to Nyah West


And headed down to Woorineen


The storm continued to increase its pressure as the dusk drew the curtains on the day. The wind had dropped at the place of salt flats out west of Nyah West, and the earth was still but the sky silently boiled. As I came in via the back way to Swan Hill the lightning was now only two paddocks away, stabbing out of the sky with the brilliance that sells postcards.

I pulled up at Grandma’s, she let me into the back yard where I wheeled the bike into the shed, and…the sky exploded with rain!

Day Four, next post…

Wimmera and Mallee Day Four

I spent the evening chatting with grandma and had a good eight hours sleep in a good bed. I waved goodbye to Grandma at 9am


And, singing songs of Augie March in my head, I rode south into a beautiful day




The rain had drenched the earth and everything was green and everywhere dams were refreshed.  Great puddles of water sat like nourishment, the earth lying back in pleasure with feeling of it.


My first stop was for a walk about Quambatook.




Further south on the way to Boort I came across somebody’s collection of farm machinery, dating from the 1880s to the 1930s




Boort


And various small towns I passed through on the way south




I had lunch at Wedderburn, then decided to head further south and then west into Maryborough, Maldon, Castlemaine, to decide my route into Melbourne from there


From Wedderburn onwards the landscape changed. It was no longer the flat dry country but rather southern mountain country; a land well-traversed and loved by me but not the homeland which I feel myself amidst when up north.

Throughout this fourth day the GR650 ran beautifully. I cruised down the Calder at 115kph on a strong engine. The spark plugs were tan. I can only assume that some rubbish or water had got into my fuel / carburettors, had blocked the flow of fuel across the range, and that my persistence in riding the bike had eventually cleared everything out.

This trip was the beginning for me. It was made cheap by my camping and simple tastes. I intend to do many more, to roam the Mallee, spreading myself out in what seems the elusive centre or source. The early European Australians believed that there was a freshwater sea in the centre of the continent.  Perhaps I am pursuing the same thing, and perhaps we misunderstand those people when we scoff at their apparent delusion.

Ghost homes

This week I intended to explore more of the roads about Lake Eildon.  Strong winds convinced me to change my mind and stick to the forests.  And so I headed north on the old route to King Lake and then to Yea for lunch. I decided that I would either explore the roads toward Murchison again, or some dirt roads north of Yea. So I went north via Highlands, Ruffy, and on toward Longwood, except that I turned off and spent some time on a dirt road which I believed leads to Seymour.  Looking at the map it turns out that I was right, however it is a very long road, and I was running out of water on the hottest day that we have had in a long time.  I spoke to several other people who were driving through the region and who were lost and unsure of how far the road continued.  Hence I turned back at Falcon Vale Lane. It turns out I was at least halfway to the tar and would have been fine to continue.  I will return to this road. Below are some photos from the journey.













I returned the way I had come, made it to Longwood, then headed south on an old road paralleling the Hume and stopped at Avenel for coffee.



I headed north once more on back roads to Nagambie where I sat for a while by the lake.



From Nagambie I headed west into spitting distance from Heathcote and south to Lancefield. By this time it was dusk. The sky was heavy and emotional.



Riding in this area, I often come across abandoned old homes. Here is one. You can feel the ghosts of past lives still plodding about the yard, hanging out washing and riding bicycles. I stayed here for a while gazing at the house. Then rode off into the dark for another hour before reaching home.

“We’re going to Bonnie Doone!”

I began a ride on Saturday morning on the SR500, heading to Bendigo to visit my Mum. In the hills just north of Melbourne, at 100kph, the bike was bogging just like last week. I decided to do a plug chop – to kill the engine at that speed as the problem was occuring, then take a look at the spark plug. It was white! That means a lean fuel-air mixture or pre-ignition, either of which can damage the engine. So I turned around and rode back to Melbourne.

Sunday morning I set out again, on the GR650, this time heading east so as to make it to dinner that evening with the in-laws in Woori Yallock. I rode out with no plan, through Kangaroo Ground, Yarra Glen, the Black Spur, and north to Eildon. I decided to attempt a loop of Lake Eildon, beginning with the town of Eildon and heading anti-clockwise to Jamieson, Mansfield, Merton. An early lunch at midday in Eildon, and I set out.

The Eildon-Jamieson Rd is sealed most of the way. It is tight and twisty and enclosed by thick bush, with a lot of bark and environmental debris on the road. At one point I came across a quarry in which a minature lake of pure clear rainwater had appeared.



To my left was a heavy creek, which later turned into a heavy river at the base of an even deeper drop, seen through the trees (the camera did not capture it).



The bushland opened up into a forest with a clear floor. It reminded me of some very early descriptions of Australian bush – that it was like an English park.



Most of the way along this road and it turned to dirt. It was clay and exposed rock, deeply corrugated in sections such that it gave the bike a terrible pounding. I could see out of the forest into a view of the hills through which I was travelling.



I cruised along at about 40kph and the surface was easy-going. But then it became increasingly damp, and eventually I was riding on wet clay. I stopped here, seeing that it had become chopped up further along. In the knowledge that it was likely I would come off the bike if I attempted a sustained distance on such a surface, I decided to turn back, short of my destination. I will attempt this loop again when the road is dry.



So I rode back to Eildon and north into the National Park, seeking the road from Eildon to Bonnie Doone. The road climbed and climbed through bush and then across grasslands at the top of this part of the world.







I came to a roundabout with the option of left to Alexandra, right into the National Park and the lake, and forward to Bonnie Doone, and on I ventured. The road quickly turned to hard clay and I cruised along happily, but then it turned to thick stones, the size and shape of ball bearings. I perservered on this surface for a while, ignoring the twitchy moments as I floated and sometimes weaved across the surface, but I was not prepared to drop the bike and so I decided to turn back. At the roundabout I took the turn into the National Park and it was a fantastic road, at the bottom of which I exlpored the various camping sites on offer as well as the shore of the lake itself, which is a beautiful place!







I intend to camp here.

Returning to the roundabout I took the Alexandra option and made my way back to Woori Yallock, arriving as the night closed in. I will certainly return to this National Park and its roads, as well as exploring soon what lies past Bonnie Doone.