About an hour later, we pull into the Mobil service station at Officer on the Princes Highway and I see Geoffrey has just arrived on his Honda 900 cc Bol’Dor with Slim the dog sitting on the sheepskin on the tank and Slim’s got his doggles on and he’s as happy as a pig in shit to be off on another adventure. Slim is a ten year old cross between a Blue Heeler and a Rhodesian Ridgeback with a few other bits thrown in and he’s got the trademark ridge of tufted hair on his back that makes him look like he’s angry and he’s gunna bight your arse off but he never does, he only likes to eat cars.
Big redheaded Steve, the Zimbabwean ex copper, is standing over there next to a car, and I look around for his bike, but I can’t see it. I ask him “What’s going on?” and he tells me that the Guzzi died and he wasn’t missing the trip so he brought the old Ford station wagon quadricycle instead and not to worry because he’s got three ice boxes for beer and we can chuck some of our stuff in the car if we want too. I don’t worry about that because I’m packed up pretty sweet and so’s Geoffrey but Marty who hasn’t got anything anyway, throws some stuff in the car. Greg was supposed to be here by now, but he isn’t, and Phil cancelled out so it looks like we’re it. One of the boys asked Marty where his gear was and he waved a cell phone and a credit card about and then we were off to Bairnsdale, just like that.
It’s a grey day and there is a bit of moisture in the air but not enough to cause any problems for us. We’re rolling down the Princes Highway now and so is just about every other person in Victoria. The freeway is jam packed with every kind of vehicle imaginable, loaded to the gunwales with kids and dogs and caravans and boats and dirt bikes, and they are all off on the Easter four-day weekend. Kids are jumping around in the back seats and I can see smiling faces and I guess at all of the pleasurable anticipation travelling down the road with us. Slim is having a ball. He tries to bite the cars as we pass them and the bigger the vehicle, the bigger the lunge to try and bite it. Geoffrey keeps him mostly under control so there are no dramas.
We are riding through the Latrobe Valley now with the foothills of the Great Dividing Range on the left and the Strezlecki ranges on the right. Grey clouds have descended over the Strezlecki foothills, covering the tops with a fuzzy woolen blanket, and then the sun breaks through for a couple of minutes until the clouds win the battle and close us in once more. We pass two cops just before Rosedale, one on each side of the road about a hundred metres apart with the radar going, but nobody can speed with this much traffic on the road. A good reminder, though, to be careful. The local Emergency Services have set up free coffee stops on the side of the road in the bigger towns but we want to make a mile and get to Bairnsdale.
As I ride into the outskirts of Bairnsdale, I’m keeping an eye out for Geoffrey and Marty, and then I spot them in a service station. After I’ve filled up, I see that Geoffrey is sharing a pie with Slim so I agree with that idea and enter the shop attached to the servo for a snack. Marty is sitting at a table wolfing into a feed of hamburger and chips and coffee, which I suspect is breakfast and lunch, and I nod to him as he grins at me over a mouthful of meat, bun and lettuce. Big Stevey rolls in about fifteen minutes later and when he has had a break and fueled up, I tell the troops where the next stop is. You see, this trip is a surprise journey. I’m the only one here that knows where we are going so I’m dribbling information to them as we go along. The next stop is Buchan (pronounced Bucken) via Bruthen. Steve gets his map out and I show him and the boys where it is. Marty is rearing to go so I nod and he’s off with the rest of us following along.
As we get off the main highway, the traffic thins out a bit and the clouds seem to be breaking a little and the road winds over green hills dotted with cattle and sheep and then it crosses over the Tambo river and it gets a bit more twisty so I open up the throttle on my Bimmer (1985 K100 RS BMW) and at last I feel like I am on a motorcycling adventure. Soon we pass through Bruthen, a quiet little country town, and head towards the Nowa Nowa turn off. The road has been renewed here, quite recently, and is a beautiful wide-open thread of bitumen winding up and over the foothills to the mountains that are our destination. I’m cracking it on a bit but I’m still mindful of the men in blue, so I back off to the regulation ton. At the turn off, the main road leads to Nowa Nowa, but we want to go to Buchan so we turn left into higher, more forested hills, and begin the climb along the narrower road. It is still a bit of fun though and soon my speed creeps up a bit. I am encountering vehicles towing horse floats on the way to the Buchan Easter Rodeo so I’m pushing along a bit to round them up and suddenly I am into a left hander a bit hot after sweeping past a couple of the horse floats and have to throw the big bastard down hard, shitting myself but remembering that it will lean a lot further than I think it can and then we’re through and I’m still alive and if there is a God, thank you, I promise I’ll back off a bit and I don’t, I’m into it again. This is great.
The boys are standing outside the Buchan pub, Marty was first in, of course, with Geoffrey not far behind; I don’t know how he rides that old Honda so quickly, especially with the dog on the tank. Slim has found a tennis ball, I don’t know how he does that either, and the boys won’t throw it for him because they know him too well and he is a pain in the arse, so he is trying to push it up the wall of the pub with his nose. It’s a Slim thing; we don’t understand it so we leave him to it. Stevey rolls in a couple of minutes behind us and then its time for a Buchan beer in the Buchan pub and we’ll be on our Buchan way. We go shopping first and Marty has bought a can of beans, a spoon and some hot cross buns. We have steak and fresh vegetables with a nice red wine and some beer.
