The Mallee Blast is a bikepacking race in regional Victoria. The route was developed by local bikepacking legend Ross Burrage a couple of years ago, with the intent that the route would offer an entry point for people wanting to dip their toe in the waters of a bikepacking race. There are two starting locations and two distance options available, either 500 or 1000 km. The route passes through enough towns to make flashpacking (staying in accommodation) a viable alternative for those without the equipment or will to go camping and offers little tastes of the sort of excitement you might find on more epic offerings; hike a bike, a little single track, a few steep climbs and descents and in the wet there’s the potential for some fun in the mud too. Read along to hear about Janet’s adventure…
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” Anaïs Nin
Friday 22 November 2024 dawned with a forecast of hot weather and already any coolness had dissipated with the intensity of the early morning sun. The environs of the Salty Dog café were abuzz with locals, such a contrast to the rather deserted windswept place that a year earlier had greeted the finish for my Southbound 500 ride on the evening of the fifth day. It was shortly aVer that first foray into the world of becoming a dot in a bikepacking race that I resolved that I would return to complete the loop and ride the Northbound 500 route. At a certain time of life, we can begin to be acutely aware of what the German language delightfully calls “torschlusspanik”, literally meaning “gate closing panic” and the fear of diminishing opportunities. Life is not infinite, and health and circumstances can curtail dreams. And so, there I was, rolling out for another adventure and the privilege of traversing the country with the freedom of living in the moment for a few days. It was not necessarily overtly with an intention to race in a competitive way as such, and everyone has their own agenda at the start line. I find speed elusive so routinely expect that within a few hundred metres of the start, I will be privy to seeing the bunch disappear up the road. By the first roundabout out of Torquay, I was duly rewarded, and I was on my own at the back. The appeal of these solo events is more about the possibilities of freedom and independence. It is like the layers of roles and responsibilities that cloak me in everyday life can transiently recede.
The sun duly rose and intensified as the route headed through undulating country north, with my initial focus just being on getting to Bannockburn. Throughout the ride, I found myself never thinking beyond the next town with the implicit promise of coffee, a meal, or a place to rest. The extended section along the Hamilton Highway this year offered little pleasure with the mid-morning traffic swelling, but Bannockburn beckoned soon aVer. A welcome stop for refreshments, with the lovely staff at the café insisting on packing my bidons with ice. I was underway again, out in the midday sun, and it was getting hot. Somewhere out of Bannockburn is a climb that seemed to magnify its incline in the heat. On reaching the top, I was desperate for some shade and then sat drinking now tepid water from my bidon. I had to return a phone call from my elderly mother’s aged care facility, that I had not earlier answered in the full glare of the sun on the climb. With mobile phone range, I had not entirely shrugged off the real world. It was while I was on the phone that I also became aware that even now at rest, my heart rate was still racing along. I am not one to wear a heart rate monitor, but it felt that my body was telling me that I needed to be mindful of the heat. I checked my cue sheet, and Maude was not that far up the road, with the promise of toilets and a picnic shelter. It had not been in my planning to be stopping so soon but in the heat of the afternoon, there I was, unfurling my mat and lying horizontal in the shade of the shelter for some respite for a couple of hours. The Vernoon was still oppressive when I set off again, but I was mindful of trying to reach Ballan in time before shops closed. I had plenty of snacks and water, but replenishing had become a struggle with feeling nauseated in the heat.
The sun had set long, and the light was draining from the sky as I sat eating pizza in the small public square in the centre of Ballan. I wrestled with knowing that I should eat but not particularly taking any pleasure from this or feeling very much fortified. I weighed options of continuing into the night or finding a place to bivvy, before choosing the latter. The proximity of Ballan to the Western Freeway gave me a new appreciation of the noise pollution of heavy vehicular traffic that thundered into the early hours of the morning. In retrospect, it was less than restful, and I slept very little, so I was back on the bike in the very early hours of the morning. Cresting the overpass crossing the freeway, any vague night coolness had truly evaporated, blown away by a hot northerly headwind that defied the darkness, but thankfully somewhat mitigated once I reached the forest. My world was reduced to the pool of light spilling from my handlebars as it was onwards and upwards. At Balt Camp, I stretched back on the foundations of the ruined building. Its two brick chimneys loomed upwards, mute but irrefutable in their silhouettes, as the eastern sky softly lightened, heralding the dawn. While I felt reassured not to have pursued the climb from Ballan more immediately, there was little sense of recovery from the heat of the day before. I felt unsure and as I contemplated, wisps of doubt floated along with my nausea. I just needed to focus on ge[ng to Daylesford.
