We’d barely made it fifteen kilometers down the road when Will’s wheel blew. Cruising down a gentle decline, the early ride excitement was punctuated with the hissing of air rapidly vacating the tyre. He was the only one to start out tubeless – the great tubeless VS tubed debate was settled before our first snack break. Not that we cared about the grand debates of cycling. We just wanted to get to the first night’s camp with ourselves and our bikes in one piece.
Fortunately, in addition to being the victim of the trip’s first mechanical, Will actually had some experience fixing bikes. He quickly manhandled a tube into the wheel, and we were off again. But the small sense of pride we had from overcoming the trip’s first hurdle felt trivial. We’d barely made it out of town, and were about to head into the mountains. We could replace a tube, sure. But what if something more serious happened? We were stocked with multitools, patch kits and zip-ties abound. But had anybody brought a spare spoke? A chainbreaker? Some extra brake pads? Absolutely not. We were novices. And the mountains would come to demand more than spare tubes.
The route was simple. We’d leave from Jindabyne and head south down the Barry Way, a road that winded along the Great Dividing Range. We’d exit the mountains into East Gippsland, take the rail trails to Phillip Island, and eventually, with the help of a short ferry ride, arrive into Melbourne. It was Harry’s idea, who wanted to mark the end of our university days with something memorable. The rest of us didn’t take much convincing. We had all done enough cycling to look at ten days on a bike with nervous excitement rather than fear.
By the end of our first day we felt righteous in our optimism, high on the adrenaline of a ten kilometer descent at dusk. The morning of the second day we spent peddling in wonder along the banks of the Snowy River, looking up in amazement at the majestic pine trees that lined the open valley, in a landscape that looked more like California than Australia. An ecologist friend later told me that the pines were native, blowing my mind open to how diverse Australia’s landscapes could be.
But by that afternoon, the mountains were having their way with us. The temperatures had risen into the thirties, and while we could cool off in the stream in the valley, we didn’t know what the water situation would be on the other side of the range. Committed to drinking little, we began the climb, and were all soon deep in the hurt locker. Declan’s ankle – rolled a few days before the trip – was looking more and more like an angry pufferfish with its motley of purples and blues.
Then, on one of the short downhill sections, Di snapped a spoke. The group mechanic, Will, put on a brave face, saying we’d be fine. But we all knew it was bad. The closest town was Suggan Buggan, which had a recorded population of three. We were in the middle of nowhere, and it felt like on our first trip we’d taken on more than we could handle.
It’s been close to seven years since then. We have all had more bikepacking adventures, some together, some apart. Each ride with its own mechanicals and memories. From the Tallaganda trip where my brake pads fell out mid-descent, to Tommy’s famous wrong turn in Jagungal. The feeling of starting a new trip remains unparalleled. Somehow riding a bike for a few days still seems an act of resistance, amid a world of omnipresent convenience and digitalism.
But that trip to Melbourne will forever be the first. The one that taught us the sensation of moving by bike, the ride that gave us the folklore and fireside stories for all the rest. In a way, in all our trips since, we’ve just been trying to recreate that first adventure, yearning for when everything was at its most raw.
The relief of eventually fixing Di’s wheel. Our gratitude to the woman with the bike touring company in Orbost who supplied the replacement spoke. The satisfying crunch of tyres departing the tarmac for the gravel road. Sleeping bags wet from morning dew after a night dreaming up at the southern cross. The eerie silence of the ghost-like caravan park at Roseneath. The taste of supermarket pesto for the fourth consecutive dinner. Tommy’s face all puffed up after a night of mosquito bites. A police officer reprimanding us for not wearing helmets one evening, and then inviting us into the pub for a pint. The breeze and the smell of eucalyptus on the cool morning ride out of Buchan, knowing the day was still young.
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