A little tale of a bike packing adventure.

I have been meaning to get out and do some bike packing for a number of years, I even went as far as seeking appropriate approvals/justifying and buying a Salsa Fargo, bike bags, light weight camping stuff and a small hiking tent.. that has spent the last couple of years gathering dust and taking up valuable N+1 space.

So.. the heavy old Fargo and bike packing stuff sat idle until I got an invite to join a group of bikepackers heading out for an October long weekend loop through the Watagans and out to Polkobin/Cessnock and back, with 3 day options ranging from 200-600 kilometres, now it was about the time that I got the invite that the part of my brain that had rationalised that it was a good idea to drop a couple grand on the fargo and all that bikepacking crap a few years ago woke up told me that this trip did indeed sound mighty tempting! Really.. I mean what could possibly go wrong with heading out into an unfamiliar forest on an overnight trip with a bunch of dudes you just met on the internet…. (now I’m sure they were OK guys and at no time after I met them did I actually worry nor see any banjo’s strapped to their panniers)

Seeing that I hadn't spun a wheel in anger on the gravel as a bikepacker before, after some deliberations I had settled on the softer 200k route, as it turns out that everyone else that turned up to ride had the 400k route pre programmed into there heads, legs and garmins, so it was going to be a solo 200 effort for me, rather than the social 200 learning the ropes bikepacking adventure with my new found internet randoms that I had expected.

We set off from Morisett station, a few urban/park sniggles later and we are climbing up into the Watagans, now climbing with this lump of steel loaded up was a new experience for me, I think it must be at least 25kg’s of bike and gear.. and as I suspected that it would be a long day ahead I take it easy on this first climb (it’s a long one up into the Watagans) heavy bike or no heart..? anyhow; this is my excuse for getting dropped on the first climb of the day.. and before long we arrive at the spot where the rest of the bunch bids me farewell and turns off for their 400k adventure and I’m on my own for the 200 soft option. (if you could ever call 200+k’s with over 4k of climb on a heavy bike packed fargo a soft option.. but yes it was the softest option of the day)

The planned route for the first leg is through the Watagans to Laguna, up towards Yango and turn right to follow a creek into Wollombi, it’s a nice day with breaking cloud cover and mild temps, I had started with 3 ½ bidons (two on the fork legs, a half on the down tube and one in my backpack bladder), I see lots of kangaroos, lot of motos and the odd 4wd along the various fire trails, this section is easy with no steep climbs and about 1200M vertical all up. Once I get through the Watagans it’s a fast decent to the valley to follow the Wollombi brook through to the great north road. Soon after reaching the great north road, just as I began the short climb up Yango creek road I ran out of fluids (I make a mental note to myself for the next time that I’m driving along in the country and spot a bikepacker, consider pulling over and asking if they need water) Lucky for me the climbing was about done for the first leg and soon after it was an easy ride at a leisurely pace into Wollombi for a steak sandwich, Coke and a Coopers pale ale.

There are a lot of friendly and inquisitive people hanging around the Wollombi pub, I talk to a few older couples who ask me where I’m from and where I was headed, “on a hot day like this” generally friendly banter all leaning towards the “I must be crazy” side on the scale of conversations.

Having rested for a while, refuelled myself and filled up fluids (nearly about 3L) I have a quick look at the garmin topo map and figured the next stage into Cessnock to be pretty easy going (wow underestimate of the year!). I head off on the next stage that starts out as a pleasant route following the river until I turn right and begin the climb into the Polkolbin State Forest. Now I’m going to blame the heavy bike; but for the next 3-4 hours I’m completely in the hurt box sweating, swearing, grinding, pushing this heavy lump of a bike up some climbs (no doubt much easier on any normal bike), the hills go on for ever, the kilometres go by very slowly and the decent out of the hills hurts my hands, neck and back, the solid fork rattles my tooth fillings loose and I run out of fluids again. I get lost on a section that follows some single track into a field (track just disappears); I find it again and before long I’m heading into Cessnock while racing a setting sun.

In Cessnock I skip the pub meal; besides I was way too sweaty to enter such a fine establishment and didn’t have a bike lock anyways (to be honest our relationship was now on the rocks and I would have welcomed any prospective suitors to help themselves to Miss Fargo at this stage.. sometimes you just have agree that its been a fun time but now its time to let go and move on..) relationship ending thoughts aside I spot the local KFC and in a haze of heat/fatigued/dehydrated fogginess settle for the dirty bird zinger, some wicked wings, large chips and a pepsi. (enough kcal to see me through to Brisbane..) 35 seconds later having finished my snack I’m filling up my bottles with some blue gatorade (blue to match my blue Salsa, blue bottle cages and mood) at the servo, have a nice chat with the lady at the counter about where I have been and where I am going.. (she also decides that I’m crazy) and with about 20min light left I head off out of town.

