Rail Trail — Getting Out There

Boggy Creek to the Snowy River — East Gippsland Rail Trail, Day 2

Sat, 30 Mar 2024 18:00:00 +1100

Awoke this morning to a breakfast of eggy fried rice, with added egg to make it all the eggier 🥚🥚🥚. We set off from camp about 9, and had another beautiful day of rolling gravel, green trees, trestle bridges — or half a trestle bridge! — and a lot of bird life.

We did see some wildlife today: a few rock wallabies, a goanna and a fox! We rolled along through a sun-drenched ‘road’ cut into the forest and lined each side with the greenest fernery, which lit up particularly greenish-yellow with the sun rising in the east and backlighting the foliage for us. It was just as I imagine the road to heaven might look like!

The nicer/harder-packed gravel gives way to an unfinished rougher section about Waygara Road (or just west of it). From there until Orbost (about 14–15 kilometres) it was more of a bush track, and in some parts almost singletrack. We found it hard going on our fully-loaded bikes, as we don’t have suspension [Except for my Thudbuster seatpost] and our wrists and trapezius muscles were quite sore by the time we made it to Orbost.

We did make it OK to Orbost however, and after visiting the tourist information centre — which is housed in a historic slab hut that had been moved from it’s original location on the Snowy River — had lunch at the Orbost Club Hotel. Danielle had a steak sandwich and I had barbeque pork ribs. We had too many beers, some friendly chatter with the locals and then headed back.

To avoid those ~15 kilometres of rough trail on the way back, we followed the Snowy River for a while on the road, then up the hills to rejoin the rail trail at the Simpsons Creek Road crossing. We rode past a farmer rounding up his cattle, and struggled a lot due to the excess of beer and pork ribs. We made very wise commitments for future trips to not drink a lot of booze and eat a lot of heavy food halfway through a ride, which we shall promptly forget the minute we walk into another little country pub somewhere.

We hadn’t quite skipped the rough trail when we got to Simpsons Creek Road: but we only had about 2–3 kilometres of it. Now we’re camped at the rest stop at Partellis Crossing Road. We pitched the tent under the shelter to avoid ants and hopefully have a nice dry tent in the morning. We’re about to cook dinner — spicy lentil tarka daal — call Anneliese and retire.

We covered 70 kilometres all up today; a solid effort which will see us be able to go a bit easier to Bruthen tomorrow.

A very Good Friday — East Gippsland Rail Trail, Day 1

Fri, 29 Mar 2024 21:00:00 +1100

We arrived in Bairnsdale last night on the 22:30 train from Melbourne. We rode to the NRMA Bairnsdale Riverside Holiday Park and set up next to a pool in the dark. It was a long train trip to get here, but the showers at the holiday park are brilliant and it sure beats driving!

I went to the toilet block and ran into a local from Ballarat: Matt Britton — who runs the CycleScape bike shop — on his way to Merimbula with his extended family. What a coincidence! Small world… We hit the sack pretty quickly, and we were comfortable enough.

Due to the late night, we slept in to 08:00 and got off from Bairnsdale later than planned as a result, but we had a truly lovely day. We had a coffee and a bacon and egg roll at the coffee truck in the holiday park before we left. It got hot pretty quickly: 26°C (79°F) and sunny all day with not a breath of wind, but the scenery was great and when we stopped — and thus no longer had the sound of our tyres on gravel drowning out the silence — we heard plenty of birds and it was delightfully peaceful.

There were quite a few big old wooden trestle bridges remaining of the old railway and lots of road passes where they have placed two gates slightly ajar: about 30 degrees parallel to each other making turning through them tough with heavily loaded touring bikes. We felt they could be a tad wider apart and not compromise on safety whilst also not forcing us to skid through the gravel, but we can see why they are placed the way they are. I’m sure it was designed and thought through by somebody more knowledgeable than I. It was awesome, however, not having to deal with motor traffic.

When we arrived in Bruthen, we got a taste of what we were missing: a very long convoy of huge Jayco vans that would surely have ruined our day. Leaving “The Enemy” behind, we crossed over the Tambo River and appreciated our car-free paradise all the more. We saw plenty of birds but not much wildlife — we hope that changes tomorrow if we leave camp earlier. We checked into a kitschy caravan park in Nowa Nowa for $60 [I was a bit taken aback by the high price for an unpowered site. The fellow tourist we met, who stayed earlier in the week (i.e. not on the Easter long weekend) said he’d paid $40, so it seems ‘peak’ holiday pricing is a 50% markup! The park was lovely, and perhaps I’m just an old tight-arse, but for a patch of grass and a shower that’s steep by anybody’s measure.] and met another cycle tourist coming the other way, having spent some days around Cape Conran. While setting up our tent, Danielle was stung by a bee, and then had her pink-painted toes pecked by chickens as we cooked our pasta for dinner in the camp kitchen. It was refreshing to see her hen-pecked for once (hoho 😆)!

We’re now off to sleep. Big day tomorrow!