The plan is to head to Suggan Buggan and make camp for the night. I gather the troops around, yell at Slim to shut up and stop barking at the bloody tennis ball, then I explain how to get to the campsite. I tell them there is about sixty kilometres of grouse bitumen road to the turn off and then about twenty K’s of dirt. Marty nods and he’s off like a robber’s dog with Geoffrey and Slim, Steve, and then me up the back like a tail gunner. The road winds out of Buchan up to the top of a ridge and then follows the ridge out on to the high plains. It’s awesome stuff and I don’t think Mr Plod is out here today, so I wind her on a bit. I catch Stevey in the Ford fairly quickly and then start to make some ground on Geoffrey. He is pretty damn good, but Slim is a bit of a handicap and soon I can see glimpses of him in the distance and for me, that’s like a red rag is to a bull. Geoffrey is a bit better rider than me, but my bike is a bit better than his, and he has Slim, so I start to hunt him down. I think he’s spotted my headlight in his mirrors because he has upped the pace a bit. We are flying across the top of the high plains now, grassy paddocks on either side of the road reaching up into scrubby mountain gums, now down quickly and over a narrow bridge spanning a crystal clear creek then up onto the plains again. The sun is out in its full glory and there isn’t a cloud in the sky and the road is fast and dry so although I am still well within my safety zone, I am going to have to make a decision soon to press on or back off.
I’m nearly on to him and I see that a car is coming up the road towards us. Good, Slim will have a go at the car and that will unsettle Geoffrey for a moment so I move right up on his tail, waiting for the car to come past. Whoosh, it rushes by, Slim lunges, Geoffrey wobbles around a bit so I open her up and I’m gone by and I push on a bit and I know that once I’m out of sight, he’ll back off, so I get into it and then I back off and have a bit of a rest. Mind games, silly old farts, call it what you will, but that’s what we do and what we always have done.
I’m right up on top of the high plains now and I can see the turn off to Suggan Buggan ahead. The bitumen goes straight ahead to McKillop's Bridge but I must take the dirt road to the left to get down onto the Suggan Buggan Creek where we’ll camp tonight. The dirt is only a short run and then there’s a bit more bitumen that runs down off the high plains and then turns back into a gravel road to complete the run down into the valley far below. The road winds through scrubby stunted gum trees to the edge of the plateau and I come around a bend and am mightily surprised at the vision that stretches out in front of me. I’m looking far across a vast valley with blue mountains stretching away as far as I can see. The suddenness of the transformation from lush green paddocks and low hills in the background to this amazing panorama of far away mountains and the huge drop before me takes my breath away, even though I’ve travelled this road before. I’m just puddling along now, drinking in the views that open up as I turn each corner, dropping quite quickly down onto the valley floor. Soon, I spot the campsite and roll into it. There are bench tables with seats attached and fire pits with swing out hot plates and Billy hangers on them dotted throughout the camp site, and a bush long-drop dunny over there on the side of the hill. I pull my bike up onto the center stand and stroll down to have a look at the cold clear water in the swiftly flowing Suggan Buggan Creek.
Geoffrey arrives; Slim leaps off and immediately searches for a stick, stopping only to mark out his new territory. I’ve just done that myself and smile as Geoffrey wanders over to a tree. It’s a bloke thing. Big Steve drives past and over the creek and up the road. We have a quick bet to see how long before he comes back and both lose because he comes back almost immediately. He gets out, pops open the back door so we can grab a beer, and then he too wanders over to a tree.
There is no sign of young Martin and I’m a bit
worried, he should have been here first. We
make our tents and beds, glancing up
to the road every now and again if a car goes past; but no Marty. It’s time for another beer so I pop that
and casually wonder out loud if any body saw any evidence of a young fool
careering off the side of the mountain on the way down but they didn’t so we
discuss whether we should send out a search party and then agree that he
probably tore straight past the turn off and is probably half way to the
coast. It’s been about an hour now and
then Geoffrey says he thinks he can hear something and sure enough, Marty tears
into the campsite with a great cloud of dust billowing up behind him. His helmet visor is up and his eyes are
full of dead and nearly dead insects because he has been riding into the
setting sun and the dust blocked out his visor and his silly bloody dial is
split by a grin from ear to ear. Yep,
he has been to McKillop’s bridge and back, and I know that to be a really rough
track, but he still managed to have a great time even though the front end
threatened to wash out from under him all the time. He hops off his bike and goes over to the toilet for a
leak. City boys, I don’t know?
http://www.acr.net.au/~egn/deddick.html
When Marty comes back from the dunny we tell
him he has a new name and that from now on he will be known as “Wonder Boy”,
because we wonder what the hell fool thing he’s going to do next and then a big
trail bike loaded to the hilt rolls into the camping area. The bike has gear on the tank and on
special purpose racks all the way down to the center of the rear wheel. I don’t know how he can hold it up, but it
appears to be fairly well balanced. A
little bloke in brightly coloured trail riding clothing is piloting it, so we
grab a beer and wander over. His name
is Rob and it turns out that he is a little Pommy tourist from Newcastle on an
extended round Australia tour, and this is his first night in the bush. He’s been down to Phillip Island to watch
the World Superbikes and this is the first leg of his trip. We let him set up his camp and then invite
him to our fire and all he’s got is a can of baked beans so I asked him if he
wanted to borrow my Jaffle Iron and he looked at me blankly. I showed it to him, and he said, “Wot’s
that?” so I built him one and the expression on his face when he had a bite of
it was priceless. He made himself two
more jaffles and vowed to buy an iron at the very next opportunity.