It can be amazing how therapeutic coffee and treats can be. It is said that one should never scratch at night, but maybe that should also include not scratching before having coffee in the morning. Daylesford was just stirring as I arrived, and I was grateful for the relatively early opening hours of the pastry cafe in the main street. Certainly, I was very thankful for the healing powers of a custard tart with cool silky custard filling a crisp pastry base, although best consumed immediately as I found to my chagrin. I overestimated its capacity to withstand travel without disintegrating. I also leV Daylesford with not only a stash of goodies from the bakery, but a clear plan to ride to Castlemaine. I had phoned a couple of motels and was delighted when I received a return phone call from one confirming that I had booked the last remaining available room. The morning brewed more increasingly oppressive heat, and it was with some sense of relief when I negotiated the approach into Castlemaine. Again, stopping so early in the day had not been in my pre-ride reckoning but I knew I needed to look aVer myself – both heat and lack of sleep had already taken their toll. I washed my dusty bike and salt-stained kit, showered and went to bed.
Overnight the weather changed and with this cool change, Sunday morning’s skies were closed and leaden with rain. The intense solar glare of the preceding two days had been replaced by almost persistent rain, at times light and teasing but then more insistent and
soaking. Mt Alexander was swathed in ethereal mist. As I climbed, two road riders emerged from the gloom, their tyres hissing on the wet tarmac as they descended at speed in the other direction. The Goldfields Track however was deserted, and the hush of rain had ushered a quietness to the landscape. The sinuous course of the aqueduct carved its way
gently towards Bendigo, its surface bespattered with raindrops. Bendigo was again a point of re-supply and a firming of my intention to push on.
AVer the forest tracks, the service station at Huntley seemed all brassy and urban. The humble servo now seems to have been elevated to a quintessential bikepacking experience with hurried grabs of supplies. I too found myself at a servo early on a rather gloomy Sunday evening, si[ng comfily inside watching the rain falling, eating a pre-prepared salad and charging devices at the conveniently located power points at the eating bench. Mitiamo was sixty kilometres away. There was a lot of unsealed roads ahead and I was definitely edging towards Mallee country. I wondered what was in store. Initially I was pleased with my subsequent progress over all-weather gravel roads, but this turned to a moment of delight when with a brief clearing of the skies, a magnificent sunset soaked the western sky pink
before gradually fading into the gloaming. It was difficult not to just stop and stand transfixed, its ephemeral beauty a reminder of essential transience.
Darkness now cloaked the land, and the rain resumed with intensity. Turning leV onto Bayliss Road, my light lit up a silky-smooth dirt surface whose apparent visual appearance belied its hazard. I was quickly stopped in my tracks, and so began a long walk pushing my bike through the roadside verge of long grass and ground cover. My light splashed out illuminating the few metres of vegetation in front of me as I picked my way through, and all the while, raindrops tumbled through its beam, briefly sparkling in their trajectory. I switched my computer screen to the map se[ng and just focussed on ge[ng to the next intersection. However, it was not until some eight kilometres along and some two hours later that I was rewarded by a change in road surface. Suddenly I was on the bike again and by midnight, Mitiamo greeted me. In the small park there is a handy toilet block, as well as a lovely gazebo that provides welcome relief.
During the night, I had been aware of the persistent drumming of rain on the roof of the gazebo. Waking early to my alarm, it was still raining, and I found myself savouring the grey wet dawn for a while, mulling over my plans, given the rain and the uncertain road conditions ahead. It took me much longer than needed to get myself organised, including tending to my muddy bike. I eventually set off and a young girl, walking out of her gate
towards the school bus parked across the road, gifted me a most beautiful smile. Fifty metres down the road, I paused. The general store would be open soon and I turned around to find it, lured by the thought of hot coffee. Although sometimes we can journey through the landscape as an observer, it is not hard to stand out in a small town such as Mitiamo. The proprietress was just opening up and made it a priority to provide hot drinks and a toastie, encouraging me to come and sit inside. Locals were also calling by with talk of the amount of the overnight rain and the Mexican themed party on Saturday night, apparently gate-crashed by some of the front runners. The hospitality of Mitiamo did not disappoint, and I was glad that I did not miss it.
