Heading North Again

 My last afternoon in Horsham, there was actually a little thunderstorm.  Lots of thunder and lightning to the south, some wind, but not much rain.  The lawn tennis players played right through it.  There was even a nice rainbow.

The next day, I rode through part of the Grampians National Park, through an area that had had a big bush fire just a year ago.  (The Grampians are a small mountain range in western Victoria.)  You can see the new growth on the trees already in the photos below.  These eucalyptus trees are very well adapted to fire.

Grampians Trees

Grampians Trees

Before the big climb over the mountains, I came to a small caravan park at Wartook, where I stopped.  The proprietor told me that the fire the year before had destroyed his house and general store, but right next to them the other buildings were unharmed.  There was even a restaurant just down the road.

The next day I did the 500 meter climb over the Grampians to Hall's Gap, a small tourist town.  The caravan park there still has a huge kangaroo population, which provides lawn mowing and fertilization.  I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone in Hall's Gap owns a lawn mower.

Halls Gap Kangaroos

The campsite was actually quite pleasant, as it was right next to a little stone shelter with tables and even a fridge.  I spent two nights there.  In 2006, the fire came just to the edge of Hall's Gap, but spared the town.

Halls Gap Campsite

Halls Gap Campsite

Sulfur Crested Cockatoos

Leaving Hall's Gap heading south through more of the park, I rode through the area which burned in 2006.  I stopped at the campground where Roger, Wendy, and I stayed in 2001.

Jimmy Creek Campground

Scorched Trees at Jimmy Creek

After a night in Dunkeld, at the southern end of the Grampians, I had planned to go the the coast at Port Fairy, but an equipment failure forced a change of plans. Warnnambool was the only city around big enough to have a bike shop, and I needed to get there before it closed Saturday afternoon.  From Dunkeld I rode to the little town of Penshurst, where I had a table at my campsite, and a free washing machine.  

Mount Abrupt

Then on to Koroit, another tiny town, but just 17 km from Warnnambool, on a rail trail to the city.  Just as I was finishing dinner, another cyclist rode in.  She was from Melbourne, just out for a few days.  Probably the last touring cyclist I'll see.  It rained most of that night, but conveniently stopped before I got up in the morning.

It was a short ride on the rail trail to Warnnambool.  I find Australian rail trails frustrating, because of all the obstacles. Every road crossing has a bunch of barriers which, with a loaded bike, usually requires dismounting.  I did get to town early enough to buy a new pair of bike shorts, though.  The next day, I planned to catch a late bus to Colac, where I had a ham radio contact to visit, so I had the whole day to explore the town, beach, etc.  It was a rare warm Sunday on the coast, so there were lots of people at the beach.  There's nothing but ocean from there to Antarctica, so the water is always cold.  Still, a few brave people were swimming.  I just waded in a little and confirmed that it is indeed cold.  

That morning, while I was working on reeds in the botanical gardens, a German couple stopped by to chat.  (One of them spoke English far better than I speak German.)  I learned that the eucalyptus trees survive fire because the water to the leaves flows in the center of the trunk, not near the surface, as it does in other trees.  

Warnnambool View

Warnnambool Beach

Warnnambool Beach

It was an uneventful bus ride to Colac, where I met Steve (VK3JA) and his wife Alicja.  

With Steve, VK3JA

Steve is a transplanted American who grew up in Minnesota, while Alicja is from the Colac area.  There was a radio contest going on, so I observed Steve operating for a while. The next day, Steve took me on a tour of the area.  Much of southwest Victoria is a land of extinct volcanoes, a couple of which we saw from a viewpoint.

Old Volcanoes near Colac

Some of them were active as little as 10,000 years ago, not that long ago.

That evening, I gave Steve and Alicja a very short oboe recital:

With Alicja

After a very pleasant visit, and lots of great food thanks to Alicja, it was time to hit the road again.

Leaving Steve and Alicja's

On the Road Again

The train to Terang cost all of $7, and I wheeled my loaded bike right into the baggage car.  From Terang, I rode to the little town of Mortlake, where I found a very nice campsite. The next day, I took a more major road back to Penshurst, but it wasn't too bad.  I left the road voluntarily a few times for trucks, but there was no drama.  The weather was getting warmer.  The next morning, I found a really great oboe spot at the sports grounds in Penshurst, and got some reed work done.  Then I rode on to Hamilton, a city of 10,000, with computers in the library.  At the campsite last night, my neighbors were a Dutch couple touring on a motorcycle, carrying even less gear than I.  I had to loan them my knife. With two people on a Harley, there isn't much room, even if the weight doesn't matter.

