March 25, 2024
What’s with the chocolate milkshakes?
Yarri hut to Collie
With the hut to ourselves, we had a really good sleep and woke to a crisp, clear and still morning. It was chilly. I was curled up in my sleeping bag not wanting to get up but my 65 year old bladder had other ideas.
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The sun soon peaked through the trees heralding another picture perfect bluebird day. Over breakfast we tackled the Good Weekend quiz, a bit of a tradition in the Langley household. I’m the weak link when the whole clan is together, with my specialty subject matter of Hungarian culture and chess masters of the 19th century rarely coming up. Never the less we got a credible 11 with question 8 being right up our alley. We got question 25 wrong as did every other Aussie bloke out there.
We’re out of the hut not long after 9am and follow single track through the forest before crossing under power lines and hitting a rough, steep and unridable service road that I struggled to even push the bike up. Having battled our way to the top Pete checked his Garmin and we were way off course. We’d missed a crucial turn and needlessly wasted our energy. We took the service road back around to where we’d been 20 minutes ago, bush bashed our way back onto the track and found the turn we’d missed.
Having had navigational duties removed from my portfolio of responsibilities this mistake was clearly Pete’s fault but I do take some of the blame as I was distracting him with my story of the day. For the uninitiated every day you get to tell a story. It can be funny or serious or poignant or even life changing. It can be short or excruciatingly long (my preferred option).
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The story of the day began in the mid eighties. Cherie and I had just moved to Bungendore and I’d been asked to go on a 4 day bike ride in Victoria with some mates who taught at St Pats in Goulburn. We all hadn’t ridden bikes since our youth, but Dr Bob, a former History professor at Macquarie Uni who had moved back to the family farm and started teaching history at the school, convinced us that it would be fun. It was! As we rode along he would regale us with stories that would last for hours. His thorough dissection of the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 whilst climbing a long and arduous hill towards Beechworth in 38 degree heat will long live in my memory. Over a campfire that night, as we discussed how this conflict linked with the Third Independence War of Italian unification it was decided that we should all have a shot at telling a story. They were never as interesting as Dr Bob’s but we gave it a crack.
The forest is changing again. We’re clearly entering a higher rainfall region as the the trees are taller and the ground cover more diverse. We haven’t seen a soul for the best part of 2 days. Day upon day in the forest is pretty special and has not lost its attraction after a week. It’s so peaceful and calming.
Eventually we hit civilisation and roll into Collie, the biggest town so far on our trip. It looks a tough, working class highway town as we dodge the double bogie coal trucks in the main street looking for a purveyor of milkshakes, the essential post ride pick me up. For the last 10 kilometres I’ve been dreaming of a double malted chocolate milkshake.
For the third time in a row the cafe we pull into has no malt available. The previous milk bar proprietor in Dwellingup explained that malt prices had gone through the roof and their business was on the brink of collapse because of it and they’d decided to drop malt from their offering.
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Tonight we’re in the Black Diamond lodge which is comfortable and clean, but clearly targeting the itinerant workers from the mines. There’s no chocolates on the pillow in this establishment.
Today's ride: 46 km (29 miles)
Total: 381 km (237 miles)
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