I felt as if I would either sink or swim, I was either going to really love this type of riding, or I was going to yearn for the comfort of my own bed, being clean and warm and having proper food. Obviously heading out for one night is different to going out for 30 days but I felt I could get a bit of a sense for what it’s all about. We ordered a lightweight cooker and headed into the camping shop after work on Friday night to pick it up, all set for our trip. It hadn’t arrive, dam. What to do now, we decided to ponder our options at the coffee shop then an invite for a drink at the pub with the boss sounded appealing. When chatting to the others about what we were thinking of doing, heading out for a bikepacking weekend, we were told to be careful of snakes, wild dogs, wild farmers with guns whose land we would have to cross, ticks, angry cows and deers. Excellent. A beer, a bowl of chips and some pizza slices later we decided to go jump on the bikes and go. I told my boss if I wasn’t at work on Monday to send out a search party. Al (Bear Grylls) convinced me he knew the tracks and we would be safe. Lights on, energy bars packed, map in hand we headed off.
First part of the trip involved riding 10metres, walking 10metres through cow patties in a muddy cow paddock. I had attached a drink cage under the down tube of my frame and wasn’t overly impressed to see my drink bottle was now covered in cow crap. Let’s hope we find a tap soon. We rode for 2 ½ hours and only diverted off the track once. I have a ridiculously bad sense of direction (I sometimes get lost in Marlo, which is a pretty small town, only 300 people live here) but thankfully Gryllsy can navigate with his eyes closed. We found what we thought would be a nice place to camp and I set out the bivvy and sleeping bags whilst Al set about making a fire. Jumped into bed, and this is where we learnt a few things:
- Don’t get into your sleeping bag when you’re sweaty from riding. It makes you clammy and uncomfortable and cold
- Take an inflatable pillow with you. Stuffing a jacket into a sleeping bag cover does not provide any neck support.
- Don’t get out to pee at 4 in the morning then step in it
- Don’t decide to camp on a slope
Laying there I felt as if I hadn’t gotten any sleep, but presumed I had or I would have been incredibly bored laying there for 5 hours. When I woke up at 6am freezing my butt off, I felt somewhat of a connection with Rose from the Titanic, feeling similar to when her and Jack are floating in the ocean on a plank of wood. So the first thing I huskily said to Al was “Jack.....Jack......Blow the whistle Jack.....” which then became our catch phrase for the rest of the ride.
We jumped up and quickly lit a fire to dry to thaw out. Our drinks had turned to ice and a frost had hit. We had some apple energy bars so we put them on a stick and toasted it for breakky. Rode for another hour, with the sun coming up and spectacular views over the valleys I couldn’t imagine any other place I’d rather be. Rolled into Cabbage Tree (yep that’s the name of the town...) to the one and only cafe and ordered some food. Unfortunately all they had were sausage rolls. Having not eaten a sausage roll for years and being a fairly health conscious person it took some self talk and persuading that I need energy to continue riding. It was very delicious and I followed it down with a nice big coffee. Then spent 25 minutes on the loo, there are downsides to eating a healthy diet all the time, you’re not used to it when you have to eat unhealthy foods. Bellies full we headed out on the back tracks towards Bemm River. It was a perfect 25 degrees and we were loving every minute of it. Somewhere along the way I dropped and lost a drink bottle and spent 10 minutes backtracking to find it, with no luck. Starting to get hungry and parched again, I was dreaming of a nice salad sandwich I was hoping to get at Bemm, 3 hours down the track. The trails were pretty rad, fireroads but quite rutted which meant you had to concentrate and use skills making the ride more interesting. We rolled into Bemm and headed to the pub, receiving a less than warm welcome and not seeing anything except greasys on the menu, we headed to the general store for a feed. I wonder what the minimum amount of supplies a shop needs in order to call themselves a general store.... Ice creams, chocolate bars and a jar of vegemite were the only edible items in the shop. A mango ice cream and a cherry ripe later, we were heading out on Old Coast Road to make it back home. Riding along the coast was beautiful, until we hit Pearl Point Track. A 6km sand track, which took us over 2 hours to get through. Ride 10metres, push bike for 10metres repeat over 6kms. It was good fun trying to fly through the sand without coming a gutza the first 3 times, then it got a bit old.
Baking in the sun pushing the bikes though deep sand we ran out of food and water, luckily we were only 18km from home. Cruised in on the bitumen and headed straight to the Marlo store. Relatively incoherent the store owner gave us some delicious big milkshakes to get the sugar levels back up!
So....did I sink or swim?? Looks like training for Tour Divide has officially began!!
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