Some observations on over-polite drivers, bin liners, caravan park culture and bovine behaviour.
I looked around for the person with the ruler. You know, the one who measures each and every blade of grass to make sure they are all meeting regulation height?
OK, this might be a bit of an exaggeration but as I walked around Seaspray I was seriously wondering if it was possible to experience culture shock as a result of travelling between two places only 25 kilometres apart (as the crow flies).
Seaspray had a clean cut white picket fence vibe with immaculate town landscaping, whereas Woodside Beach had more of a ramshackle, ‘good on ya mate’ kind of vibe.
On reflection I decided that I loved both.
It did take me a while to feel safe and settled at the Woodside Beach caravan park, which had a large number of ‘permanent’ set-ups. These consisted of crumbling holiday shacks attached to caravans that probably hadn’t hit the road since the early 80s.
After seeing nothing but more friendly smiles amongst my fellow campers I realised that any crankiness or unease on my part was likely due to tiredness, self-inflicted dehydration and possibly the two kilometre round trip from my tent to the toilet.
I’d set my tent up in a sheltered spot just behind the dunes and immediately went for a bracing walk amongst wheeling sea birds, fisherman and dog walkers. As its name suggests, 90-mile beach stretches on forever but in all this emptiness I also made a friend in Jan, who’d moved to Woodside from Yarraville, a suburb coincidentally very close to where I live. As with so many people I’d met, she just ‘fell in love with the place’.
In stark contrast, the Seapspray holiday park had no permanent residents and featured vast and empty camping lawns, a luxurious TV room and kitchen, and shower block that could have been built yesterday.
It also cost $45, ridonkulously eye-popping but worth it for that cozy wind-free lounge. I pitched my tent on a carpet of impossibly soft, springy green grass a stone’s throw from the amenities.
The daytime weather in Seaspray was lovely and I was glad of my decision to detour there rather than cracking on up the busy highway to Sale. It was the first properly sunny day of the trip and an easy 50 kilometre cycle from Woodside Beach leaving a leisurely afternoon for strolling on the beach.
That smooth, empty back road was a joy to ride. There was nothing particularly special about the rural scenery, but the paddocks were green, the horizons broad and the skies big, and for once, blue. All that was missing was a road trip soundtrack.
Every so often I’d ride along past a patch of coastal vegetation mainly consisting of banksia trees. These had twisted trunks and large seedpods of a type we called ‘bomby knockers’ at school.
I also had plenty of time to observe cows.
After some deep thought I came to the conclusion that there are two types of cows: those that run towards you, and those that run away. Most cows along Gifford Road were definitely of the ‘run away’ variety and at one point I caused a hundreds of cows to stampede up the hill to avoid this unfamiliar cycling predator chugging up the road.
Anyway, back to Seaspray. What it might have lacked in rough character or charm, it certainly made up for in hot chips. From a vantage point above the beautiful golden beach I happily munched my way through a steaming package heavenly chips while gazing out to sea.
This serve of ‘minimum chips’ (ha!) was easily enough to feed five people and cost about $5 from the general store.
I was sitting on a patch of grass near the surf lifesaving club, and my eyes were drawn again and to some curious lines of poetry on a plaque set into the ground.
“Soldiers in the trenches, may expect to lose a limb but I was only 17 and going for a swim.”
Emerging from my hot chip coma I eventually took a closer look and did a bit of googling.
The poem refers to a freak accident that had occurred back in 1943 when a RAAF sea plane injured multiple people on the Seaspray beach, including two who became amputees.
It was a random equipment failure made worse by the fact the the pilot was probably trying to show off by flying too close to the beach. At any rate the poor victims would never be granted the full compensation granted to soldiers who’d received injuries in the line of duty.
My evening at Seaspray passed blissfully indoors in the company of comfy chairs, instant noodles (fancy ones) and the pain of Adele’s breakup, before ducking back to my tent to sleep. Adele One Night Only Channel 7 Exclusive was in fact the only thing on telly due to all the other channels not working, but hey, she’s got some great songs and I was finally out of the wind.
