Prelude
A litany of creeks and rivers; the Merri, Mullum Mullum, the Maribyrnong, Kororoit, Dandenong, Moonee Ponds, the Yarra. All trails we ride with the impending Great Victorian Bike Ride in mind. Trees scarred with ceremony, the burnished gold cupolas of orthodox churches, a kangaroo by the western ring road unconcerned by the roar of trucks and tradies utes, artichokes and fennel growing wild, the last of spring’s wattles bright yellow with blossom. We train on the road as well, out in the hills beyond the city where tall trees grow and parrots flash past, a blur of neon green and red and blue.
Inland
A day of manoeuvring our team of four (Patricia, Paul, Michael & Anna), our bicycles and our gear to Halls Gap. A night of settling. Waking the next morning to great whirling flocks of corellas and white cockatoos. The sky overcast, the mountains brooding. At 6 am there is already a long queue at the coffee cart and a mass of bodies on the move. Superheroes cheer us as we leave the campground and set out on the seven days, 530 kilometres Great Victorian Bike Ride. En masse with 4,200 other cyclists we pedal, the Grampians Road partially closed to traffic, the camaraderie among riders strong, a few peeling off just out of town with until-now undetected mechanical failures.
The sky clears and the sun shines. Riding in dappled light through tall eucalypt forests and a flowering understory of tea tree, grevillea and grass trees. And then the climb up over Mirranatwa Gap. People off their bikes and walking, boy and girl racers lightning fast on the ascent, us taking it steadily and reaching the top of the pass with gears to spare. A good morale booster for the long climb up Lavers Hill that we know lies ahead in three days. The Grampians (Gariwerd) all the while beguiling, its ancient rock art a secret, its rugged sandstone ridges and mountain peaks dusky red and magnificent.
Arriving in Dunkeld in the warmth of the afternoon we set up camp on the home straight of the racecourse, famous for its annual picnic races. We enjoy a drink at the Royal Mail Hotel and a very convivial dinner with Anna’s brother Terry who lives locally.
A star-studded night sky. Ice covering the tent when we wake on the second day of the ride. The earth’s shadow soft blue and Mt Sturgeon and Mt Abrupt luminous in the dawn light. Leaving the grandeur of the Grampians we ride into a pastoral country of rolling green plains, merino stud farms, western district homesteads, shearing sheds and windmills.
Freewheeling the winding, gentle back roads; a slight tailwind and the sun on our backs. Learning to speak the language of the peloton: car up, car back, passing on the right, rider behind. Hawks hanging in the sky, cockatoos screeching. The volcanic hills of the western basalt plains smoky on the horizon. Some scientists believe that these volcanoes are not extinct, merely dormant. There are aboriginal stories of rocks and fires coming from these mountains and when Major Mitchell climbed one of the volcanoes in 1836, he observed that it looked as if it had been active not so long ago.
Through almost abandoned country towns, crows calling in a dirge-like chant as we cycle through the intersection where five young people and a truck driver tragically lost their lives five years ago. On to Mortlake, our destination for the evening, small children lined up outside the primary school to wave the strange horde of riders into town, older children with clipboards furiously noting down observations for an assignment as rider after rider sails past.
Mares’ tail clouds clear to a bright blue sky. The afternoon warms. The CWA, the Bowls Club and the Football and Netball Club are out in force, welcoming riders and raising funds for community projects. The population of Mortlake is 1,200. For one night the town swells to accommodate more than 5,000. The normally deserted after-dinner main street swarms with cyclists keen to linger in the balmy evening after the day’s 90-kilometre ride.
Egg rolls and an espresso at a Mortlake cafe which opens at 5:30 am for the one-night-in-town cyclists. Quiet country lanes, Cyprus windrows, cows lost in paddocks of rump-high lush grass, curious calves lined up against the fence. Alan Marshall country. The writer spent his childhood here, stricken with polio yet roaming the bush on his crutches or on horseback. Remembering it all in I Can Jump Puddles.
A kamikaze chicken races alongside Michael then, bang, into his front wheel, unsettling both rider and bird. Old weatherboard farmhouses with verandahs. Farmers out by their front gates, watching the slipstream of cyclists ride past. Lunch in the sun on the jetty at Boggy Creek as bemused fishermen return from their morning’s fishing to find their quiet world overtaken by thousands of chattering cyclists.
The Coast
Seventy kilometres from Mortlake we arrive at the sea and turn southeast into a headwind that we push against for the next 30 kilometres. The Bay of Islands, the Bay of Martyrs, emerald green seas, white caps, rocks shattered by the wind and the waves. Port Campbell abuzz. A final climb to our campsite on a grassy hill overlooking the southern ocean and the twelve apostles. Sea winds, a sea mist, sea skies. People atop the hill at sunset watching the light sink into the sea and night settle on the earth.
We wake early to a misty pink sky and are soon on our way. A surge of cyclists keen to be on the road before the wind stiffened on this the steepest and toughest day of the ride. 85 kilometres and several steep climbs between here and Apollo Bay.
Of the 4,200 cyclists, 1,800 are school students and their teachers and parents. The rest are young families, road racers, eccentrics, loners who feel comfortable in the anonymity of such a crowd and people like us with time and energy on our side. The young riders are tenacious, even when the hills are arduous. The schools say their cycling program and participation in these Bicycle Network events teach their students’ life skills including teamwork, resilience and leadership. You can see the truth of this in their attitude and in their spirit.
