in the dark

Margie and I get to talk as she drives me through the darkness from Mansfield to Yea.

Hours earlier five of us finish our ride along the high country rail trail. The others book into the backpackers, shower, head for the pub, the last place I want to be. Besides I have to go home, work tomorrow.

Will picks me up on Mansfield’s main street, takes me out to Mt Battery. We roam their property, say hello to Margie’s horse Ruby, watch the sun set, set the ducks off in silhouette over the dam, a wing dipping in the water, rippling the surface.

We eat on our knees in front of the log fire, chat about our lives. Will takes me to his study, shows me the edit of his documentary on John Milne, the father of seismology. His phone rings three times: he’s on call. The final call summons him to the hospital. So Marg is driving me down to Yea to pick up my car.

Off Mt Battery we duck down a couple of back lanes, swing into the BP just off the Mt Buller road, no petrol between here and Melbourne’s outskirts. Next we pull into the backpackers and I load the Red Rocket, a bag of sweat-soaked bike gear, and a magpie-attracting helmet into the back of her 4WD.

Just out of town is a left to Howes Inlet where Margie grew up. She’s 60 now, was 19 when I first met her. Will is 60 too, recently sent me a black and white photo of the two of us in grade 5, a photo taken by Masatoyo Hiroshima, a Japanese student who came to the school that year, the only kid with a camera.

As we pass The Paps, Maindample, Bonnie Doon I try to tell Marg how my good woman and I came unstuck. I understood it all 72 hours ago, but not now. The rationale has moved on, pangs of incredulity all that remain.

I ask her how 40 years with Will has worked. I don’t see them much, but can’t imagine an argument or unkind word between them. Last year Marg went to Turkey on her own. Earlier Will went to Japan, the States, Iceland and England making the documentary with his nephew. He’s a driven man of singular achievement, doctor, adventurer, campaigner, thespian, photographer, and more.

She tells me something of their marriage but my mind is elsewhere. In the rear yard of Yea’s Royal Mail Hotel I load the Rocket into the Jazz. Marg turns back toward Mansfield, I race through the dark to Croydon. Alone.

Rock on. 

yea-mansfield

Had Juan Antonio Samaranch ridden the Goulburn Valley High Country Rail Trail he’d certainly declare it the best rail trail ever. And he’d be right. I’m with Juan Antonio one hundred per cent, even though neither he nor I have ridden every rail trail in this state. But of those I’ve ridden the GVHCRT is the best with a capital B.

Wendy hasn’t ridden a rail trail before so she has to agree. Rock agrees. The agreeable Rowan would surely agree. Nick too. We’re all on Juan Antonio’s side.

We postpone breakfast in order to eat at the only likely-looking eatery in town, Marmalades, in the heritage-listed old Purcell grocery building, wooden counters, grooved stairs to the basement, shadowy figures down there in the dark if the door blows shut. The chef stuffs up the orders and the bill, but no one’s complaining: the food is first-class.

So is the trail from Yea to Molesworth. It heads south-east out of town, crossing the Goulburn’s flood plain on a sweeping causeway and several bridges, sedges left and right, then climbs steadily through lush pasture to the 201-metre long Cheviot Tunnel. Three workers perished in building its horseshoe arc.

Approaching cyclists can see clean through it from half a kilometre away, like looking through a reverse telescope. Yet in the middle it’s dark enough that the walls on either side disappear and only a fixed stare at the far opening sustains the ability to stay on the straight and narrow.

Our descent to Molesworth is not as dangerous as it was for locomotives a century ago, a sign telling us some came to grief at Suicide Corner near Sheepwash Lagoon.

The trail is less magnificent after Molesworth but still offers plenty of variety and a long tough drag up to the Merton Gap, at 400m the high point of the ride. No gastronomic high point is to be had, the greasy spoons in Merton and Bonnie Doon are wasted diversions.

The magpies from Bonnie Doon to Maindample swoop in pairs and prefer me with my special magpie-attracting helmet, aggressive eyes stuck to the rear and several tie-on antennae warranting close inspection. Visual cues failing miserably, I resort to yodelling, screaming and loud expletives to deter them. I recommend this method.

What it ride! Grand company, as perfect a day—clear blue skies, no wind, 25 degrees—as one could wish for, and Juan Antonio’s first-choice trail to follow through scenery fit for Rowan’s wank-bank.

Rock on.