Just before nine a.m., I tell the boys we’re
going to Jindabyne, in NSW, and that there are no turn offs to get lost on and
then Wonder Boy cracks it a bit when he realizes he could have been on the road
an hour ago, but we’re all ready now so he is off in a cloud of dust out of the
camp area. I’m off a minute or so later,
so that I don’t have to eat dust, and the rest follow on. Big Stevey catches me within a couple of
minutes, so I wave him through and I see Slim’s silly big head grinning out of
the window and figure Geoffrey’s hangover might be a bit worse than I first
thought. I’m dawdling, rubber necking,
looking at the trees and the parrots and the mountains and waiting for the
magic moment when the Snowy River first comes into view. The road out of Suggan Buggan is bitumen
for a kilometre or so as it winds up and over a ridge, then becomes a fairly
smooth, although tight, twisty gravel road down onto the Snowy. Geoffrey comes up on me next and I wave him
through as well. He gives it a big
fist full as he goes past and is rewarded with a huge tank slapper, which he
manages to save and then roars off into the distance.
I can see glimpses of the river now and soon drop onto the valley floor. This is an awesome place. Many
years ago, this was a raging torrent but is now reduced to a mere trickle due
to the amount of water siphoned off into the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric
Scheme. The riverbed is very wide and
sandy, but the actual river takes a small portion of its width and now trees,
bushes and even wildflowers have taken up residence in the riverbed. The road winds alongside the river, now
turning in and up over a ridge and then back along the river again. At one point, coming down off a ridge, I
stop for a photo, the broad valley with the river at its base is framed in the
center of the road in front of me and as I take the shot, I hear Rob putt putt
putting along behind me.
After he takes his helmet off, he says, “I can’t believe how fast you people ride those big road bikes on these gravel roads?” He went on to tell me that Geoffrey came past him side ways at what felt like twice the speed of sound, his gear knitted on with ropes and strings and what not, and I told him that Geoffrey was a little bit special in the riding department.
We follow the Snowy upstream for
twenty K’s or so and I find I am doodling along at about 120 KPH with no
problems on most of it but I have to gather myself up a bit when the road
conditions change for the worse halfway through a tight uphill left
hander. I manage that OK and press on
until we turn away from the river and wind up along the Tongaroo River to the
Monaro High plains.
After another couple of photo stops, and about thirty K’s, I reach the look out at the top of the range and find the boys stopped with a Billy on for a brew. There is only ten more K’s of dirt, so we dag around for a while having a cuppa and taking some more photo’s and talking bullshit then we are off again, Wonder Boy in front of course. Geoffrey must be feeling a bit better because Slim is back on the tank of the Honda, his tongue lolling out and his doggles firmly affixed to his face.
As we come out of the forest and onto the bitumen, the change in
scenery, once again, is remarkable. From a closed in forest of mountain gums, we are now out on wide-open
plains and we can see clearly to the horizon. The weather has started to close in a bit and grey woolly clouds blanket
the tops of the hills over to the left. Its not wet but there is a sniff of moisture in the air.
Wonder Boy and Big Stevey are behind me,
but Geoffrey has a couple of moments head start and I have thirty kilometers of
fast wide open down hill sweepers in which to round him up. It doesn’t take long to settle into the
rhythm and I find myself bouncing the needle off the 190 mark every now and
again. This is unbelievable
stuff. This is real fair dinkum amazing
motorbike country and we are going for it. On a couple of occasions, as I approach the crest of a hill, I am forced
to back way off because I have no idea which way the road turns on the other
side of the hill and I am balanced on the edge waiting to counter-steer as soon
as it becomes apparent which way this BLOODY road goes and then, bang, I drop
my shoulder and we are away again This
is awesome stuff, I can see for miles and there is nothing out here on the
roads but us and I am nearly onto Geoffrey and as I pass him, Wonder Boy rounds
us both up and I laugh out loud under my helmet at the sheer joy of blasting
across this fantastic countryside.
At Jindabyne, we fuel up and as it is only a little after eleven, we decide to press on and have lunch at Thredbo, about half an hour or so down the road. Once again, I gather the troops around and explain where we are going to camp tonight. I tell them about a little pub, motor cycle friendly, on the banks of the Murray River at Tintaldra, and explain that we will meet there for a beer and then head down stream a few K’s to a camp site that I know about.
