Last week my daughter Jess had a couple of days off work and very kindly agreed to come along with me on a #microadventure, a ride from Ballarat to Little River, camping overnight in the Brisbane Ranges. I was aiming to get some training kilometres in, in preparation for the Ballarat 2.5 hour relay event. After looking at the gradients involved and the wind forecasts for the two days, Jess rightly and wisely suggested we start from Ballarat and ride towards Little River, as we would have more downhill, and the strongest wind behind us on day 2.
We waited till the peak commuter rush was off the trains, then caught a train to Ballarat, getting in just before lunch. I had a gps track and cue sheet, and we were soon out of the town and into lovely rolling country side, which seemed to be super fragrant thanks to rain the night before.
Tuesday was a good day for riding, and the 56 k from the train station to the camping ground at Boar Gully had plenty of variety. A couple of good ups and downs, and mostly quiet country roads except for a few kilometers on the Geelong- Ballan road where there were B-double trucks and logging trucks whizzing past uncomfortably close. But we survived, and made it to the camp site by 4.
There was a group of young lads camping there, which can be a worry. I've had a wide experience with groups of young lads, and in my experience they are a thoroughly bad lot - to misquote Jaggers, the lawyer from Great Expectations. But this lot were very civilized, turned the music off at 10, and kept hooting and hollering to the absolute minimum. We had a good dinner, nice desert (dried apples and custard goes down well after a day of cycling) and a good fire for some caveman tv.
It was chilly overnight - right at the limits of comfort for our sleeping bags - but we slept well. A bit slow in the morning, and we didn't get on the road till about 9.30. The GPS track sent us off down Murphy's road, a dirt track which runs across the ranges then drops sharply down to the plain beneath. Coming down, I was glad I wasn't going the other way. I actually did the ride in the opposite direction many years ago, and the not happy memory of pushing a loaded bike up that grade came flooding back.
Down on the plain, the wind was kicking up, and with it the heat. We blasted along mostly flat rolling roads and got to Little River by a bit after 12, just in time to miss one train. So we visited the general store there with its very friendly ladies, who welcomed us despite our hot and sweaty appearance, bought some cold drinks, pottered into the headwind back to the train station - a little reminder of how nasty the headwind would have been - then caught the train back to Footscray, arriving just in time to miss our train. Despite that we were home by 2.30.
There are no shops or good water points once you leave Ballarat until you get to Little River. I took 5 litres of extra water, as well as each of us having two 750 ml bottles, but we used all that by morning. I filled up from the water tank at Boar Gully, and added Micropur iodine tablets. You can never be sure where or how you pick up a bug, but I sure got one, and I was mighty sick the day after we got back. I think I will take the water filter next time as well as the iodine tablets, and be extra careful boiling everything and washing it. But it was a great little trip, amazing how remote and rugged it can feel so close to Melbourne
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