Saying goodbye to old, faithful stuff

Does anyone else feel a little sad when a piece of kit you’ve had for a long time finally falls apart?

I do.

Maybe I’m too sentimental.

But there’s a slight sense of loss when something you’ve had for many years, and have been through many adventures with, is no longer up to the job.

For me recently it’s been a pair of bike shoes, a pair of hiking pants, and a silk sleeping bag liner.

Old bike shoes

They don’t sound like much, but when I think of the things I’ve done with them, I’m a little sorry to see them go.

The shoes were my first “proper” bike shoes, and the first ones I used with cleats and SPD pedals.

I remember the first time I used the cleats and fell off my bike as I stopped at a red light in Adelaide and couldn’t get my feet out of them. Embarrassing, but luckily it was early in the morning and there wasn’t any traffic.

Those shoes have also done two Otway Odysseys, adventure races, mountain bike rogaines, the Round the Bay, and thousands of kilometres around the country. Sigh.

The pants were from Mountain Designs and had zip off legs. They’ve carried me through Tasmanian bogs, scratchy scoparia, and scree. They had holes and tears but that never bothered me. Each one had a tale. Unfortunately, putting them on the other day, my toe got caught in one of the holes and created a huge tear. Irreparable. Sigh.

The sleeping bag liner I’d also had for many years and has ensured I slept many a comfy night in my tent or at backpackers’ hostels.  But while on a three-night hike to Tarli Karng in Victoria’s Alpine National Park recently (which I’ll blog about soon), a small tear became bigger and bigger and eventually too big for the liner to be effective anymore. Sigh.

But with the loss of old stuff comes the excitement of new. I’ve now got new and upgraded bike shoes, new pants and sleeping liner. New things for new adventures.

New bike shoes!

 

 

 

New discoveries

With all the riding I’m doing training for the Around the Bay ride next weekend, I haven’t had much time to spare for other outdoorsy stuff.

My training rides generally take at least half a day, leaving me too tired to do much for the other half and leaving the rest of the weekend for chores.

But the last couple of weekends my fiancé and I have managed to do a couple of short, half day trips to explore some places not normally on our radar – the National Rhododendron Garden near Olinda in the Dandenong Ranges and Werribee Park, west of Melbourne, on the way to Geelong.

Both places exceeded our expectations and are now on our list for future picnics with friends.

The rhododendrons were flowering when we were at the Rhododendron Gardens on a showery and windy day. But the dull light of overcast skies were unable to dim the bright colours of the thousands of flowers in bloom. Who knew there were so many kinds of rhododendron? Plus a wide wide wide range of other flowers.

Many colours

Banksia

Yet to burst protea

Protea

The garden’s paths took us down into native forest where we saw a lyre bird scratching amongst the undergrowth. On the way back up we passed a large, flat grassy area that’d be perfect for picnicking and kicking the footy on. There were also great views across a valley to nearby ranges I couldn’t identify.

Werribee Park was another pleasant discovery. As well as being home to Werribee Mansion, which was built in the 1800s by wealthy Scottish pastoralists the Chirnsides, it’s also home to the Victoria State Rose Garden.

We picnicked in the rose garden but the mansion’s grounds also have plenty of places to throw down a rug in the shade of a towering tree.

While the grounds and gardens are free, it costs $8.50 for adults to go into the mansion. But it’s totally worth it. The mansion has been beautifully restored and gives an amazing insight into what life was like for the wealthy in Australia’s colonial days.

Werribee Mansion

The tower

The view from the first floor veranda

My favourite room, the billiard room

So, just in time for the warmer months, we’ve discovered two great places to picnic with friends. And kick the footy.

 

 

Sherbrooke Forest

I’m slowly ticking off walks in the Dandenong Ranges. Fringing Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs, the Dandenongs are a nice range of forested hills dotted with pretty towns and criss-crossed by a network of trails.

The other weekend I went for a look at the Sherbrooke area. It’s a little patch of tall forest, creeks and gullies filled with tree ferns. There’s nothing particularly spectacular about the scenery other than it’s just a nice place to be out and about in.

It’s a very family friendly spot. The car park area is at Grants Picnic Ground where there’s a café and gift shop and a feeding area for parrots and cockatoos. It’s extremely popular with tourists and kids. And the cockatoos seem to appreciate the free feed.

