Christ, what a whopper of a muscle ache this morning....earlobe to big toe.
Not used to hammering a 3l-Camelbak through 1000s of potholes and corrugations up+down dale for a few days in a row anymore.
Or falling off, I guess....
First some quick maps for the Saturday....with the whole weekend being reversed due to the road-mayhem after the recent fires + floods.
The rains have certainly caused LOTS of damage, much of it through the back-alleys still unnoticed. Lots more water in the trenches, many dams over-flowing or close to it, many more small creeks and water-crossings all over....and absolute TONS of trees, branches, twigs, debris of all sorts strewn all over the place.
One more dump and flooding like last week...and there's a good chance of the Jamo-Woods Point Rd. disappearing, some of the river-bends are chewed out badly narrowing the road, earthslips etc.
The repair crews were out, but only doing superficial emergency patchup work.
As expected, popped out from under the grey overcast close to the Kinglake Ridge on the run up Beale Avenue before cutting across the gravel hills through the top-end of Mt. Disappointment S.P. to Murchison Gap.
Up Horans Track into Tallarook SP, the attempt for find the fabulous lookout spot on Tehans Rd. ended in some gigantic white clay based potholes filled to the brim with with the sloshy stuff.
Down Landscape, more little creeks everywhere and along the bursting-at-the-seams Goulburn River for the dogleg of (closed, but passable) Telegraph Rd. to an early lunchspot along Hughes Creek.
The devastation and chaos of that little valley by the flooding is incredible, grassy creek side camping spots have been replaced by 2m high and 200m long sand banks, mountains of unearthed and washed down trees +bushes filling the whole valley floor....it's quite something.
Wicket Hill will finally be known as "WICKED" Hill from now on....as per usual, it delivered a few little surprises.
Fabulous views across the Switzerland/ Strathbogie/Tallarook Ranges from the ridges of Tarcombe+Upton Rds, before checking out a missing piece of road in Google Maps.
Good news, the missing part of Weibye Track DOES exist, sort of...., another little cracker.
Another dogleg around Ruffy for an absolute GEM!!....and my personal highlight of an already jam-packed day.
Penny Lane.......ohhhh, Penny Lane.
How I have somehow managed to bypass this jewel for the last 35 years is beyond me....we even had a block of land in Strathbogie for 10 years and scoured the hills pretty thoroughly on many weekends on bikes, cars + hiking boots.
This one's NOT for Dirt Noobs.
Not difficult as such and carefully rideable on a lighter roadbike.... once a good road-crew has spent a week or 2 and thoroughly cleaned up the 12.5km stretch-of-bliss.
Just years of neglect make this thing tricky to navigate, obstacles are everywhere.
The need to get off the track and into the overgrown greenery to make it around obstacles, dead trees, slips or some deeply washed-out bits leaving a foot-wide strip of clear dirt for the short, steep uphill without knowing or seeing what's awaiting up top etc. takes a seasoned hand to not balls-up along that fairly long/ intense stretch.
But there is nothing like skimming along the very edge of the Strathbogies with glorious views into the Goulburn Valley, Alexandra, the Cathedrals, Paps, Black Range etc. What a find!!
More ZigZag to get us past an overflowing Polly McQuinn Weir, skirt around Strathbogie CBD
and east to Barjarg on the Midland Hwy.
The odd fallen tree/ branch/ watercourse/mega pothole and a handful of corrugations for a slowish cruise back on asphalt into Mansfield, a fill up at the servo that was near-flooded a few days before, and into Jamieson.
Quite frankly...I was DONE.
Could've gone to sleep right there and then.
So the offered lift by our host "I'll get you guys to the pub for a meal and some drinks....and give me a hoy for a pickup when ready" wasn't only surprising, but certainly most welcome.
Big kudos to Marion from the Emerald Park Farm-stay.