The next section takes me through Aberdare State Forest.. mmm..OK.. what a fancy name for the local rubbish tip? I follow some old rail trail (up down up down up down) for a while, it gets dark and I need to turn on the lights. I had planed on camping here some place, but the general fear of waking up to find someone dumping their old fridge or washing machine on my head kinda turns me off the whole lets bivvy here tonight idea.. so I decide that I just need to get into the Watagans and find a quiet place that’s a nice spot to wake up at.

Not long before the end of the Aberdare section I have a reasonable crash, front wheel caught a tramline in the gravel on a corner and I’m off sliding.. washing speed off while trading my skin for gravel with the road.. OUCH! I check myself and have some reasonable cuts and bruises, but nothing that will stop me, the Fargo is OK, so I get back on an pedal off. Now I have had enough crashes on bikes (actually by the time I crash I’m usually not really on the bike anymore) to know that it will be in the next 30-60 min that I will really find out what’s wrong as the adrenalin wears off and the bruising starts to put pressure on nerves/joints.. so I decided that I will just pedal it out for now and make a deciding call soon.

About 20 min later I’m ridding along and instantly decide that I’m 100% completely over my days adventure and I now must consider my options:
A> Find a place to camp.
B> Find a nice Hotel, with a bath.
C> Find a bail out point and call mommy to come and get me.
D> Rid myself of this horrible heavy steal stead and simply wander off into the bush and enter into an adventurous life living off the land and making a home out of abandoned fridges and other Aberdare forest detritus.
E> Stop my whining and just ride on and finish the damn thing.
I decide on finding a camp spot , (sleeping in one of the abandoned fridges ran a close second) but I know that’s not going to be really fun now that I’m all bleeding and covered in dirt, having to sleep on the ground and to make it worse I don’t have a liner for my nice new sleeping bag.. So I ride on into the Watagans again hoping to find a more suitable spot to bivvy, here I find some long climbs to be spun up on some very tired legs (half bonking) dripping blood mixed with sweat and dust and pushing a real heavy bike, I’m not enjoying the ride so much and considering (looking around while walking up a hill that my legs refuse to winch me up) finding a spot to bivvy when I happen upon a 4wd coming in the opposite direction, the guy first asks me “do I think it’s a bit late for a bike ride”? as I have no reasonable explanation to counter his line of interrogation.. I wind up generally agreeing with him on that point and then he asks me if I know of any camping grounds around here (I was going to ask him the same question(s) substituting bike for 4wd..) he goes on to tell me that he was just camping up the road a bit and got attacked by 3 pigs (had a pig head size impression in his door to prove it) and was looking for a safer more populated place to camp.. mmm OK.. I guess I wont be camping anyplace around here then?

Leaving my new found 4wd pig wrestling friend (who needs the internet to find new friends when you can just find them on any old lonley forest fire trail in the middle of the night..) I ride on further into the dark, really hoping to find a Marriott, Westin or at least a Travelodge.. (I’m reasonably confident that they don’t abide wild pigs in their rooms) but unfortunately it appears that the Watagans is devoid of such establishments, I get all happy when I arrive back at a familiar campground at the fork in the road that I had turned down perhaps 14 hours earlier and now know that it’s a short 30k downhill/flat run to Morisett.

While I’m celebrating reaching familiar tracks again while downing the last of a bidon of cooling blue gatorade mixed with gravel from my earlier stack and basking in the erie glow of a distant roaring campfire, some of the local campers start yelling things out to me, (didn’t quite catch the words, but got the general gist of it and I’m pretty sure that they weren’t a bunch of NRL cheerleaders out on their equivalent mad monday weekend shenanigans) so I decide that the wild pigs and or wild people don’t want me here in the Watagans tonight, so I decide to ride the last K’s back to the car parked at Morisett Station.

I ride back through the fog and into an increasing suburbia landscape, a foggy cemetery (spooky!) and get back to find that while I was out relaxing in the hills on the lovely Fargo (we had been to hell and back and had patched up our relationship sometime after hitting the tar back into Morisett), someone in a white car (judging by the paint they left behind) had crashed into my parked cark.. oh goody.. I pack the bike up and drive home to a hot shower, a late night date with a scrubbing brush and some hydrogen peroxide, followed by a warm bed and dreams of wild pigs and abandoned couches.

Distance travelled 209.4K, 4063M Elevation gain.