Anyway, this day I decided on doing a loop walk that was a reasonably easy two hour wander, linking up a number of tracks. The tracks went from being narrow and muddy to broad and gravelled. One of the most impressive things about the walk are the Mountain Ash trees that are high and grow perfectly straight. They’re as if ships’ masts have been stuck in the ground. And for that reason they were cut down by early settlers for masts, railways, piers and bridges.

 

A ferny gully

I did a loop walk that started with the Lyrebird Walk, then Hall Track, Foden Track, Paddy Track, Welch Track, and finally Coles Ridge Track back to the car and carpark. That’s a lot of tracks for not much distance. Paddy Track is interesting in that, in the direction I took it, is a long, steep descent into a gully. The climb up out wasn’t too bad. Not as steep.

Anyway, there’s not really a lot more to say about this walk, other than it was a nice couple of hours out. I drove home a less direct way and passed a café that looked quite cute and that I’m looking forward to trying the next time I’m in the area.

A cyclist’s lament part one: car doors

I nearly got doored the other day. It’s probably the closest I’ve come to being knocked off my bike by a careless car driver throwing open their door since I moved to Melbourne nearly three years ago.

There I was, happily pedalling my merry way home on Friday afternoon, thankful for the end of another working week. The next moment my heart was pounding at the close call and I was left seething at the selfishness of drivers who don’t check for cyclists before opening their doors.

This particular Friday I had decided to change my usual route home for something different. I also wanted to see if I could find a café that had been getting some good reviews with the wishful thought that I might try it out some time. (Wishful because in Melbourne, as soon as a café or restaurant gets a good review in the local papers, you’ve got bugger all chance of getting in because everyone else decides to go. But that’s a rant for another post.)

Anyway, I was pedalling along, not particularly fast, looking at the park on my left, thinking of the café I was looking for when suddenly, when I was alongside a car parked on the side of the road, its driver’s door was suddenly flung open. It was the only car parked along this stretch of the road in front of the Alfred Hospital. I got such a shock I only had time to gasp and breathe “ffffuuuuuuuuuuuccccckkkkkkkk”. Thankfully I was far enough away from the car that it didn’t get me.

I only caught a glimpse of the driver as I passed. She looked shocked. Obviously she didn’t look behind her before opening her door. All I could do was look back at her and shake my head.

I’m usually hyper-aware when I’m riding my bike in the city. If I’m passing a line of parked cars I always slow down and look inside the cars ahead of me to check if there’s a driver inside who might open their door. But this afternoon I just didn’t notice this one car parked outside the hospital.

But really, just as riders should be careful riding in traffic, drivers should also be aware of bike riders and always check behind them before opening their door. I’m a car driver and I do. It only takes a second. And if it means they avoid knocking over a bike rider, it saves the cyclist, and themselves, from all sorts of grief.

This will be the first in a potentially long series of rants about the treatment of bike riders on the roads. 

Werribee Gorge – again

After my last walk at the gorge went for just two hours, I thought I’d head out again and try and lengthen my next trip by checking out the Centenary Trail.

The trail branches off the gorge circuit trail and heads out to a landform called the James Whyte Island Reserve. It’s been given the ‘island’ tag because it looks like one, with the Werribee River and gorge on one side and Myrniong Creek and its valley on the other. It’s quite am impressive sight, flat topped, steep sided and covered in grass.

The island, through the trees

 

The track leave the gorge circuit trail and descends gently through open, rocky  woodland into the gorge, reaching the bottom at Junction Pool. It’s a pretty spot to sit and while away the time. A sign says it’s a place where native water rats and platypus make their home. From there the track crosses Myrniong Creek and steeply climbs the edge of the island.

Junction Pool

In the valley you can see plenty of green plastic protectors for newly planted young trees and shrubs. A sign along the track explains they’ve been planted in an effort to create a bush corridor to connect the Lerderderg park in the north with the Brisbane Ranges in the south. Fingers crossed it works.

The view from the top of the island is impressive – down steep sides into the gorge and all the way to Melbourne’s skyline, the Dandenong Ranges and You Yangs Regional Park.

I followed the track back to the gorge circuit and then instead of doing the full circuit, took the short circuit walk for something different. It was an easy although slippery walk on hard compacted earth that had a thin layer of moss on it. The track came out at Meikles picnic area where I had lunch and a nice hot drink using my little gas stove. Bit of a shame to see a burnt out van in the picnic area. Obviously something criminal happened there in the two weeks since I last visited.