This is a whole different change of scenery again. We are up on the side of the highest mountain in Australia. Mount Kosciusko is 2228 metres above sea level and its cold and grey and misty and the trees are mostly snow gums and hardy snow grasses abound along the sides of the road. We are travelling down a valley with Mt Kosciusko on the right and another range, whose name I don’t know, on the left and then I see a sign warning me to slow down for a toll gate and I am wondering what the hell is going on here and then there it is. A tollgate. It’s gunna cost me six bucks to travel on my own roads in my own country and that pisses me off so I start formulating a plan of attack in my mind. Will I try humour, or scathing dry wit, or will I beg or perhaps just whine, and then I am at the tollgate and this lovely lady can see we are loaded up to tour so she asks if we are planning to stop or are we just going through the National Park and then I think, shit, Slim isn’t going to be allowed through the National Park and then Geoffrey turns up and Slim charms us all through for nothing because the lady has never seen a dog on a motor bike before and we are on our way again.
Thredbo is a ski resort down in the valley in the shadows of Mt Kosciusko, about a kilometer off the main road, and I am out of my depth here. While we are pissing around trying to find somewhere to park in amongst all of the yuppies, Steve drives in and out again so we’ve lost him. The place is wall to wall Rollers and Mercs and Bimmers and Volvos and Dayglo ski jackets in the summer time and blondes with sunglasses on the tops of their heads and Chateaus and blocks of Villas built into the mountain side and its seven bucks for a stubbie of beer and would sir like a Foccacia with Smoked Salmon and Mediterranean Vegetables and all I want is a pie so I need to get out of here damn fast. Wonder Boy looks like he is in heaven and people are crowding around Slim because he has the distinction of being the first dog to have EVER pissed on a lamp post in Thredbo, so he is claiming a lot of territory as fast as he can. He is also keeping an eye out for a stick or a tennis ball, but it is time to go, so I gather up my flock and we are out of here big time. As we ride out onto the main road, the clouds roll back and the sun comes out in all of its glory again.
There is five kilometers of hot mix bitumen between Thredbo and Dead Horse Gap, a road that undulates gently along the valley to the front face of Mount Kosciusko until it drops off the edge to fall down onto the floor of the Murray River Valley. At Dead Horse Gap, the speed limit has been reduced to 60 KPH, and in truth you would be hard pressed to exceed that by a large margin. The road is a very steep down hill run with a series of tight bends that wind through a heavily timbered forest with occasional glimpses out to the valley far below. On this day there is not much traffic, so I just settle back and roll along rubber necking and gawking until I come down onto a clearing at a place called Tom Grogin, which is where the Alpine Way, the road we are on, meets the Murray River. I pull into a little camping and rest area there for a look and it is sensational, of course. The mighty Murray River is not much more than a swiftly flowing creek burbling over rocks and under fallen logs, gathering strength for its journey to the sea in far off South Australia
The speed limit has been raised to 80 KPH now and although I feel I can get along comfortably at quite a bit more than that, I can see why it is there. The road is quite narrow and there is never more than a scant few metres between corners through heavily wooded gum forests, although nowhere near as steep as before. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of Geoffrey and I imagine Wonder Boy is sitting at the bar at Khancoban some seventy kilometers further down the road by now, sipping on a foreign boutique beer.
After fifty kilometers of this, I am starting to tire of it. I didn’t think I would ever say enough to twisty roads but my neck and arms and shoulders are starting to complain and then I come around a corner and the terrain changes completely again. The road is still twisty and narrow but now it rises and falls as it follows a deep gorge on my right and every now and again it runs through a narrow chasm, ripped through the rocky hillside as if a massive trench has been dug with a giant shovel. The walls of the chasms are vertical and clad for many hundreds of metres on both sides with netting that looks as if it has been torn from a giant’s birdcage. The netting is to prevent or contain rock falls but every now and again some small stuff gets through and has been ground up by the traffic leaving a fine gravelly mix on the inside apex of corners throwing a whole new level of concentration into the game. Gone are the sore shoulders and stiff neck as my eyes are sticking out on stalks, trying to peer around the corner in front of me. This goes on for about fifteen or so kilometers and then I am down onto some flat country and there are a few houses on the side of the road and a sign saying slow down here comes Khancoban and I’ve made it in one piece again. I pull into the car park at the Khancoban Pub and try to find a parking spot in amongst all of the other motorbikes.
There are heaps of them here, Hogs
and Tourers and plastic go fast jobbies and there are jackets and gloves laying
on the ground and people lying around on the grass and there is Slim barking
his head off with about thirty new friends to chuck his stick for him and Marty
has a pot of beer going ‘cause they probably didn’t have any Heineken in the
pub and he still has a silly bloody grin splitting his dial and suddenly I am
feeling the heat so I struggle off the bike, completely rooted, and Geoffrey
gives me hand to get the big prick up onto its center stand. Rob puddles in about fifteen minutes later
but there is still no sign of Steve so we order a counter attack from the girl
behind the bar and settle down to wait for a while. Marty has obviously had a ball but Slim was a bit of a hand full
trying to eat all of the traffic on the way down from Thredbo and Geoffrey is
feeling his age a bit at the moment. By the way, did I mention we were both in our early fifties? No? Doesn’t matter anyway, but I’m feeling a bit knackered meself.
