Adventure at Melville Caves

I headed north to Lancefield and then on through so many wonderful backroads, to Mia Mia, Sutton Grange, through Golden Point to Castlemaine. As I walked back to the bike at a petrol station outside Castlemaine a woman smiled at me as we passed and I became aware of the reason: I had an infectious smile on my face. Riding had done its work.

Just beyond Lancefield, on the Burke and Wills Track.


Burke and Wills vie with Major Mitchell for historic markers throughout this region. I'm a Major Mitchell man myself, because he left behind interesting journals. At his Expedition Pass Reservoir I stopped.


Riding through Castlemaine to Maldon I stopped for lunch and then rode up Mount Tarrengower Tower. The road up is steep, used every year since the 1920s for hill climbing competitions on what are now vintage cars and motorcycles.







The afternoon was hot. I chose narrow back roads to Eddington, then Dunnoly, Moliagul, Rheola.





These are my favourite roads. Narrow or wide they are mostly empty, with straight stretches but enough sweeping curves to please. There is often gravel in the corners, but an easy pace means I can negotiate such hazards safely.

From Rheola I intended to ride to Kingower and Inglewood, but saw a sign pointing north-west to caves and followed it.

Up a winding road into Kooyoora National Park, alone aside from the shrill of insects and birds in a dry blanket of heat, I found Melville Caves. Named after the bushranger 'Captain Melville', who used this as a post in the 1850s, the caves are the spaces between granite boulders of Egyption proportions.



Here's the main entrance to the caves


Because the photos don't capture the size, I balanced my camera and included myself to give you a sense of the dimensions:


Looking up from the entrance


The first part of the cave. The following shots are taken with the Flash, and don't convey the eerie sensation of entering a dark cave on your own in the bush.



Looking back at the entrance from where the cave drops away to a lower floor.


With the Flash off



The lower floor, looking back to the first entrance, again with the Flash on.


And into another room,


with a beautiful ceiling.


Looking back at an exit.


I rode back on wonderful roads via Llanelly, Newbridge, Maldon, Castelmaine, and down the Calder Freeway to home, back to the stresses of life having taken a deep, relaxing breath for a day.

Nowhere in particular....

I went riding yesterday afternoon.

The Eastern Freeway was wide and empty, five lanes of concrete in the sun. When, further on, the road narrowed into curves I was still alone, with a confident engine and a mind absorbed by the clipped, smooth lines I made through the corners. On days like this the tar from St Andrews to King Lake is a work of art. My machine was tight, smooth and powerful. I was in perfect rhythm. Coming behind four trucks and their frustrated gaggle of cars after King Lake, I dropped down a gear and opened the throttle, snapping my arms straight and head backwards as the bike lunged and I was again alone.

I coasted through the roads from Yea to Longwood, via Highlands and Ruffy. At times experimenting with dirt roads, the Hornet was most happy leaning through the sealed twists and turns. Never mind, there was plenty of gravel in these corners to slide about on. Above Longwood it was like ball-bearings piled at the entry and exit of old bridges, whose surfaces in turn were uneven wooden planks. Otherwise the roads were solid and straight, with a view through gums to summer-coloured paddocks.

The town of Murchison is built around the Goulburn River. Under the hot sun you need only walk fifty meters off the main street to find shade by the wide, brown water.

Onwards I rode to Heathecote, realising I’d gone the long way even though I was ready for home. This afforded the chance, however, to enjoy one of my favourite roads with the day’s light at its most intense angle and colour. On this stretch from Tooborac to Lancefield I maintained a speed of 80kph in case of wildlife. I didn’t vary my speed even as I entered tight corners, so again the bike smoothly banked left, then right, as my hand sat steady on the throttle, and the turns came and went with a slight blur. I met Melbourne at dusk, flowing fast on the northern freeways in the warm air.

The Goulburn River near Yea




Caveat-Dropmore Road


North of Ruffy


Between Longwood and Murchison




Goulburn River, from the main street of Murchison


Day's end, just prior to Tooborac

Riding North-East from Nhill

I left town about half an hour ago but am not sure of the time. With an easy grip on the handlebars humid air streams up my sleeves. The bike's 650 twin motor sings in the morning warmth. I've never been here before, and I ride with a mixture of anticipation and relaxation, wondering what's ahead of me in the next half hour, and in this day.

The air at 80kph is pure - no scent of machines, or animals; the paddocks are of wheat. I am in farmland north-east of Nhill, where grain silos impose themselves like abandoned castles. There are few creatures, just the occasional crow whose sound, whenever I stop, is part of the landscape. The road is narrow tar without markings. For a moment it becomes orange where the earth has spilled over during road works, then is black again.

Riding through this place makes me happy. There are no people in view but there are signs of local life - a combination offering comfort and solitude. Tensions disappear. The bike's suspension absorbs the bumps so that I float past the paddocks. A fence at right angles to me divides an expanse of thick yellow wheat from acres of thin moist grass - cattle feed. And there's a farmer's ute, white cab and stainless steel tray and nobody in sight. I sing out loud.