A wary wallaby

Followed the same track I walked the last time I was here, saw another koala, got to the car and headed home. This time I was out for about four hours. Still time to get home and clean the bathroom.

 

 

Werribee Gorge

I sometimes wonder who the parks people are thinking of when they give  estimated times to complete a walk. Very slow, unfit people I think.

I recently went out to Werribee Gorge, about an hour drive out of Melbourne on the way to Ballarat, to do the 10km circuit walk of the gorge. I was expecting to be out for at least half the day as the track notes suggested it would take about four hours. It took me two-and-a-half – and I wasn’t walking quickly or failing to stop and take in the views and scenery.

The view back to Melbourne and the Dandenong Ranges

While it ended up being a short walk, it was still a nice time out. And it meant I was home in plenty of time to do some housework.

I parked at Meikles Point picnic area by the Werribee River that cuts through the gorge. The track passed the toilets and then went up a ridge through some nice forest to the top of the gorge. The walk up the ridge was a great way to warm up on a cool day. Passing under some eucalypts I spotted a koala high in a tree, swaying in the breeze. It was too far away to get a decent photo unfortunately.

The track wound around above the gorge, passing spots that gave views back down to Melbourne and the Dandenong Ranges and down into the gorge. It then went steeply down into the gorge along a rocky track and joined the river below.

Looking down into the gorge

It’s a nice river, narrowing and flowing swiftly in places before widening out into flat, calm, reed flanked pools that the track notes say are home to platypus.  The track comes to a nice beach, Needles Beach, that would make a great spot for a swim on a hot day.

Needles Beach

The track continued to follow the river’s edge with a bit of rock hopping here and there, including a bit of adventure where you had to hold onto some wire rope that had been attached to a rock wall you had to get around.

Adventure!

It then joined an old aqueduct which ended back at the picnic area where I’d parked the car. All up a nice, easy, short walk.

Feeling sickly

I’m sick. I hate being sick. Bloody flu. I’ve got all the symptoms – headaches, congestion, coughing, sore throat. Basically everything that would make going out and attempting anything outdoorsy very unpleasant.  It’s frustrating because from my sick perch on the couch, the view through the living room window is of blue sky and friendly, fluffy clouds. Sigh and dammit.

Blue sky outside

I’ve struggled through a week of this flu without trying to take too much in the way of medication. I’ve found it’s never helped much in the past anyway. Especially when they replaced pseudoephedrine in Sudafed tablets. But today, after several mornings of waking up coughing and feeling terrible, I’ve had enough. My outdoor adventure today was a trip to the chemist, where I bought syrups and gargles and tablets and powders and vitamins. I’m going to try hitting this flu with everything the pharmaceutical industry spends millions  of dollars in advertising saying they can fix.

I know that rest is one of the only things you can do to get over a flu. And it’s something I’m also trying to do. But the itch to go outside, even just for a walk around the block and feel the sun on my face, is almost overwhelming. Hopefully by next weekend I’ll be over this and be able to get out and do something more fun than sitting on the couch feeling sorry for myself.

Anakie Gorge, Victoria

Last weekend I finally got to Anakie Gorge. It’s in the Brisbane Ranges National Park, around an hour’s drive west of Melbourne.

I tried about a year ago but the trails were closed because of flood damage. Things are fine there now and there’s little sign of what caused rangers to close this section of the park to walkers. I sometimes wonder whether rangers are too quick to close walking tracks because of so-called damage. But I suppose in today’s litigious society they have to err on the side of caution.

Anyway, I was there now with a couple of friends, on an icy Melbourne morning (apparently the coldest in 15 years) and looking forward to exploring a section of the park I hadn’t seen before.

Start of Anakie Gorge walk

We started our circuit walk at the Anakie Gorge picnic area, a nice grassy spot under the trees. The track was fairly flat and headed up into the gorge, following a mostly dry watercourse.

About 20 minutes into the walk we turned left at a junction and climbed up a steep rocky ridge to be above the gorge. From the top there were nice views across the tops of the wooded ranges and out to farmland plains. We continued along the top of the range, passing a couple of boot washing stations. The stations aim to prevent the spread cinnamon fungus, which attacks the fine roots of vegetation and kills the plant.

Step one of cleaning boots – scrape boots on brush

Step 2 – Wash soles

Step 3 – Carry on walking

Looking across the Brisbane Ranges

The trail turned back down into the gorge, passing under a dead tree that seemed to be a favourite of a flock of cockatoos that loudly screeched as we passed underneath. Back down in the gorge we had lunch at the Stony Creek picnic area, an open grassy spot with picnic tables that was a great spot for a little break.