Lunch was delicious and Steve isn’t here yet so we have a conference and I wish that bloody young Sheila over there had remembered to put her bra on this morning and I know its hot but do you have to keep lifting up your tee shirt and waving it around like that because not only am I having trouble keeping Wonder Boy’s attention, but I can’t remember what I wanted him to pay attention to. Ah, the destination, I remind them that we are going to Tintaldra but seeing as how Geoffrey and I are a bit tired, we decide against the big loop to get there and figure out a shorter one. Wonder Boy drops the lip a bit at that but stuff him, he has most of his life in front of him to go blasting all over the country side, so we convince him to toe the line.
We say goodbye to Rob, as he is heading off to Cooma and we are going to Tintaldra. Once again, the terrain has shifted. Now we are riding through dairy country, almost down onto the Murray River Valley, with undulating yellow dry hills rolling across to another range on the other side of the river, in Victoria. It is quite warm now and I can see a heat haze shimmering on the road far in front of me, as if it had recently rained and the road was flooded, but its not I can tell you. It is as dry as buggery up here; the grass is short and doesn’t look as if it would be much of a feed for the few cattle and sheep I see in the paddocks. Although it is a lot flatter now, the road still snakes around the edges of the gently sloping hills and we are cracking the pace on again, sensing the end of the days run and a few cold ones in the near future.
We arrive at the pub in a minute or so and its about three o’clock and I’ve had enough so I park it and stroll inside and order a frosty pot, which I duly get. Marty has a mineral water, Geoffrey gets a Bundy and Coke then we wander outside and sit at a table under the shady verandah. Slim doesn’t know whether to have a leak, find a stick or have a fight with the pub’s three dogs. There is a lot of circling going on and a fair bit of arse sniffing and eventually Slim can’t stand it any longer and he gets us a stick. Geoffrey chucks the stick for Slim and the other dogs realize there isn’t going to be a blue so they go and flop on the cool concrete at the other end of the verandah, panting and watching crazy Slim chasing a stick.
Its about four o’clock and there is still no sign of Big Stevey, Geoffrey has gotten sick of chucking the stick for the dog, so Slim is on the other side of the road in the longish grass, barking like a fool and throwing the stick up in the air for himself. Wonder Boy has decided to go home and I understand that because his missus looked a bit shitty on Friday morning when I picked him up. I don’t envy him the trip. We’ve been on the road since nine this morning and he won’t get home ‘til late tonight. That’s a big day in the saddle. Never mind, it’s not my arse. We gave Marty the regulation rounds of the kitchen before he left, calling him all kinds of a weak bastard and don’t bother to go ‘cause if you stay, you’ll only be in the same amount of shit when you get home but he doesn’t listen and it’s only his first marriage so he’s got lots of time to learn.
A little while later, a couple of four-wheel drives pull up outside the pub. It’s my brother-in-law, Terry, and his son and a mate. They have driven up from Albury-Wodonga; about a hundred and fifty K’s down the Murray, to camp with us tonight. Geoffrey has known Terry for twenty years or more, but he hasn’t seen him since my Old Man died seven or eight years ago. Geoffrey is engrossed in a conversation with the publican and hasn’t noticed, and anyway, he doesn’t know Terry is coming; it’s another little surprise. Terry taps him on the shoulder and Geoffrey turns around and his jaw hits the ground and its hand shakin’ and back slappin’ time and more beer if you please publican and away they go. I grin smugly to myself and then Steve comes over the brow of the hill with steam billowing out from under the bonnet of the ford and he pulls up in a white cloud and gets out all red faced and the dogs all decide they might as well have a fight now so I think, “F#$@itt, this’ll stuff up a good trip,” and I go inside and get another beer.
Eventually, the ruckus settles down
and everybody blames everybody else’s dog for starting the fight and we
separate them and then we separate the dogs as well and then I pop the bonnet
on Stevey’s Ford and she’s stuffed mate, don’t you worry about that. We have a bit of a conference and run a
couple of tests and discover that she’s done a head gasket. There is nothing we can do about it now,
because the thing is too hot, so we let it cool down while we organize some ice
and some piss. The camp site I have
selected is a lagoon on the edge of the Murray River, about five K’s down stream
and eventually everybody is ready so we top up Steve’s radiator, leaving the
cap a bit loose so it doesn’t build up too much pressure and to borrow an
expression from Willie Nelson, “We’re on the road again”.
The grass at the campsite is thick
and green and mown, right up to the bank of
the river. Huge Willow Trees hang low,
weighed down by a mass of green leaves, providing darkly shaded areas under
which to set up camp. There is no
firewood here, but that’s OK because I anticipated that and asked Terry to
bring a heap of gas Barbies with him. Geoffrey and I decide to dispense with the tent tonight and pull a
plastic tarpaulin between the two bikes to keep the dew off. The sun is starting to go down now, but it
feels really odd because it is setting behind me and I am looking across the
river into New South Wales and that should mean I am looking to the North and
therefore the sun is setting in the south, but the river winds around in
circles here and almost disappears up its own back side so I am actually facing
east It still feels wrong. My internal compass is all up the shit.