Roaming around Wodonga/Albury

Sat, 18 Dec 2021 18:21:48 +1100

My partner is a criminal barrister, and a few times a year she undertakes circuits, where she travels to a regional court and works there for 3–4 weeks. Sometimes she’ll come home on the weekends, sometimes not, depending on the distance from home. This year her Wodonga circuit has run for the past four weeks, and I’ve joined her for this last week to spend some time together riding around the area, both with her and on my own.

I arrived about noon on Monday and headed home this morning. We spent each day riding a bit, but also exploring Wodonga and eating at a few different nice places around town. Each day we had lunch at a salad bar called Greenstreat. This place was the duck’s nuts. They have different salad options, all super fresh with heaps of great tasty ingredients and a very healthy local following to boot.

A yummy salad from Greenstreat

On Tuesday I rode down to the Hume Weir, where the mighty Murray River starts at the base of the dam wall. I haven’t fished this far up the Murray before so I packed my bike fishing rig and hit the road. I rode along the High Country Rail Trail to Bonegilla, nearly at the lake, then turned off the trail and took the road past the Latchford Army Barracks to the dam wall. Looping around and over the river, just past the trout farm is a little 4WD track heading down below the weir.

I cast some bait lines for a while at the yellow boat markers that designate the off-limits section of the river (for boating). I then headed up to the fence to the weir and there is an area set up for fishermen. My mate had warned me about how strong the current is here but nothing can really prep you for it — it’s ferociously strong. I cast some shiny Tassie Devil spoons up into the current and just drifted them down, which given the fast flow of the river almost meant an aggressive retrieve even without winding! I was fishing with my little Daiwa ultralight travel rod, with 6lb mono and a 12lb leader, so I took about 3–5 minutes just setting my drag correctly. A big brown trout hit the lure just about perpendicular to where I was standing, and OH MY FUCKING GOD what a fight! She took off like a freight train, and I still can’t believe I didn’t snap her off. It’s nearly a Christmas miracle!

A great day’s bike fishing finished with a great fish

I wound her in, let her run, wound her in, let her run. I had no illusions about even trying to get her in the net, as it took all of my strength just to reel her in, and have her piss right off again. When she jumped — quite a few glorious displays of aerial defiance — my heart stopped. But still, no snap off! Despite a valiant effort, she finally gave up the fight and rolled over, but even then I couldn’t reel her in, just from the sheer force of her body weight in the current. After about 45 minutes, I got her close enough to swing my net over the top of her in a fashion I would never employ to net a fish in normal circumstances, but my back was killing me and I was desperate.

Of course there was no to be no catch and release — she was so thoroughly played out that the only fair thing to do was to thank her, snap her neck immediately, put the poor girl out of her misery and claim dinner. Due to my bike not having an esky, it being over 30°C (86°F), and being an hour or so from home — this also meant that my fishing for the day was over.

I called Danielle to meet me on the way and pick the fish up, all the better to get her into ice quicker, and set about cleaning her. It was when gutting her I found seven hooks in her belly. This beautiful old warrior had beaten at least seven fellow fishos. I’ve never seen anything like it in years of fishing, but looking at the current I’m not all that surprised.

I met Danielle on the road out and then rode into Albury, and crossed back into Wodonga to make a nice little 40km loop.

Crossing the Murray at Wodonga/Albury

We rode again each day for the rest of the week, clocking up 40km, 30km and 16km rides as we explored Wodonga, the High Country Rail Trail, Albury and the Murray River. On the Rail Trail, I was riding along and we decided to stop in a quiet bushy area near the Kiewa River for a toilet break, but in the confusion about where I was going to brake, Danielle rode right into the back of me and ripped up her knee in a bad case of gravel rash. I very sheepishly apologised and patched her up as best as I could at the lake with my first aid kit. In Albury, we visited the Botanic Gardens, had lunch at a nice pub and did a pretty good job of hiding how terrified we were about COVID-19 and the NSW Omicron threat.

Danielle’s gravel rash

We cooked up our fish on the outdoor barbeque at the hotel, sampled all the local wine, beer and food we could, and just enjoyed our little week off without the kids. And then, as if the week couldn’t get any better, I scored a job interview with the Starlight Children’s Foundation and — I believe — performed quite strongly, so fingers crossed!

My bike at the Kiewa River

The Kiewa River

Stopping for a photo with this beautiful hairy coo

Hey there big fella!

On the way past Latchford Barracks

Riding around the Hume Dam

Stopping at the historic old Bonegilla Train Platform on the High Country Rail Trail

The Hume Dam from below the weir

Lazing around

A beautiful day

A nice little setup for local fishermen

Fishing at the Hume Weir

The strong current coming out of the weir

A beautiful wild brown trout

Stopped at the Hume Dam historic marker

The road back to Albury

Cooking the fish on the barbeque

Albury Botanic Gardens with Danielle

Lake Hume

A very stupid, dangerous and scary mergin of bike path and country highway

Danielle and my bikes on the Murray River

Danielle near the Kiewa River

Danielle stopped at the Kiewa River

Danielle with Lake Hume behind

Creek near the Kiewa River

Danielle crossing a creek

Danielle at Ebden Train Platform on the High Country Rail Trail

Danielle riding along the Wodonga bike paths

Danielle picking up her bags

Danielle at Lake Hume

Danielle on the High Country Rail Trail

Danielle riding along the Wodonga bike paths