The cockatoo tree

From there it was a gentle, flat walk along the floor of the gorge back to where we started. Anakie was a lovely spot for a winter walk. And with other tracks and dirt roads to explore in the area, I’ll be back.

Franklin River

Rock Island Bend. Peter Dombrovkis’ shot of this spot was used in the campaign to save the river

A few years ago a couple of friends and I did a rafting trip on Tasmania’s Franklin River with World Expeditions. It was one of the best outdoorsy things I’ve ever done. We had eight days of unusually brilliant weather out of nine paddling down rapids and along serene stretches of calm water flanked by sheer rock gorges and ancient forests. We portaged around the more dangerous rapids and places where huge rocks blocked our path. We also spent a fair bit of time on the first couple of days pushing our rafts over parts of the river that were no more than a shallow ripple as the area had been without rain for a while.

What made the trip even more special was knowing that we were experiencing something that was very nearly lost to a hydro-electric dam project in the 1980s. The then Tasmanian premier described the Franklin as nothing more than a leech ridden brown ditch “unattractive to the majority of people”.  Thankfully there were enough people who didn’t share his view and a protest campaign involving blockades of the river, political lobbying and a High Court case saw the dam project stopped and the river and its environment (hopefully) forever protected with World Heritage listing.

I’ve always wanted to say “thank you” to the people who fought to protect the Franklin. It can’t have been easy in the cold and wet environment amid hostility from the government and locals directed towards conservationists. But thanks to their dedication, a truly spectacular wilderness area is still here for future generations to enjoy. True, only a small number of people will ever travel down the river themselves, but I think it’s nice to know there are still beautiful parts of the planet that are allowed to just “be”. So, in my own small way, through this blog post, I’d like to thank all those who stood up for the Franklin and express my appreciation for what they did. It also should remind us that the fight to protect the environment can be a long and challenging one, but one that’s ultimately worthwhile.

 

 

 

Queen’s Birthday Long Weekend

Whenever I go away on an overnight walk I always thoroughly research where I’m going. I read track notes, blogs, the weather bureau’s website, so I’m prepared as much as possible for any eventuality.

But for the recent Queen’s Birthday long weekend I didn’t think to apply my usual practice – unfortunately.

My fiancée and I rarely get a long weekend off together so when we learnt we both had the time off we made a snap decision to head to Beechworth, in northern Victoria to explore and sample the area’s wineries, especially at nearby Rutherglen, famous for its ports and muscats and durifs.

Main street in Beechworth

But when we got there, we learned that Rutherglen held its Winery Walkabout event on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. We were totally unprepared for it. Thousands of people in buses and cars descend on the wineries, with many dressing up in costumes – superheroes, animals or Wally of “Where’s Wally” fame – to guzzle their way around the cellar doors.  While we had no problem with that, what we were shocked by was being turned away from some cellar doors because we weren’t part of the Walkabout.

To join the Walkabout you had to buy a special glass for $25. But my fiancée and I didn’t want to do that because we only wanted to sample a few wines at a few wineries. We didn’t want to drink as much as we could and get smashed as it was obvious many on the Walkabout were there to do. But we were flat out told by a couple of wineries we were not allowed to taste their wines because we didn’t have a Walkabout glass. We were appalled that they or the organisers couldn’t think ahead that there might be some people in the area, tourists like ourselves, on this particular weekend that might not want to join in the Walkabout. It left us feeling quite deflated.

Fortunately we found a couple of wineries that did welcome us. Vintara, which was part of the Walkabout, was happy to have us. Olive Hills Estate wasn’t part of the event and actually felt like a haven for those avoiding the Walkabout crowds. They both had very nice wine and very friendly dogs to pat too and we’ll happily buy more of their wine in future.

Olive Hills Estate cellar door

Friendly dog happy for pats at Olive Hills Estate. She lost interest in us though when we finished eating

So, the lesson I took from the weekend was, next time we go anywhere, we’ll check for events that might be on that could affect our plans.

Another lesson was to make sure any wine we buy is stored securely. I had a few bottles sitting on the back seat and at one point braked suddenly, causing them to roll onto the floor where one bottle smashed on the wheel lock I’d left there. My car now smells like a winery. Which isn’t that bad actually.

On top of Mt Pilot, on the way back to Beechworth after a day at Rutherglen