Coasting with the sea on our right and marvelling at iconic landscapes like Loch Ard Gorge and the Twelve Apostles. Until we leave the wild beauty of the southern ocean, ride into the mysterious green of the Otway Forest and start the long, slow 20-kilometre climb up Lavers Hill. Strangers urging each other to keep spinning, the youngest rider only seven years old, the oldest over 80.
Tall moss-covered trees, yellow-tailed black cockatoos, the promise of respite. We luxuriate on the warm green grass of Lavers Hill Consolidated School and enjoy an espresso while children wander around mystified as to why their sandpit and play equipment has been commandeered by a multitude of cyclists.
A coffee van is part of the travelling circus that is the Great Victorian Bike Ride, as are water ‘tanks’, bike mechanics, toilets, showers, device charging tents, a colossal dining tent, a kitchen, bars and an outdoor cinema.
Day four, 44 kilometres ridden, 44 kilometres still to ride with tired legs and stiff shoulders. An initial exhilarating downhill ride through the forest. The ‘descent into hell’ as one marshall knowingly described it, for what follows is an unrelenting climb up over Hordern Vale. As one hill seems to flatten, another reveals itself and then another. Spinning, spinning, spinning – albeit slowly. Willing ourselves to endure. Then finally reaching the clearing in the forest that marks the end of the climb and the beginning of a joyous five-kilometre downhill ride into Apollo Bay. Locals cheer us on from the roadside as if we are riding the Tour de France. On arrival, all we can muster is energy enough to collect our gear, erect our tent, shower and make our way to the canvas bar for a reviving ale.
Rest Day
We are up at dawn, despite it being a rest day. A dazzling coastal morning, a long leisurely cooked breakfast at a cafe in town, a recovery session run by a physio on placement at the Apollo Bay hospital, then some non-active recovery, moving slowly through the afternoon.
In the late afternoon in the camp bar, a fellow cyclist comes over, introduces himself and shows us a photo on his phone. ‘It’s a lovely photo’ he says. It is a photo of us (Michael & Anna), taken in 2006 on the Great Ocean Walk, not far from where we are now sitting. We had shared a couple of evenings in shelters with a group of four friends and one of them has recognised us, 10 years later. Extraordinary.
The Coast Regained
A sparkling start to the day. The sea shimmering, the sky clear blue. Until the weather from the cloud forests comes in carrying rain, though not enough to dampen the spirit of the riders. We are all held at Apollo Bay until 8 am and then released en masse to ride the Great Ocean Road, closed to car traffic all the way to Lorne. A rare pleasure. The sea soon turquoise. The vistas sublime. Hugging the coast, the waves breaking on the shore, riders talking their way up and down the hills – riders up, passing on the right, merging – a chorus, a slipstream, the wind at our backs, the hills easy in the conditions, the cadence on song as we pass through small coastal towns, the haunts of our youth. Skenes Creek, Wongarra, Kennett River, Wye River. We stop at the Wye River General Store for coffee and an excellent pan chocolate, the only sobering note to an otherwise pitch-perfect morning being the bushfire ravaged slopes, now cleared of trees, and the landslides that have closed part of the road.
At Lorne, we are held again until all riders are safely in. Cyclists and hungover schoolies swell the pedestrian traffic on the foreshore until the all-clear is given and, back on our bikes, we join the never-ending procession of cyclists riding through town and spinning eastwards. Bicycles of all persuasions; slick carbon fibre road racers, hybrids, dragsters, steam-punk machines, mountain bikes, fold-up bikes, electric bikes, tandems, a quint (5-person bike), and bicycles towing trailers where young children sleep. On past Eastern View, Aireys Inlet, the Split Point Lighthouse and Anglesea. The sea, always the sea. Surfers out riding the waves and beyond them an infinity of blueness. To Bellbrae and another grassy paddock, another gentle night. Near our tent, two ukulele players and a small group of singers gather in a circle and sing lullabies long into the deep dark night.
Kangaroos watch us as we pedal away from Bellbrae on the second last day of the ride. A silver morning. The clouds, the sea, the road, all silver. The promise of a short, easy day of riding. Point Addis to Bells Beach to Torquay. A surfing mecca. Almost as many surfers in the water as cyclists on the road. An ambulance called for a fallen rider, an incident that tempers our ride. A coffee in Torquay with the lovely Megan and Luke, locals there now. A bicycle trail, 13th beach road, a back road right on the edge of the surf, lunch at Barwon Heads, then Queenscliff. A scramble of tents strung out along the foreshore between the fort and the harbour. The picturesque Queenscliff Pier, ships coming and going through the Heads, stately Victorian mansions, their splendour long faded but still alluring. A balcony bar where we celebrate the ride with champagne and oysters, basking in the warmth of the afternoon. A peaceful night in the shadow of the black lighthouse, one of only three black lighthouses in the world, its flashing white light keeping safe ships and sleepers alike.
The End
An early and chaotic breakfast at a very unprepared Harry’s Kiosk. The last day of the Great Victorian Bike Ride and by necessity a more prosaic route today, except for the section around Port Phillip Bay and through the coastal towns of Indented Head and Portarlington. Car traffic on the increase and all focus on the road now, rather than on the landscape. Even so, cycling into Geelong and to the end of the ride isn’t an anticlimax. Costumed superheroes and crowds of people with clappers cheer us to the finish post. We cheer for the good-natured camaraderie of the travelling festival that is the ride, the fun we had as a team of four, the weather that favoured us for nine days and for the beauty of the country we rode through.