Now I'm off for the hinterlands, so I don't know when I'll get to update the blog again.  I may ride over into South Australia for a bit, as it looks like a good route, and I'm still in no hurry to cross the border into New South Wales.

Email

For those of you who don't already have my email address, and might wish to contact me, here's a version I hope will fool the spambots:

Remove all the numbers, reverse the order of the letters, and append @gmail.com

Heat Wave

From Hopetoun, I started working my way back south, anticipating a change in winds.  First stop was the small town of Rainbow.  There were tennis courts next to my campsites, with a shady shelter. After school, a couple young boys showed up to actually play tennis, the first I've seen this trip.

Community Tennis Balls?

Tennis Players!

It was (again) too windy to cook, so I went to one of the two "Hotels" (pubs) for dinner.  I was the only customer that Wednesday evening, so the lady publican told me her whole story.  A divorcee, she recently bought the hotel, hoping to make money running it.  It doesn't look good.  I did get a large serving of the lasagna special.

That evening, birds arrived again:

They were equally loud the next morning.

The weather turned warmer the next day, when I rode on the the even smaller town of Jeparit.  It's so small, I couldn't find an internet connection.  No bakery, either.  Some people did show up to play tennis.  My neighbor in the caravan park was a retired local farmer, who was friendly enough, but turned out to be a flaming racist.

Yesterday, the heat arrived in earnest, 38 C (98 F), though I did have a tailwind for part of the 84 km ride to Horsham.  I stopped for water at a farm about halfway, and was invited to stay for lunch.  Geoff and Christine have been farming there for 35 years.  Their daughter, Lorraine, and her husband Andrew were visiting from south of Hamilton, where they raise horses. There were lots of friendly dogs.  Before I knew it, they were feeding me steak, sausages, eggs, and ice cream.  I learned a bit about Australian farming.  Here the growing season is in the winter, when it rains.  After the harvest, or when they leave a field fallow to accumulate moisture, they spray it to keep the weeds from taking moisture from the soil.  They don't plow it immediately, so the dead roots help hold the soil.  In any case, many thanks to Geoff and Christine for a great lunch and visit.  I did get some water, too.

Now I'm taking a break in Horsham, a town of perhaps 10,000.  Last night was very warm, but a cool shower before bedtime made it tolerable.  Sometime in the middle of the night an amazing thing happened:  Rain!  I had to get out and put on the rain fly.  That's the first rain I've seen this trip.  It wasn't much, but the clouds promise more today.  It took a while to find my rain gear this morning.

Small towns in Australia, as in the US, are struggling.  Most have a lot of abandoned businesses in the main street.  However, there always are some nice parks, a swimming pool, sports grounds, and well-kept public toilets.  There usually is a grocery, post office, pharmacy, bakery/cafe, a pub, and a small hospital/clinic.  Conspicuously absent from the businesses are customers.   How they survive at all is a mystery.  I suspect some kind of subsidies.  Pubs are hard hit by the recent crackdown on drink driving, but there has to be a better way to keep them in business than letting drunk drivers kill people on the roads.

From here, I'll keep working my way south for a while.  Warm weather is supposed to continue, though with more south winds.

From Hopetoun

The wind is still blowing from the south, and is supposed to until Friday, but I've gone as far north as I want to go now.

That big high has been parked there for over a week, it's progress apparently blocked by the low to the east.  Air circulates counter-clockwise around a high in the southern hemisphere, and clockwise around a low.  So all that air is getting funnelled between the two straight from the Southern Ocean.  If that high ever shifts off to the east, the wind should shift to the north.  They've had some rain in Melbourne, but nothing but sunshine and wind up here.

My last morning in St. Arnaud, I went back to the big shed at the sports ground.  Here's an 18 second recital to demonstrate the acoustics:

The wind then blew me up to Donald, where I found a caravan park with a great shelter, so I spent two nights there.  Although the shelter provided pretty good wind protection, cooking my beef stew on the alcohol stove was painful.  (It came out OK, though.) 

In the evening, in the caravan park, the usual mob of birds arrived:

Then I moved on to Birchip, a very small town.  The only place I could find to practice was a shelter by the netball courts at the "Leisure Centre".  Once again, my oboe attracted girls, these two were 7.  I learned all about their pet and families.  I told them I was playing an oboe, not a flute.  Then the next morning I went to the library to use the computer, and the librarian asked me if I was the cyclist playing the "flute" the day before.  It turns out one of the girls is her daughter.  It's a very small town.

