2023-02-28 -36 145

Location

In Rushworth State Forest, Whroo.

Participants

John

Expedition

With continuing the streak of the utmost importance, we were teased with the closest hash being just in Reservoir, but it turned out to be smack bang in the middle of someone's house.

The alternative was, in Lachie's words, "we send someone to the country". About 25km out of Ballarat, there was one in a paddock, but from street view it looked like the paddock was likely to be occupied with cows. There was also one a similar distance out of Bendigo, but that didn't look particularly exciting.

I decided that I would head to the one in Whroo, via a train to Nagambie. This hash lay in natural bushland, and was therefore the most appealing to me. Also, it was only just over 20km from the station, so slightly less of a ride. Streetview however, was only able to give me an indication of the first 5km, so the quality of the roads beyond that were a mystery. It looked gravelly however from that point on, judging from the streetview image.

I looked up the train timetable, and saw that there was a Shepparton train leaving Broadmeadows at 9:52am, that got me into the Nagambie at 11:22am. Then there was a train back the other way at 1:42pm. This gave me 2 hours and 20 minutes to ride a bit over 40km, and do a few hundred metres each way of bushbashing to the hash. It was going to be tight, especially given the forecast suboptimal roads. Otherwise I would have to catch the 3 hours later subsequent train home at 4:52pm.

I didn't have high hopes of making the earlier train but I would give it a shot. I got a metro train up to Broady, whereupon I could buy a paper ticket (!) for the vline. The trip went smoothly, though we pulled in a few minutes late to Nagambie. By the time I was on my bike I was down to a 2hr 16min timeframe in which to return.

When I got to the turn off 5kms out of town, I discovered that my onward route was still sealed. Things must have changed since the streetview image (which I now see was taken in 2010). With a decent tailwind, my speed crept up into the mid 30s. I was beginning to get a bit more optimistic about making my train. But soon after the 10km mark, the road turned to gravel. Not only gravel, very annoyingly corregated gravel. My speed plummeted. My hopes of a swift return faded at the prospect of this being the rest of the way.

But the really bad road only lasted a kay or so. From that point onwards, despite the unsealed road, I was still able to travel at a reasonable pace. Not the 20+km/h I needed, but perhaps fast enough that I could catch up the difference on the sealed section. By this point the surroundings were delightfully forested, with all sorts of birds calling and darting around me, including eastern rosellas and galahs as two I could identify while cruising by. A kangaroo hopped across the road before me, which helped make up for the two dead kangas I'd seen by the side of the road earlier. I also passed an installation of bee hives.

Then I was in the vicinity of the hash. I left my bike just off the road and went into the forest. To the hash was 300 or so of the easiest metres of bushbashing that I had ever done. "Bashing" is not the right term; the floor of the forest was so open, it was bushgliding.

When I got very close I discovered that I had actually been beaten to the hashpoint by a couple of kangaroos that were congregating there. But alerted to my presence, they made themselves scarce quite rapidly. I got there, I snapped a pic, recorded my gps reading, and headed back for my bike. Returning to my bike, I was getting quite confident of making my train, such was the efficiency with which I had done the offroad section. I set off with an hour and 6 minutes remaining, and it had only been 58mins of riding on the way. I was aware that I would be less wind assisted in this direction however. As it turned out, the wind was the least of my concerns.

5 minutes into my return journey was when the wheels started coming off. Well, it was only the rear wheel that came off, and that was in response to me getting a puncture. I had spare tubes, so it wasn't necessarily game over train-wise, but it was looking considerably worse again. After 10 minutes, I was rolling again, but by now time was decidedly against me. But then 10 minutes later, my tyre deflated again, and with it went any hopes of a timely return.

Luckily I had a second spare tube, but this one was going to have to last, as I didn't have a patch kit as a backup. As I inspected my tyre, I noticed a couple of very small rocks that seemed to be inside it, that may have been inadvertently included during the previous, rushed, replacement job, and were very likely suspects for the cause of this second puncture. None the wiser about what caused the first one though.

I gave the tyre a thorough inspection, and couldn't find anything else remaining that would bring me grief, so in went the final tube. Luckily this one held out and got me back to Nagambie, where I now had about 2 and a half hours to kill. I found a bakery and got a spinach and ricotta pastie, and filled my water bottle. There was a brewery in town, but alas it wasn't open on Tuesdays. There were a couple of pubs, but they weren't particularly inviting, with TAB signs out the front and the like. So I checked out the lakeside for a bit, and eventually settled into a little lakeside pod where I read my book to while the remainder of my time away.

I eventually went over to the station, and got the 4:52 train which arrived on time more or less. An uneventful journey later and we were pulling back into Broadmeadows. As we eased to a stop, I gazed out at the McDonalds carpark where the streak had kicked off 10 days earlier. I could have changed back to a metro train to Ascot Vale, but I was happy to ride from here, and that would save me the cost of a 2 hour ticket, so that's what I did, arriving home at just on 7pm.