Terry is cooking up a batch of garlic flavoured button mushrooms for nibbles and I have some Smoked Barramundi. Steve has dragged out some cheeses and pickled onions and the other blokes are digging around for biscuits and whatever favorite nibbles they have packed. Slim is over in the long grass, barking his guts out at a stick and the Sulphur Crested Cockatoos up in the high branches of a River Red Gum on the opposite bank of the river are yelling and screeching among themselves about the goings on below, whilst the Kookaburras have the last laugh of all. There is a big splash in the river and the ever-widening ripples shimmer in the dying sunlight, highlighting the spot where a big fish has jumped.
It’s dark now, we have finished tea and tidied up and are sitting around drinking and talking bullshit. We’ve had a visit from a very cheeky Brush Tailed Possum who came right down into our camp looking for some tucker to steal, so we gave him some cheese and stuff and now he is up in the branches above us, eyes red in the torch light. The night sky is cloudless and black and studded with twinkling stars. We have found the Pot and are arguing over where the Southern Cross should be, torch beams arcing up into the night like search lights in a time of war. Soon I am snuggled up in bed and as I lay there, I hear the blokes still softly talking and then I don’t. I don’t know if they stopped, or if I went to sleep.
It would be a good thing if those
bloody Cockies shut up I reckon. The
damn things have been going off their tits for about fifteen minutes now,
screeching and squawking loud enough to frighten the sun back behind the
hills. My head is towards the river so
I roll over and have a look and although the sun isn’t up yet, it has sent a
rainbow of pinks and blues to herald its imminent arrival. It is another cloudless morning and I think
it could be a bit warmer today.
It’s not too bloody warm right now I can tell you, there’s mist rising off the river and dew on the grass and on the tarp above my head and Slim has burrowed under Geoffrey’s sleeping bag so that only his bum and his tail are sticking out.
Me and the Cockies and the Kookaburras are the only ones awake at the moment but no, there is movement on the opposite bank of the river. The cattle are up and about, wandering through the swirling mists and now the sun is a tiny shining ball on the horizon so I crawl out of bed and snap off a few photos, running up and down the river bank like a mad thing, framing cattle with the sun behind a tree and then a shot of the branches of that great big gum tree bathed in a golden glow and then a mob of Wood Ducks sitting in a row on a log in the river.
There is a bit of movement in the
camp now and heads are appearing through tent flaps and out from under blankets
and Terry doesn’t look too flash ‘cause his eyes look like piss holes in the
snow and I reckon he must have been the last bloke into the sack. Geoffrey is up, scratching his balls and
yawning and the mob of white cockies, blinding white against the blue sky, are
flapping and screeching off into the distance, obviously intending to wake some
other poor bastards now that they have all of us out of bed.
After breakfast, we congregate at the front of Steve’s Ford. I’m the only one here with any tools and luckily, I have a spark plug spanner that will fit the Ford’s plugs. Steve takes the plugs out of the head and lines them up along the side of the car like that row of Wood Ducks that were sitting on the log. Geoffrey, our resident mechanical genius has a look at them and we all wait, silently and expectantly for the pronouncement.
“Not as bad as I thought”, he says, and we all breathe a sigh of relief, “but”, he continues, “we aint out of the shit yet”.
He asks Steve to get ready to crank
the motor over and then he puts his fingers into a couple of the plug holes and
tells him to turn her over. He does this
in all six plugholes and tells us that it’s looking pretty good as compression
is fairly even and there is no water in any of the pots. Then he checks the water and oil. There is no water in the oil, and no oil in
the water.
“I still reckon you’ve done a head gasket”, says he, “but I don’t think it’s a big hole. Has any body got any pepper?”
I ask him what the hell for of course, and he tells me that ground pepper will react with the water when it is hot and will block up little holes in a radiator or head gasket.
We come up with two plastic shakers full of the stuff and tip it into the radiator and then Geoffrey says that he thinks he’ll take the thermostat out to increase the flow and keep the water temperature down. Let’s face it. The thing is stuffed anyway, so if we can get it home, it will be a damn site easier to fix there than way up here in the bush, so we do that and fill the radiator up and run the motor until it’s warm then we leave it to sit for an hour while we pack up.
Stevey has to make a decision. It’s his car, so he can either drive it
fifty K’s back up the road to Corryong and try and find a mechanic that is
willing to work on Easter Sunday, or head towards home. I urge him to take a punt ‘cause I hate
going backwards at the best of times and he says, “Yeah, stuff it, let’s go”,
and we are off again. We say goodbye
to Terry and the boys and then Steve heads off and Geoffrey and I stuff around
trying to get Slim on the bike and put his doggles on but he’s pinched a tennis
ball from a camp up the river and now he wants to play.
I breathe a sigh of relief as we turn onto the highway because Steve isn’t parked on the side of the road and my confidence is building as we get more and more K’s under our belts and then we roll into Walwa, thirty K’s down river and there is Steve parked on the side of the road with the bonnet up.