Inside the helmet it's easy to hear my own voice, so I close my mouth and return to letting the song play in my head. There it sounds rich and tuneful. A summer morning, riding my motorcycle through a new place. I have always said that travelling in a car is like watching TV; you are removed from everything and merely observe. To travel on a bike is to be a part of the scene. Everything is present, immediate, your body is in contact with it all. I slide my foot along the tar. I make a wing with my hand and it rises on the air current like a plane. It is as though the bike disappears, as though it is just me, my body, in flight.

I do not know where I will end up tonight. Probably Ouyen. It is only 200 kilometers away, but I have a map full of back roads to explore on the way. I will travel the whole day and at dusk find a caravan park in the closest town. Back-road riding is the way to tour. You see a lot of things that way. I like to take my imagination along with me, to stop at abandoned houses, historic markers, rusting harvesters, and dry lakes. To my right somebody has hung a big fish from a road sign. I stop and take a photo. It has been rotting a while and no longer smells. The sign points down an unsealed road with a good surface of yellow and orange. I am tempted - it heads into the National Park that has been playing on my mind. But I continue on the sealed road, pleased with the thought of pulling into towns to drink at the general store and breath in the life of the place.  To wonder about the people and stories enfolded in its past. And to be awakened to the present again by the sun and the sound of a dog, and a nod from a stranger.

Experimental Answers to the Question: Why Ride? No.23

This area used to be under the sea, and there is still something oceanic about the Mallee under its sun: the land is submerged in light, the distant scrub moves in its hot current. The heat is intensely silent, so powerful it makes you listen. In that mute state my mind, like a muddy sea-bed, releases things to the surface that float: joys, anxieties, memories. My own of course, but others which seem new, which this place evokes.

In the shadowy social world I take a hardened form: a person known by this name, with defining ties and obligations. My petty cares matter. It matters what I have achieved. My very appearance reveals me, apparently, and must be answered for. We make much of these abstractions. Like a religion where each act has the weight of eternity.

That world is a series of little meetings, we relate with only a part of our self and feel separate, distinct. A person is defined by that and by what others make of him. This is why I am out here with a wheel spinning before and behind, and little else. To ride a motorcycle is to release myself into something greater. Last Sunday I rode into a storm so intense I could not tell if it was hail. Later I felt blanketed by the chill of the grey sky. To be submerged each time is to experience something more than myself; no longer a separate unit but merging with the whole scene, the entire flux of sensations and beauty.

Back in the Mallee, as I rode east from Hattah, called by the pink salt flats and their ghosts, the storm grew. Its sound submerged me. A drone of wind which seemed absolute. Pulling and tugging me, swirling the dust and the trees into a dance. All this was given me without choice, and yet I chose it: I assented to the storm, to the winds which before had frightened me, and gave myself over to what this great thing had to offer. On two wheels I let go of everything in the drenching of rain, of chill, of heat and light.

The social world is a cave, people believe in their shadows and take them for reality. But as Diotima taught Socrates, we transcend ignorance only by love. Through visions of beauty. And it is true. The love of motorcycling can be a way of loving the world. Of loving a beauty whose selfless lack of limits embraces and teaches us. Before it finally absorbs us too, as echoes and memories buried in salt flats.

SR500 Club Rally, Bethanga

Last weekend was the tenth annual rally for the club dedicated to the model of bike I own, Yamaha's SR500, the late '70s 500cc single.

I rode there with my friend James. We found Marlon (who appeared some months ago on this Blog) and Bize outside Wodonga, where we were all lost.

Marlon's bike, and Bize's super-cool white van


Marlon


This was only Jame's second motorcycle ride since getting his license 18 months ago. His first ride was on his '73 Czech CZ175, which he rode to Cowra (NSW) and back. The bike then broke down, and James disassembled it and is fitting 12V electrics. He recently bought an old Yamaha SR250 and was determined to get to the Rally for his second ride on a motorcycle. The RWC and registration took place Friday afternoon before leaving.

We left 9.30am Saturday. An hour later Jame's front fender fell off and his indicators stopped working. Avoiding the Doom Highway (the Hume), we made for Yarra Glen to Yea, to Mansfield for lunch. The rain started.



The road to Witfield would be great in the dry, and we loved it even in the wet. The mist, the gentle rain, the mountain trees, the Kawasaki Z Club. And more and more mist which at it's height, which was the height too of the mountain and of the twisties, allowed only 6 foot of vision. James was a vague glow behind me, in front threatening shapes materialised like rocks to a sailor, and by an act of faith I kept the throttle open.

We took back roads all the way, met turtles, old train stations, and were soaked by the time we slid our bikes over the mud and into the Rally.





We went grass racing on Jame's SR. This inspired him, and so in a single movement he revved the bike, spun it out of control, flipped it, and broke his clutch lever.

We fitted another lever from a trailored SR and James did the same again, breaking an indicator and bending the gear shifter.