I had the tent section of the campground entirely to myself with the exception of a young couple who’d funnily enough hadn’t wanted to join me for lolling in front of Adele during their outdoor camping holiday. But they did come up for a chat the next morning, very excited to hear more about bicycle touring. Like many other people I was to meet, they were keen to try a bike tour but felt slightly intimidated by the gear and logistics of fitting everything on to a bike.
The young woman’s face got more and more animated the more I explained how I’d kept things simple, using the bike I had already and cheaper gear where I could, such as a cheap but good Naturehike tent ($140 on tent and five dollar dry bags from Kmart. And rain protection?
“The tent is wrapped in a bin liner,” I explained, causing her eyes to widen.
“Did you hear that – a BIN LINER!!!!” she said, almost jumping up and down as she turned to her partner. I really do hope the pair of them make it to Tasmania or New Zealand to make the dream become a reality.
After a week on the road I was starting to feel more like a guru and less like a newbie… right up until the moment I tried to wheel the bike forward with a voile strap (only $5 from Bunnings!) still wrapped around the back wheel.
“Umm, I don’t normally do that,” I said to the couple, hopefully still distracted by the bin liner idea.
The weather remained divine the next day as I made my way the next day to Sale. It was only a 30 km ride and I trusted the route planning entirely to my Komoot application. The navigation app and its long suffering voice directions had been my constant and trusty companion for a full week now and was starting to feel more like a person than an inanimate piece of technology. This felt like this was a good chance to get in her good books.
I was therefore surprised and delighted to discover that the last section of the route was entirely made up of off-road bike paths, from Longford right through to the centre of Sale.
The Seaspray to Sale road mostly had a shoulder, but one too rough to ride on, and the closer I got to Sale the busier it became, edging into the grey area of my comfort level.
To be honest though, the politeness of drivers was getting on my nerves far more than any sense of danger.
Even when – on hearing an approaching car – I’d moved safely into the shoulder, drivers still felt the need to cross into the opposite lane in order to pass, creating a constant rumble strip sound track to accompany the journey.
My unexpected bike path foray soon took me to a Sale landmark, the ‘Swing Bridge’ a moveable bridge built 139 years ago to allow for the passage of steamers between Melbourne and Sale. On this particular day however it was the landscape not the bridge which caught my attention – water, stretching as far as the eye could see, covered everything and created a huge glinting plain where the wetlands should have been. The recent floods had luckily receded just enough for me to ride the very pleasant land leafy cycling trail into Sale, arriving opposite the art gallery and alongside a cluster of boats at the inland Port of Sale.
In November 2021 the main thing to do in Sale was to visit the Archibald Prize portrait exhibition. In keeping with my aptitude for causing closed-ness, this notable attraction had obviously wrapped up the day before.
Never mind. It left more time for higher priorities such as finding a new canister of camping fuel, restocking on instant porridge portions, stuffing my face with salad and foraging for instant coffee sachets and other freebies in my hotel room.
Yes, I was going soft again. I’d decided that one hotel room a week would add a massive boost to my enjoyment of the trip and – while I’d been sleeping well in the tent – would mean a night of not waking up in the early hours due to Victoria’s unseasonably cold spell.
Speaking of going soft, I’d also made the decision to skip about 70km of terrain between Sale and Bairnsdale, because it looked a bit boring. It would be much more exciting, I told myself, to explore my bike’s second purpose as a washing rack.
Amongst all the action, my evening in Sale did allow time for a long, relaxed stroll around Lake Guthridge and the Botanical Gardens, which turned out to me the perfect place to eat a Green Goddess supermarket salad. Not too shabby at all,
The evening was a golden one, and dozens of waterbirds and pelicans, and a pair of peacocks strutted around the attractive Botanic gardens. The walking path was a fine example of natural bushland incorporated into the heart of a town, and once again this trip had exceeded my expectations.
*Okay, maybe a little exaggeration, and to be fair to the very lovely caravan park managers this was the trade off for camping in the nice quiet grassy spots behind the dunes.
**Practical tip: ground floor rooms at the Matador Motel have a tiny outdoor space allowing you to wheel your bike through and park for the night.