Then I rode a final 27 km with the wind, before turning west to Hopetoun.  There's a lake here, and this time there is actual water in it.  (It was dry in 2005.)  I'm in no hurry to start battling the wind, so I think I'll spend the day here.  Hopefully by Friday the south winds will let up.

Following the Wind

The wind has been blowing from the southeast for days now, so I'm trying to go northwest.  If it keeps up, though, I'm quickly going to run out of roads.

My citymaps2go app showed a camping symbol near the river in Avoca, and the woman at the information center confirmed that camping was allowed there.  It was free, and I even found a table.  At sunset, the birds in the trees were deafening.  

The next day, I rode to the tiny town of Landsborough, in which I stayed in 2005.  It hasn't changed much, though the pub has new owners.  It had computers in the "Information Centre", though not entirely functional.  There must be a government program to install public computers in these small towns, but without provision to support them.  All seem to be set up the same way, usually with only an old version of Internet Explorer, with which I can't update the blog.

Government programs have also built nice sports facilities in these towns.  The one in Landsborough is a designated shelter during bush fires, hence the sign below.  Fortunately, the fire danger is low now.

Ominous Sign

From Landsborough, the wind blew me northwest to St. Arnaud, another old mining town, though a larger one.  The whole town seems to be built on tailings from the mines. When I asked if the water was safe to drink, the woman at the caravan park wrinkled up her nose and directed me to the rain water tank.  (This is typical since I left the dividing range, where there are reservoirs.)  The Aussies will scoff, but I treat the rain water with chlorine dioxide.  There's an awful lot of birds.

I'm taking a day off, in hopes the wind will let up a bit.  If it ever shifts to the north, it will get hot, and I'll head south.

From Avoca

My last morning in Maryborough was another warm one, but I found a shady spot in the park near my campsite.  Later I discovered that the smallest package of milk powder one can buy in Australia is 1 kg, so I now have enough for at least 21 breakfasts.  I managed to get a computer at the library to fix the missing pictures in the blog.

Oboe Spot in Maryborough

It was just a short ride from Maryborough to Dunolly, a much smaller former gold mining town.  Times are tough in Dunnolly:  the last pub just closed.  Fortunately, there is still a grocery, bakery, and cafe.

Kangaroo Crossing

That afternoon, as planned, I met 7 members of the Melbourne Bicycle Touring Club.  All appeared to be in their 50's or older, another sign of the ageing of bicycle touring enthusiasts.  They were planning day trips from Dunolly over the long Australia Day weekend, though several of them rode to Dunolly from a train station some 60 km away.   I had a very enjoyable time riding and visiting with them.  

Saturday night, a cool change came through, and it's been quite cool ever since, with southerly winds.  Highs have been in the low 20's C (low 70's F), and the nights have been quite cool.

On Sunday, 5 of us rode back to Maryborough, some of it on dirt roads.  I rode back with Heather and Michael on the same route I had ridden the day before, but this time with a tail wind.  I was concerned that they would all show up with super light, fast road bikes, but I was able to keep up without having to work too hard.  (Even though I did have the fattest tires.)  Both evenings we had excellent dinners at the cafe in Dunolly.

Alan, Michael, Heather, and John
Melbourne Bicycle Touring Club

The Melbourne cyclists all left for home Monday morning, and I turned into the wind for the short ride to Avoca.  It looks much the same as when Roger, Wendy, and I stayed here in 2001, though there's a new library with internet access.

From Maryborough

I had a nice break in Maldon.  It has one of the nicest campgrounds I've found in Australia.  There was even a table a the campsite,  Next to the rubbish bins, I found a slightly broken camp chair, which I was able to lash together.

Maldon Campsite

Decadence

I also took a ride on the historic steam train to Castlemaine.  I had a nice chat with the volunteer conductor, a local cyclist.

Historic Steam Train from Maldon

The next day I rode 59 km to Clunes, another old former gold mining town.  There was a nice tailwind, but a mixed blessing, as it was hot, about 35 C (95 F).  No table at the campsite, as usual, but it was quiet and I arrived in time to get the key to the shower.

It's another hot day today, so I got a fairly early start for the short 31 km ride to Maryborough.  Maryborough is a major center, so I'll spend the rest of the day poking around town and relaxing.  It would be nice to find a shady spot to play the oboe.

I've now run into two libraries with Wi-Fi which would not do email with my iPod Touch.  The one in Maryborough does work.