With beginner’s luck, I head off into stormy skies and battle a gale.
There was never going to be a good day to start the bike trip. Spring 2021 saw wave after wave of destructive storms and the weekend I had earmarked to finally leave Melbourne – in the quickset possible manner after finishing work – featured forecast destructive winds and possible flash flooding. A good weekend to stay indoors, the SES said.
The upside was that was that Sunday was better than Saturday, and that the gale would be at least blowing in the right direction, promising a nice, easy tailwind assisted run out of town.
Riding 50 kilometres on a fully loaded bike down a major highway should be fine … right? In reality, I had completely no idea. I’d done as much riding as I could in the lead up but only squeezed in a ten minute ride around local streets with all the gear packed.
Leaving early to get ahead of the rain and any danger of thinking too much, I trundled my fully loaded bike onto the 6.30am service from Sunshine for a two-hour trawl out to the outer south east.
I’d decided when planning the route that using up precious time cycling through Melbourne wasn’t a great trade off for the satisfaction that might come from cycling out my front door. So – train it was, getting off at Cranbourne though the surprising business of the Dandenong Sunday morning special made the urgency to get out of Melbourne all the more real.
Wild shouting and screaming on the platform at Oakleigh made passengers look up from their phones in alarm at what was clearly some kind of domestic incident. The carriage watched as a wild-eyed woman pulled a small child onto the train, hopefully to safety, away from a man who stormed off out of the station. Hacking, uncovered and maskless coughs followed for the next ten minutes. Yep – time to get out of the city.
Victoria had only a fortnight or so before hit its 80 per cent double vax target and allowed travel to the regions so I wasn’t alone in feeling on tenterhooks. Even riding out of the station at Cranbourne – still deadly silent at 8.30am I felt like I had better move fast before someone tapped me on the shoulder to get back inside.
Leaving Cranbourne was so easy as to be an anticlimax. Even with the unfamiliar weight of the bike I wobbled through the first few side streets without drama and was soon flying down the South Gippy.
Cyclists go to great lengths to avoid highways, and I’d poured over routes many times. But the wide shoulder coupled with Sunday morning traffic (or lack of) and day one novelty made this a dream. I was finally DOOOOOOIINNNG IT!!!! Moody skies, green farmland and attractive vegetation whizzed by and I stopped a few times to look at rivers or streams swelled big from the recent rains.
As per my immaculate planningI made my first ‘rest and bike selfie’ stop in Tooradin, cruising around a circuit of delightful wetland paths.
A historic bridge linked the trail back to the main road and – just as I was walking my bike– a fisherman pulled in an enormous fish and dangled it in the air. A passing local looked at me with wide and amazed eyes. “Did you see that? That never happens,” she said, just like we’d known each other all our lives.
At that particular moment, the fish was a sign. The sun was shining, the bridge was glowing red, the fish were biting and everything seemed right.
After making another very nice stop to do a ten-minute bushland walk at Woodlot reserve, I cracked on towards Koo Wee Rup. A big sign saying ‘TANKS FOR EVERYTHING’ (advertising a water tank business) nearly stopped me in my tracks. That was a seriously cheesy pun right there.
Maybe snaps of cheesy rural signage puns could be a signature feature of the trip??? My inner drill sergeant knocked that idea on the head and I pedalled on, only for an EVEN BETTER, even cheesier sign to grind me to a halt five minutes later.
And there was no way I was going to pass by without sampling those donuts and climbing the tower, which served as a reminder that wind and storm clouds were getting ready to deliver the blue sky an absolute arse kicking.
The inevitable downpour eventually came when – ten kilometres down the road – I had ducked into the country supermarket at the small town of Lang Lang. There, I completed my beginners’ induction into Food Management 101, otherwise known as ‘Walking into Unfamiliar Country Shops while Completely Knackered then Trying to Choose Food that Won’t End Up As Dead Weight or Poison you with Processed Junk.
(Spoiler alert – cooking schnitzels on a barbecue with no oil doesn’t really work, and buying a pack of two vanilla rice puddings means one needs to be carried). More study required).
