Route: red - bitumenFor my Christmas bush trip this year I decided to take two days to ride my mountain bike from Kyneton to Bacchus Marsh along back roads and bush tracks with an overnight camp at a suitably isolated spot in Lerderderg State Park.
It was a fairly flexible plan, a ride of about 50 kilometres on Christmas Day, bed down under the stars anywhere off-track, and on Boxing Day have a leisurely breakfast and a bush walk in the park in the morning followed by a shorter ride out to Bacchus Marsh to catch a V-Line train back to Melbourne in the afternoon.
Transport to Kyneton for me and my pack and bike was easy, V-Line trains are free each Christmas Day and I simply had to get on one at Melbourne's Southern Cross Station. I caught the 10.35 a.m. Bendigo train which deposited me at Kyneton a quarter before midday and two minutes later I was on my way.
My first stop was after just 9 kilometres at Coliban Reservoir where I'd hoped to see a good body of water following the recent rains, and hopefully a variety of water birds.
Unfortunately the water levels were still very low and the only water bird in evidence was the musk duck, one of my favourite water birds with its strange-shaped head and low swimming profile.
I pedalled up over Spring Hill and down to Trentham. No shops at all were open but I had a rest, a read and a few of the sultanas I'd brought along whilst laying on a bench in the local park enjoying the sun's warmth.
The book I was enjoying was Ron Falconer's Together Alone about his four years on a desert island, Caroline Atoll, with his wife and two children.
Rather than ride along the main Blackwood Road from Trentham, I decided to try Old Blackwood Road which diverges off a few kilometres south of Trentham. The map showed it as a reasonable gravel road for the first half dozen kilometres, and then the next half dozen were shown as a track. A track was all I needed.
The gravel section turned out to be surfaced, in large part with loose sharpish pieces of a blue stone, smaller than but similar to railway ballast, and while there was no traffic this way, the road surface didn't make for a comfortable or relaxed ride. I had to concentrate on avoiding the sharp sticking-up stones as much as possible to reduce the risk of damaging the bike tyres or wheels.
The second part of Old Blackwood Road certainly was just a track, winding around through trees with large puddles to be negotiated in the gullies but it was much smoother than the earlier section and a very enjoyable and quite beautiful ride.
The map showed a ford on the track just before Blackwood so I expected a water crossing but found a bridge also exists 100 metres downstream from the ford and I made use of that. Half a kilometre later I was in Blackwood.
A small sachet of wine was my camp site evening treat. The sultanas my treat along the way. The muesli and wheat would have to constitute both dinner and breakfast.
I replenished my water bottles from a tap at Blackwood that had a faded "boil before drinking" sign above it. I don't remember seeing that sign last time I came through here on foot and drank heartily from this tap. Nearby, the same faded sign was attached to a water fountain which only shot water vertically into the air in a manner impossible to catch in a receptacle.
A couple of kilometres south I turned off the main road onto O'Briens Track, a gravel road, and from that track onto the little used Whisky Track. I was now in Lerderderg State Park on part of the Great Divide Walking Trail and would not see another person for the next twenty hours.
This route, if I followed it through to Mount Blackwood, I knew would take me across Whisky Creek requiring a steep descent a vertical distance of about a hundred metres to the creek and a similar arduous climb up the other side to the end of Square Bottle Track. I decided to descend to the creek today, find a camp site down there somewhere, and tackle the climb up the other side with bike and pack tomorrow.
Getting the bike and pack down to the creek was quite a task and by the time I got down I was quite tired. The day's ride had only been a little over 50 kilometres but some of it was quite rough and the last few hundred metres I had found especially hard work.
I found a spot a hundred metres up whisky creek suitable for my bed. It was well off the track, there were no heavy branches overhead and I just had to move a few rocks for a reasonable bed site. I wasn't expecting rain so hadn't brought a tent and the light vegetation above me would protect me from any dew.
I lay on my bed and read for a while sipping at the cup of wine. Dinner did not seem as attractive as sleep by this stage so I performed the usual ablutions and settled down for the night.
Boxing Day morning I had a breakfast of muesli and a cup of tea, then went exploring up Whisky Creek. Sulphur-crested cockatoos made their presence known and I sighted a few other birds but was only able to identify the grey fantail.
I was hoping to photograph several birds but only managed to shoot a caterpillar which was too slow to escape the lens and a rabbit which sat for me for a good thirty seconds.
There were no walking tracks up this way but it wasn't difficult to skirt the pools, fallen and standing vegetation and rock faces that I encountered as I followed the creek upstream. Much of it was dry but water ran where the creek crossed exposed rock and if I had been short of water, I would have been happy to use it. There were attractive shady pools nestled under rock faces. At the terminus of my walk I sat in shade above a quiet pool for twenty minutes enjoying my environment before starting back to my camp site.
It didn't take long to pack my gear away. I'd left everything that was a little damp airing in the sun before the walk. The bike was where I'd left it further downstream. I took a photo of the bike to show both the rough going and how beautiful the country was and then started on the trip out.
The time was about midday and the first half kilometre took me an hour. It was a hot day and the climb up to Square Bottle Track was very steep. For a large part of it I had to climb carrying the bike and the pack in separate trips and having frequent rests. Along Square Bottle Track the going was much easier but it was still rough and uphill and I walked most of it.
I passed a spot where I had camped under the stars walking this way on an 80 kilometre 48 hour walk from Daylesford to Bacchus Marsh along the Great Dividing Trail and stopped to enjoy that memory for a few minutes.
Once out onto the Mt Blackwood Road I was able to travel much more quickly. I was able to notice too, that the rear wheel of the bike had a significant wobble which upon examination turned out to be due to a broken spoke. One broken spoke isn't much but I imagined a disintegrating wheel and limited my speed to a top of 45 kilometres on the downhill sections during the rest of the trip. From Mount Blackwood, the road is mostly down hill, and I cruised easily down to Bacchus Marsh where I knew a long cool isotonic drink could be had, and the late afternoon train back to Melbourne would soon be calling.