Wary of the conditions ahead and having not been particularly reassured by the locals, my ride ambitions were reduced to just ge[ng to the next town. Surprisingly I found mostly rideable roads on the section to Pyramid Hill, and it was only a small section where the route deviates down a lane in its approach to the town that I had to resort to walking again. Buoyed by the morning’s progress, I set my sights on Kerang, booking a motel room there for the night. Beyond Pyramid Hill, the land opened to embrace the flat distant horizon. Large paddocks interlaced with sparse stands of eucalypts along their fence lines flank the dirt roads, some a rich ochre in colour, some a more mundane brown. My progress became binary, alternating between the relief of riding sections of all-weather roads that were maintained to allow access to farmhouses or pushing my bike, oVen for kilometres, through the roadside stubble and vegetation. As I entered each of these sections, I was aware that I needed to commit. If I went down this route, I was going to have to get myself out. There was not going to be any vehicular access in these conditions. Turning on to one of these sections, there was a herd of black steers in the adjacent paddock, cueing an onslaught of flies. With my speed reduced to walking pace, I was an easy target, and hundreds crowded over me and my bike bags. My gratitude for having been given an insect net before the event was boundless that afternoon. The sky was still broody, but beginning to clear as Kerang loomed out of the flat expanse in the early evening light. With both bike and rider wearing our muddy encounters, a visit to the car wash became a priority before even checking in to enjoy a shower.
Tuesday morning dawned clear and bright, and it was with some anticipation that I set off from Kerang with the finish line in Swan Hill beckoning. At eighty kms away, surely, I could get there, even at my modest pace. I had studied the route the evening before, trying to estimate the extent of the unsealed sections. Over the last thirty-six hours, I had walked, pushed my bike, and scraped mud from the tyres for many kilometres. In my hubris as I peddled out of Kerang along those initial kilometres, initially sealed and then unsealed, I allowed myself to think that I was actually going to get to the finish. Some twenty kilometres from Kerang, the route crosses the Lodden River. Shortly afterwards, the road loses its sandy grit and embraces a more chocolate river silt. For an initial couple of hundred metres, I continued, but then, at a bend, with the Lodden River curving back towards the track just metres away, my momentum came to an abrupt halt. Sticky peanut butter mud clogged my wheels and scraping it away allowed for barely one revolution forward. I retreated to the roadside verge but with eucalypts and large bushes, there were limited options to avoid the mud as I muscled my bike forward. The mud also collected the leaf litter incorporating small twigs, some spiky with large thorns, and there was a gauntlet of trying to avoid being
stabbed when pulling it out from my forks. This pattern became my rhythm for at least a couple of hours.
The sun was by now asserting its warmth. I stopped in some shade and took in my surroundings. I looked at the time with the realisation that progress had been excruciatingly slow. I had come perhaps all of four or five hundred metres. It had also become clear that my pannier system was loose at its axle attachment on one side, necessitating some improvisation with cable ties. But on that quiet track by the river with birdsong floating in the warm still air, it felt timeless and almost magical. Yet I felt like a trespasser in a remote land. Incongruently the distant rattle of the morning train was a reminder of regular life not being that far away, but Swan Hill felt both uncertain and very distant. I decided to turn around.
Retracing my tracks took even more time. The heat of the sun’s rays began to dry the mud creating a frail crust over tackier mud below. Perhaps confined with the past days of rain, large ants were now energetically scurrying across the surface everywhere, and any time that I was stationary scraping out mud from my forks and seat stays, they had no hesitation in exploring my shoes and socks. Even the initial mud section that I had managed to ride earlier was now an exercise in pushing the bike. Eventually that seemingly innocuous bridge spanning the languid waters of the Lodden greeted me and I knew that Kerang was now in reach.
I made the decision to scratch. It was Tuesday, and with commitments in the following days, it seemed inevitable. In the subsequent hours, I felt conflicted as a wave of disappointment mingled with some feelings of pride of having done my best. It was only later that I wondered. Too oVen in the west we adopt linear sequential concepts of time. I had had the privilege of travelling through country. Perhaps I had needed to embrace a perspective of a circularity of time, of learning from indigenous cultures where time is attuned to the seasons and conditions of the land. Perhaps there is a time when a country may let us pass and a time that it does not. And so, there on West Road, north of Kerang, alongside the Lodden and in the mud of the Mallee, it was not my time to pass that day. In retrospect, perhaps I needed to wait, to be patient for the mud to dry and firm, to engineer a fix to my mechanical issue, and to set forth another day.
Everyone on the Mallee Blast has their own story, their own journey, and I was aware that I was indeed in esteemed company at the start line. But part of the beauty of this event is that it welcomes everyone. With this event having no cut-off times at checkpoints or the finish line, it may be a race but there is an inclusivity that foremost allows for participation and to create your own adventure. To be honest, I have struggled with some ambivalence about sharing this story as I am certainly not in any way an athlete. I am not blessed with speed or technical skills, and this story definitely does not sit alongside the voices of those who do achieve amazing feats within the bikepacking space. Rather it is just simply about giving something a go. It is said that ge[ng to the start line is the hardest thing, but once you get there, it can be wonderful to experience what unfolds. It is not about having no doubts or fear. To have courage is to open oneself up to these fears. It is to accept the challenge, to learn, and to know and trust yourself.