We wander over and Steve says there’s no drama with overheating, she just plain died and rolled to a stop. Geoffrey gets a smoke going and then starts to hunt the problem down and I go for a walk about the town to see what I can see. I buy some coffees and drop them off for the boys who tell me it’s probably a coil and they keep testing. The town is locked up tighter than a drum, the only thing open is the coffee shop but I find an old bloke doing a bit of work on a farm implement behind a shed. We get to chatting about stuff for a while and then I mention the white ford station wagon rotting in the long grass at the front of his shed and “Who’s is that” I ask? He says “It’s mine” and I say “Do you want to sell it?” and he says, “Yeah, five hundred bucks” and I say, “I’ll give ya twenny for the coil”. We waddle over and pop the bonnet and it’s the air conditioned model and the coil is buried under about four tons of pipes and shit and it’ll take us a bloody week to get the damn thing off so that’s the end of that. Geoffrey comes over and confirms that the coil is stuffed and the old bloke says, “Hang on a minute, Ill see what I can find,” and he wanders off and comes back about five minutes later with a BLOODY coil in his hands and we whack her in and she starts and we are on the road again.
The coil cost us twenty dollars. We probably would have paid a hundred but he only wanted twenty and he wouldn’t accept a few beers as well so we thanked him profusely and hit the frog and toad.
We follow the Murray River down stream and I watch as the valley slowly opens out to become the Hume Weir. The water is very low as it has been dry up here for many years now and the levels all over the state are down to a near record low. I can clearly see the river winding its way along the bottom of the dam now, the high water mark has been dry for so long that it is grassed all the way to the river’s edge, many hundreds of metres away. Thousands of dead gum trees, drowned when the water level rose after the dam was first constructed are now once again on dry land and a road, long submerged, has reappeared and I see a tractor moving along it as a farmer makes use of the acreage exposed by the drought. The road undulates and twists along the edge of the river revealing new sights around every corner and I am following Geoffrey and smirking to myself as his bike veers toward the center of the road every time Slim makes a death-defying lunge at a passing motorist. I can picture him being plucked off the tank on the bike if he ever manages to snap his jaws onto a passing mirror. I wonder who will get the biggest surprise, the dog or the motorist, but it never happens.
We are waiting for Steve to catch up, at the turn off to Tallangatta and it isn’t long before he sails past, thumbs up and grinning. Methinks the pepper has done the job. I reckon we’ll get the bloody car home now.
Once again, we turn away from the river, quickly crossing over a hilly pass to another valley on the other side, and then stopping briefly for lunch at Tallangatta. We are going to Bright, at the foot of Victoria’s ski fields, so we follow the Kiewa valley for a while before turning towards Myrtleford and then left to Bright. This is tobacco country now with open fields full of the strange looking plant stretching off into the distance on both sides and drying kilns made from corrugated iron dotting the paddocks along side the road.
We are tiring earlier in the day and I am grateful when the sign tells us we are almost into Bright but suffer a rude disappointment as we roll into the township proper because I thought this was a quiet little country town and we were gunna stop here at a caravan park and get a shower and a feed at a pub but no way Jose ‘cause the place is jumping with tourists. I mean choc-a-bloc jumping. I can’t even find a spot to park my bike and it’s four o’clock so we have a conference and decide to get the f$%# out of here and we’ll bush camp it again. Steve and Geoffrey do a bit of shopping while I check the caravan parks just in case but it’s no go, not with the dog so we press on with the sun low on the horizon and hitting us full in the face making it hard to see. I am just a little bit worried because it is my job to find somewhere to prop for the night and I have no BLOODY idea where to go. I am scanning the country side as we travel along just in case I see somewhere suitable but I doubt it and I’m thinking I’ll head to the lake at the foot of Mount Buffalo and as we sweep over a narrow bridge on the way there I spot a place that looks pretty good but there is a sign and it says no camping. Shit. I look closer and it says you can’t camp here but you can camp at the Nug Nug Reserve and that’ll do me mate so we’re in.
http://www.mtbuffalochalet.com.au/
This is a bonus I’m happy to tell you. I had no idea this place was here. It is a little reserve snuggled at the base of Mount Buffalo and it’s run by a group of long time campers on a volunteer basis. There is a shower block over there and some pine trees for shade and it’s on a clear creek and there is a pile of fire wood just here so I pop a tinnie and chat to the locals.
Slim is welcome but he has to stay tied up and he doesn’t give a shit about that mate, he’s found a fire to sit by and he looks like he’s settled for the night. It is a gorgeous clear late afternoon in the mountains and I reckon it’ll be cold tonight but not too bad so we sling a big tarp over Steve’s car and throw another big tarp on the ground and that’ll do us for a house tonight.
I announce that my intention is to
bathe and the boys snigger at me but I don’t care, I want to be warm and clean
so I gather up my stuff and head for the shower block. It’s dark in here and although I can see a
light globe up there on the roof, I can’t find a light switch. A bloke comes in for a leak and tells me
that the light will turn itself on when it gets dark enough. That reminds me of one of my former wives
but I’ll let that one go and get my gear off. There should be a couple of taps here somewhere I reckon as I fumble
about in the dark but I can only find one and then the light comes on and there
only is one tap and now I know what the bastards were sniggering at.
