Our Mallee (Vic) Cycle classic - Sept 2003

We headed for St Arnaud in central Victoria, Australia to begin a two week adventure to circumnavigate the 'Mallee' district, basically the north western sector of Victoria. We stayed overnight at the Commonwealth Hotel, a decision we regretted. The owner basically had a thing about customers. His customer relations were very poor! We survived, and woke to a rainy and cold Victorian day, with a wind that was fine if it was behind you! The countryside was however beautiful, with flat fields of canola and also vast sheep pastures. It is technically Northern Grampians country. We headed to Charlton to the north east, with the strong wind pushing us along. You can see from the photo how strong the wind was blowing - note the handkerchief in my hand! Cruising past one of the many sheep paddocks, we noticed the entire flock looked distressed, gathering in one spot. On closer inspection, I saw that a big old fat ram was on his back and couldn't get enough traction to get up on his feet. The things that cyclists do! I entered the paddock, heaved him up (he weighed a ton!) and the entire flock were once again relieved. Charlton is a very small town, with beautiful old buildings, very wide streets and divided by a river. The old pub we had pre-booked was adamant they not only didn't take our booking, they weren't licensed anymore for guests! The old Aussie pubs have dozens of rooms, but many we found to be fire traps. We found a much more expensive room at the 'Vale of Avoca', a lovely B&B in a former pub, but now a 'Not a Pub'! It was luxury - the breakfast was excellent. We then headed for Pyramid Hill, an even smaller town, some 90k further north and east. The land was flat except for a hill that resembled one of the Egyptian pyramids! A town of 500 people, it was built on a railway crossing. We stayed at the pub, where the owners had gone to great trouble just for us. When the owner found out we were Salvationists, he insisted we use his family lounge room, saying the bar was far too 'rough' for Julie to spend the evening! They were lovely to us.

Next day we headed for Cahuna, then Barham for the night, finally crossing the great Murray River and actually into New South Wales but just for the night. Next day we crossed back into Victoria, and turned to follow the Murray River toward Swan Hill. The land is very flat, being river country. The farms are wonderfully irrigated by an intricate system of water courses reminiscent of Holland. We didn't like it, but decided to take a 'short cut' via dirt country roads in order to cut down some miles. The day looked nice, but the wind never left us until the ride was over. Today was into the wind all day long! The photo is just north of Benjeroop, a small rural community along the Murray River. Julie's first experience of draughting today, the wind was so strong. It helped a bit. We struggled all day into the wind, eventually coming into Lake Bogo, a Catalina Base for the RAAF during WW2. It was the longest 20k then into Swan Hill, a beautiful and famous river town known for its River boats. It was a welcome Motel that night, and a rest day that followed - we explored the shops, the river and the beautiful historic river paddle steamers. We then headed for the famous northern Victorian town of Manangatang. I had to slow Julie down today! The landscape suddenly changed, looking more like the red centre. It was dry, red soil with scrub replacing the beautiful canola fields. We passed through Chillingollan and lunched at Chinkapook, two non famous Victorian towns, but enchanting nevertheless. It was great to eventually arrive at Manangatang, another small town built on a railway and crossroads on the way to South Australia. A friendly kangaroo chose to bound the final few kilometres with us on the road toward town! The few hundred residents were celebrating, having won their local footy Grand Final. The weather was cold, but for non-drinkers, we found the pub hospitality always warm, the food outstanding for hungry cyclists. Next day we headed
south to Sea Lake (miles away from the sea, possibly mis-named). The weather by now was really cold and miserable, we were glad to arrive and get in out of the cold. Sea Lake was also steeped in history, with lovely old buildings and a pub that again hosted us with warm hospitality. We woke next day to an even more miserably cold day. The wind never blew from the same direction for two days running! after all, this is Victoria! We headed further south to the reasonably sized town of Hopetoun, and then next day on to Warracknabeal, where Julie's Dad lived as a boy. It is always great to see the wheat silos on the distant approach to these distant Victorian towns - they stand like silent sentinels and serve as an indication that the town is not that far away. We really liked Warracknabeal, and chose to stay an extra day to explore and enjoy the community. It is a town full of beautiful old Aussie homes. This was as far west as we were going, and next morning we headed east for Donald, another lovely locality. We were now back in lovely farming country, well irrigated again by the quaint system of canals, with lovely fields of canola (literally acres of beautiful yellow flowers) sheep, and grain. Today we saw a bull, our first for the journey, and took the photo of this one and only 'Mallee Bull'! The final day arrived, and we headed off in the direction of St Arnaud to complete our 750k circumnavigation of the Mallee. We didn't return to our cranky Publican, but instead were wonderfully looked after by Daryl Talty, owner of the Botanical Hotel, who was also graciousness enough to look after our car for the previous two weeks (quite a contrast!). This was a great experience, and just a warmup compared to the great adventure planned for 2007.