After spending around three hours in the shop I ran through the driving rain back to my bike and wondered what had possessed me to not park under the perfectly good verhandah. Feeling like an idiot I quickly closed the pannier strap I’d left undone and looked over my shoulder to see if anyone had noticed what a complete bicycle touring newbie I was. Of course they weren’t, the people of Lang Lang had sensibly deserted their main street to go home and tie down garden furniture.
Turning towards the coast and the Lang Lang Caravan Park suddenly put me in the path of a furious and increasing cross wind. My cruisy journey was now a battle with the wind, one which would continue over the next few days.
Rolling into Lang Lang the rain fortunately paused and I also met the first of many lovely and deeply practical caravan park managers who made sure I had the best possible site for a cycling camper.
“I’m going to put you behind a tree,” said Sue, as the winds outside shrieked and roared up to tornado level. “There are portaloos nearby but you’ll have to walk a bit of a way.”
“No worries at all!” I replied cheerfully, in what I hoped was the correct manner for a veteran bikepacker/adventurer
The Lang Lang caravan park is advertised as an old school, 1950s style park, nostalgic of simpler times and stretching down along the beach. I asked Sue if they’d been busy after lockdown lifted. “Oh yes, this place was completely full,” she said. “In all of Victoria we’re the closest regional caravan park to Melbourne.”
Cycling along a long coast-hugging track to my campsite, I dodged puddles and looked in vain for people. Tumbleweeds, real or imagined, drifted slowly past, but not a soul.
Now I do know that completely ideal to set up a tent under a gum tree during a storm, but arriving at the site I gave thanks to Sue and her thoughtfulness – this was a very large, mature tree with (I hoped) solid branches. And to be honest the alternative was getting blown away.
So, having found my tiny little windshielding oasis I started to drag out bits of tent like my life depended on it, racing like a demon against the next rain shower.
After a few seconds of wrestling with poles I realised just how long it had been since I’d actually set up this tent. Thinking a bit further through the mists of lockdown time I remembered that at the time of last use it was in fact a new tent, meaning I’d probably put it up a maximum of twice.
With poles and groundsheet in place, and black clouds starting to roll in overhead I was soon able to start clipping up the inner mesh part of the tent.
Which was on backwards.
Shit.
It started to rain.
Increasing my speed to whirling dervish level I pulled the tent down again and – crouching under the tree – mentally cursed the tent manufacturer for not colour coding the ends.
I also came to a realisation: I was actually in fact having a great time. There was no place I’d rather be than right here, solving these problems and working things out for myself.
A calmness came over me as I waited for the drenching to be replaced by bright sunshine, allowing me to finally set up camp and crawl into my little shelter.
I’d never done holidays in caravan parks before, so was looking forward to seeing what the experience was all about. But it was soon clear that this visit wasn’t going to leave me any wiser.
On this desolate afternoon, with no happy summer holiday crowds, the place felt a bit like an abandoned movie set, with its crumbling corners exposed for everyone to see.
The pattern of wild wind and rain interspersed with sunshine carried on for the rest of the afternoon and I spent most of the afternoon reading and dozing comfortably. I expected to feel claustrophic in the tiny one-man tent but instead it felt like a cozy burrow, tucked away from the world.
That hibernation would need be broken however, if I was going to, you know, eat dinner, so I grabbed my stuff (including my outrageous stash of green beans and barbecue-failing schnitzel) and made the long trek up to the barbecue shelter.
By the time I’d walked back and forth to my camp site various times to collect things I’d forgotten, covering at least ten kilometres in the process, the wind had really picked up and I – with no exaggeration – struggled to make the last few paces. I was being blown completely sideways.
And then another strange thing happened. Hundreds of pieces of brown fluff were flying horizontally though the air and tumbling along the ground, like an army of miniature horseman. My first thought was that they must be seed pods, then I realised that pieces of foam were being whipped off the churning ocean and hurled through the air.
As the sun dipped in to the ocean through a break in the dramatic clouds this was a surreal and otherworldly sight. Day One was done, and I’d already seen just how much richness can be packed into only one day when you’re out on the road.
I hadn’t just ridden into the sunset, I’d ridden into a fully-fledged foam flying extravaganza.