Yep, it’s a cold shower alright and I’m
shivering like a dog shitting razor blades but I’m clean and I don’t smell like
an old sock so I rub like buggery with my towel and now the blood is flowing
again and I’ve got clean clothes on and my skin is tingling and I could eat a
horse.
Slim is snoring softly on the tarp between Geoffrey and me. We are all in bed and I have just been reflecting on the last three days and how good it has been to get away with these blokes. Nobody has so much as muttered a word out of place. It has all been good-natured bantering with long agreeable silences in between and lots of really good adventuring. After tea, I went visiting the other campsites, as is my wont, with a couple of cans in my pockets and one in my hand. I told a few jokes and heard a couple of new ones and met some nice people and chatted about our weekend and their weekend and finally retired to bed completely at peace with the world and myself. It’s a bit cool out; I think it might be a two-dog night tonight.
The sun is bright and the
sky is a brilliant cloudless blue. We
have been up for an hour, piddling around making coffee and jaffles, packing up
the gear and chatting to the locals. Steve’s car hasn’t missed a beat, nor lost a drop of water, so we are
confident of getting the old bugger home today. The car I mean. The
plan is to skirt around the edge of Lake Buffalo then cut across Black Snake
Range to Whitfield. It is marked as a
four wheel drive track on the map but I think I have been over it before so we
are going to have a go at it. Its all
bitumen on the other side, so this is our last chance for a bit more adventure.
The track was a piece of cake, a bit rutty and a couple of steepish spots here and there with some whoopty doos (short sharp crests) thrown in to keep us on the ball. A couple of four wheel drives were pulled up on the side of the track while they changed a wheel and the look of surprise on the people’s faces as we sailed past on big road bikes with a dog on the petrol tank was precious. Steve was held up for a little while but we are here in Whitfield now and I can’t find Geoffrey.
I find Geoffrey sitting under the shade of some gum trees on the deck at the Whitfield Hotel while Slim laps water noisily in the creek below. This pub has a reputation for presenting a fabulous counter meal, but unfortunately, we are all a bit stuffed and we want to press on. It looks like we’ve saved the best bit for last. It’s a sixty kilometer strop across the mountains to Mansfield, first climbing fairly quickly out of Whitfield, past a sign warning that a “High Motor Cycle Trauma Area” is ahead and I know that ‘cause one of our blokes is still limping as a result of a crash up here years ago but we press on a bit anyway. I pull out to pass a couple of four wheel drives each towing a caravan and then I see Geoffrey in my mirrors and I f#$%tup so I wave an apology at him and grab a hand full of throttle and the big bastard digs in and we tear off up the hill and I’m not tired any more. I bloody love this. We are ripping across the top now and it’s long sweepers and then tight and twisty with a sheer drop over the side and power cables stretching for a kilometer or more from the top of one mountain to another and now back into sweepers and again down through the twisties and finally I back off and roll slowly onto the flat country approaching Mansfield.
The town is full of tourists on the way home and there is a bit of a queue to get fuel but we get some and then we park in the shade and wait for Steve who is no doubt stuck behind all of the angry cage drivers that we have just blown into the weeds on our mad flight over here. But it was good fun so stuffem. Lunch is fish burgers and chips and a hot dog without the roll for Slim and as we saddle up again and Slim jumps up onto his sheepskin, a big red late model BMW motor bike bumps up onto the grass beside us and a Copper about ten feet tall and as skinny as a rake unfolds off the thing. “Shit”, I think, “This is all we need”, but he’s not interested in Slim, he just wants some names for his book because there is a blitz on motor cyclists this week end and am I ever glad he wasn’t up on the hill an hour ago but he wasn’t so he waves us on and wishes us luck and we are off again.
There is so much traffic on the road now that I begin to despair of ever getting home today. The highway is chockers and we are just picking them off one at a time, gradually moving to the head of the group and then coming onto the tail of another group and passing them and the brain is in neutral and it is BLOODY hot and finally we are at the Kinglake turn off, so we stop and wait for Steve. He’s not that far behind so pretty soon the hand shaking is all done and we promise to do it again and we don’t piss around too much ‘cause we’ve said all there is to say so he goes his way and we go ours.
After another while, Geoffrey and I slow down, reach out and slap gloved fists and we also go our separate ways. I am using every back road I know now, to avoid the traffic but to no avail because so is every body else and I cop it sweet and settle into the routine of wending my way slowly home. I’m getting bored so I have a bit of a sticky beak at the traffic around me just for something to do. There is a stark contrast to the behaviour in the cars now as compared to Friday, the occupants have a somber look on their faces and the kids are sprawled out asleep in the back and I guess I’m not the only one that will be glad to get home.
Mikki the Siamese cat is laying sprawled out on the back of my old ute, parked in the driveway at home. She gets up and arches her back and then waits expectantly for a pat and a rub as I pull the bike up onto its centre stand for the last time this trip.
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