After a lot alcohol and laughter we went to bed, James and I in my one man tent. It was raining most of the time. I was so wet that I left my boots in the rain without caring - it was not possible to soak the more than they were. The next morning, naked, I would stand in the rain and dress - at a certain point you cease to care. In bed my feet and head touched the sides of the tent and water trickled in on me all night. Then the storm came with real water. We'd wake almost feverish to the burst of light and sound. Sometimes a damn broke above in the stitched plastic and water gushed onto me. Near dawn something slimy woke me -- a slug on my cheek! I cried and flicked it...onto James. I didn't want to leave it on him, but neither did I want to touch him, such that he'd wake in the dark to my hands caressing his warm body. At dawn a fellow revved his Triumph beside my head and then did the same with the exhaust in the door of our tent, and we began the day.



Our camp


Arriving the previous afternoon, to a footy club room of 150 men and two women, all of them incarnations of the Toecutter, with the odd NightRider and Bubber thrown in, not all of them clothed but all steaming, a fellow exclaimed: "Young Blokes!" We felt like cute girls. The next morning I went for my shower in my dress-like nightgown, eyed like I was tasty or eccentric by old men in muddy leather, cock eyes and mad hair. I found the shower: it stuck out of the wall at the entrance to the toilets. I would have to stand naked before a steady procession. I showered clothed, figuring it was impossible to become more wet.

Tired, sore, hungover, violated, James and I decided to ride the boring Hume home. A good idea given the relentless storms. At one point I think it was hailing but it was all so intense that I couldn't tell.

Jame's SR held up well. Then it became more powerful, and louder: his exhaust had broken in half.



It was good to experience my first rally. They were a fine bunch of people.

Lake Mountain and the spurs

Today's ride was moody. I always enjoy my weekly ride but little events, along with anxieties, left me feeling mixed. I set out late, midday, so didn't attempt Walhalla. I chose my route at each intersection, but not with carefree pleasure. My small accident the other day played on my mind.

My route: to Kinglake; Chum Creek Road to Healesville; the Black Spur; Lake Mountain Ski Resort; Reefton Spur; Healesville; Yarra Glen; Kangaroo Ground and home.

I had great rhythm through King Lake National Park and Chum Creek Road. I took a once fateful corner at speed to see what happened to Micki. She was a learner whom I led through there on her first country ride. Rounding that decreasing radius she came off, sliding across the road, her bike tumbling down the embankment. I think it was the unexpected decrease that got her. The most important techniques in riding are those performed by the head: not making assumptions, slowing for corners, never riding faster than you can see. A strong suck on a cigarette and Micki was fine.

The Black Spur was again rhythmic. I always cruise gently through this road but various times I had to break the new rule that prohibits overtaking across an unbroken line, showing how foolish that rule is (unless of course they change half the lane markings in Victoria). The road has always been 100kph and was recently dropped to 80. I overtook only on clear stretches to get round a 40kph car. Where a month ago they might have described the exact same act as sensible over-taking, a cop will now tell me that I was being dangerous. From sensible to foolish in the blink of a bureaucrat.

In a tight section I was taking a left-hander when another rider rounded a corner too fast on his Harley. Clearly unskilled, he was in my lane. His eyes like a deer in the headlight, he simply wobbled and continued for me! No doubt he was target-fixating: a phenomenon where motorcyclists get fixated on the thing frightening them, and because a motorcycle goes where you look, run into the very object they want to avoid. I braked and counter-steered toward my shoulder of the road, a manouver which he should have pulled. He passed me still in my lane. A car could not have avoided him as I had.

Above Marysville I stopped the bike.



I shared smiles with a couple in a convertible whom I would see throughout the day, and followed them to Lake Mountain. There's a ski resort, amidst a landscape tortured by January's fires, where I enjoyed a coffee and wandered about.







This place evoked northern Italy, where I lived for seven months in Piedemonte. High. Thin air. Silent. Meditative.



I then rode Reefton Spur. My recent off left me anxious all day that I might crash. The entrance to one corner was all fern and peace...the exit exploded into high-speed log truck, taking the whole road and about to engulf me. Hard left, hard braking. The trailer edged ever closer and I thought I might have to jump.

Instead I continued and stopped for photos, the peace and beauty returning.









At the end of the Spur I was tired and pulled off into a rest area, and napped on a table. Walking back to the bike I was met by a dog. From nowehere he came up for a pat, then disappeared into the bush. Twenty seconds later he emerged with a stick, dropping it at my feet.





When I'd had enough play I patted him. The same instant I stopped he turned, stick in mouth, and wandered off home, obviously familiar with the ritual!

Faced with an intersection, revived by the peace of staring up at gums and the carefree wisdom of a dog, I took a new road: to the Upper Yarra Reservior.







I tried some self-portraiture



If this is egoistic forgive me - it was fun.





I headed home,

Kangaroo Ground I stood on a hill and watched the day end.