2019-10-03 -37 144

Location

On a hillslope in a gully in Lerderderg State Park.

Participants

Expedition

Today was the day before I was flying to Nepal and also my last day of freedom in Australia before my job started. So it was a perfect time to do a geohash. And as luck would have it - a perfect location for a geohash too.

Lachie and I set out on our bike from our inner-north-west places of residence before attempting to take the train to Bacchus Marsh. Unfortunately, the regional trains were replaced by non-bike-friendly buses. We instead trained to Werribee. stopping only for some potato cakes at the station we set out along the newly residential, industrialised and, finally, windswept, rural roads towards Bacchus Marsh and the hash.

After a brief lunch and milkshake at a nice cafe in Bacchus Marsh we set off towards the hash. It was in Lerderderg State Park along some hilly, dirt roads. It was very undulating, with some extremely variable road surfaces that taxed our narrow bike tyres, but we got to the turn off. We locked our bikes and walked the rest of the way, navigating dried-up streams and abandoned car wrecks.

Within a few hundred metres we abandoned the path and downclimbed into the gully to the hash. It was still a fair walk up the dried gully, and then a very steep climb up the other side of the slope. It took a while to find the exact spot of the hash, which was poised on the slope. We took photos and descended back to the gully, this time to upclimb until we came across the road at a higher point.

Regaining our bikes we retraced our steps to the main road. It was a pretty wild ride alond the Western Highway as the sun was setting back to Melbourne. The final stretch saw us navigating the urban outskirts of Melbourne, where I received a flat tyre, and finally to our respective homes.

Very satisfying bike day out.