The Grampians.
Why do I do it? These cunning short cuts always turn out much longer and more inconvenient than the direct route. The plan hatched in the Tour Command Centre (my tent) involves taking a route across country avoiding main roads and including as much gravel, dirt, hills, scenery and adventure as possible. My planned route will take me along the Younghusband Peninsula, then inland through Frances to Horsham, through Halls Gap in the Grampians and on down to the coast again at Portland. As it happened the rain had turned my planned route into a slippery ice-rink and the horrendous cross-winds were a constant threat to my stability (mental and physical!) The gravel roads have been capped with limestone which is now really slidey in the wet and on my nearly bald tyres, and to make matters worse the roads are all severely crowned up with steep dropping-off edges. The only place for me is right on top of the cap in the road centre, but when I meet a roadtrain coming towards me I have to move over which is always fraught with danger and anxiety, as I slip sideways into the ditch.
The Coorong is a long stretch of shallow, inland tidal water with a sand dune peninsula separating it from the sea beyond. It’s highly saline in places and the stench from rotting sea weed (or is it old sea-lions?) has me gagging, even inside my helmet. The wind is so ferocious it’s almost dangerous. It really is hard to keep my wheels in contact with the road! Finally on dusk the wind drops.
Many of the places marked on my map are not towns offering hospitality as I supposed, in reality they are only station names. So no coffee fix today, no wonder I’m so grumpy!. Me and my bike are both filthy again, coated in baked on limestone which proves very difficult to remove. Fire, hot food and the last of a nice bottle of red wine, and all the day’s trials are consigned to an adventurous memory.
I wake a few times in the night from the cold, and I notice that it’s raining. In the field behind my camp a big mob of ewes and lambs are trying desperately to find each other in the dark, so there’s a continuous bleating and baa-ing going on all night. Eventually it gets light. I pack up my wet tent and get going. I sit on my bike for the first 130 km like a big frozen, miserable blob. Through my discomfort and morose mood I notice it’s really good farming country. I take a sealed but bumpy and meandering ‘C’ road through little country villages, still sleeping in the cold wet morning. One place called Goroke had for it’s unique selling point “Southern Gateway to the Little Desert”. In truth at least 12 other small country towns could claim the same dubious distinction. Anyway Goroke was all closed down and shuttered up at 7 in the morning. I rode on through quietly to Horsham where a watery sun comes out as I enjoy some coffee (theme developing here) and an all-day breakfast.
Riding through the Grampians National Park was awesome and everything I’d been told and so much more. Fantastic, dramatic scenery and craggy rock formations, wonderful towering trees, and winding roads just made for motorcycling. The only downside is my balding tyres and the friggin’ cold. But nothing could stop me enjoying this part of the country, it’s magnificent, really.
Heading for Portland I spy an amusing roadsign to a place called “Longernong” – form an orderly queue behind me fellas! Also a place called Wy Wy Wy which inevitably had me singing like Tom Jones for the rest of the day.
Portland’s amazing panorama comes into view suddenly over the crest of a hill. Spread out before me is a long sandy bay, rocky headlands and an interesting looking harbour and port. I’m really here to visit the Maritime Discovery Centre, which is just a short walk along a lovely beach. The centre was very interesting (for me) and well worth the modest price of admission.
