So good, Dal!
Attempted Wilks Creek trail from Marysville to Andersons Mill Camp with number 3 on the back of the bike last night. Was trying to see if it was doable for the older kids but definitely a few too many hills for them at this stage. We only made it about half way before I realised I wasn’t wearing the back pack with our food and water so had to turn back and drove in instead. Probably worked out for the best as it meant we could be a bit more relaxed in the morning without having to worry about beating the incoming rain.
On the trail
Bushbuddy tutorials
Nina made friends with an older couple so we could borrow their fire for marshmallow roasting
As always, :thumbs up:
I was on nightshift a couple of week ago and got to daydreaming about adventure and thought fuck it; Vic and I are going on an overnighter on Thursday/Friday. The plan was to get the train to Castlemaine and ride out to Vaughan Springs (actually Central Springs campsite). It’s only about 13kms, but a great spot to camp. V-Line VLocity trains meant riding a normal length bike which meant riding the Shogun Metro. I knew loading up the Soma rack with panniers and camping gear was going to handle terribly - and it did - but LET’S JUST GO.
So we did, and it was pretty great. I learnt a lot. There were some pinch point tricky times, a mechanical, and I had a few train issues on the way home, but the camping bit went really well. The trickiest bit was getting on and off the train. The bike seat didn’t fit under the luggage rack thing, so I had to get on with this wobbly bike, take Vic off and put him down to roam free, remove the seat and secure the bike, and then find Vic again. Fortunately there were people who helped me with this, including a horrified 14yo schoolboy;
Schoolboy - “do you want some help there?”
Me - “Yeah great! Well probably the best thing you could do is to hold him, here you go”
Schoolboy - “ah shit ah no I don’t think ah um I don’t think he likes me!”
Southern Cross was fine for these things because there’s time. Otherwise the train doesn’t stop for long at the stations. Getting on at Castlemaine was hardest because I had to put Vic down and secure the bike while the train was moving. I was pretty quick though. Basically, having another adult there would have made this bit way easier.
I also got a puncture just as I was leaving the tarmac heading down the track to camp. In hindsight, I’m really glad it happened here. If it happened on the side of the road it would have been really tough to wrangle Vic and fix a puncture next to the road. I’m sure I would’ve worked something out, but yeah, having another kid wrangler around would’ve been helpful. Disasterously, when I went to patch the puncture, my tube of glue turned out to be empty. It was really weird, like it had evaporated. Stupidly I didn’t have a spare tube either. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for Sam - AKA Rambler - for recently moving to Castlemaine and already said he was going to come and hang out at camp for a bit. He brought me two spare tubes and even fitted one while I cooked dinner for Vic! And he brought beer and Brooke and we had a great old evening. What a star.
I missed a perfect nap-timed train by a few minutes to get home the next day and the train an hour later was “full” (Loser conductor guy who couldn’t be bothered moving a few bags), so it was a 2hr wait for the train home. Vic was knackered by then, but actually coped pretty well. He never melted down. He did fall asleep for about 45mins on the train and was pretty fresh after that, but it was quite different to his usual 2-3hr nap.
The camp stuff went really well. I had two oldschool thermarests and just put Vic in the two man tent to sleep. He rolled around and went to sleep, and I just shifted him over when I came to bed. He fed himself like usual, but on the ground with some teatowels to protect his clothes a bit. It was pretty much a standard camping experience. He handled the ride fine too. He likes riding.
TL;DR - We had a great time although there were some tricky bits. We’ll do it again. Sam is a star.
So next time I’m hoping to ride further, probably from a metro line on a longer bike. Ideally I’d ride with another kid wrangler, but we kinda had fun on our own, and the tough bits were rare, and not many people can do two day trips on Thursday/Fridays, and I don’t want to no go because of that.
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Woot woot, I’ve yet to mechanical with Nina but my planning was to take the kiddy seat of the bike and leave her strapped in.
I’m hoping to get the whole family from Ballarat to Smythedale on the weekend.
The best! I was so stoked when I saw the footage of you guys going down the slide at Vaughan Springs. I was meant to take the girls there camping last year, but never made it.
Well done mate!
How old is Vic? My boy is about to turn one, and I think it’s time he and I got out into the bush.
15 months
He first went camping at about 12 weeks maybe? That was in the car though. He’s done a bit of hiking. This was the first bike trip.
Hey Vic! You’re an awesome dad Pete.
Not really bike camping. But it involves bikes, camping and kid so it’s going here.
Due to some poor map reading (by someone other than me) We thought we were going to push the kids on a 30k ride from Beechworth back to our campsite in Myrtleford. Turns out it’s actually 43k which they managed to do. Not bad after a previous pb of 20k
#swiftcampout2017 edition.
Took littlest up to Longridge Camp for the Commuter Cycles Swift Campout.
Swimming lessons, plus ballet lessons, plus birthday parties meant that we couldn’t make the 12:00 rollout from commuter and the 4:00pm was going to lead to a too late arrival. So we left home about 2:00. Was quite nice to be able to roll out the door without having to drive or train anywhere 1st. Most of the route was a ride I do pretty often so it felt a bit weird doing it fully loaded. Nina slept on the back for about an hour on the way so I was able to power along and managed to catch the end of the 12:00 group just before camp.
The last couple of hills were a struggle but well worth it when pulling into a great campsite so close to home. Usual shenanigans of jaffles and marshmallows. Unusual shenanigans of keg beer.
Nina slept until about 7:30. She wanted to stay in bed while I made porridge and unfortunately it took me too long to work out the urgency of the situation when she needed to wee and couldn’t unzip the tent…
Ride home was pretty uneventful with the odd Frozen sing-along and back home by 12:00.
Snaps.
Those kids were awesome fun to have along…
Nice work, Dal!
That explains the little pants drying next to the fire in the morning.
Yep the two 8ish year olds ripping on the single track on the way out were pretty gold.
I was getting a bit itchy that we hadn’t been out for a while and that next school term was going to be a bit busy so despite flying back from NZ on Thursday I decided on Friday we’d go out on a quick overnighter back to Freeman’s Mill. Somehow I got talked into taking all 3 kids…
SJ/NSJ Wrapup.
SJ: New camera lens arrived on Friday.
NSJ: Forgot to put battery back in camera after charging
NSJ: Also forgot bike shoes and had to do whole weekend in Camper Peus
SJ: Lucy’s new 26er meant I could offload some weight to her
SJ: Only had gone about 200m along trail when I realised the car keys were still in the ignition
NSJ: Lucy stacked it on the wooden bridge
SJ: She fell onto the bridge rather than off it
NSJ: Sky was cloudy at night again
SJ: Rain mostly held off
SJ: Had whole camp to ourselves
SJ: No other commitments on the weekend meant we had a bit more time than usual
SJ: Invented the marshmallow and blueberry jaffle
I’m pretty stoked that we’ve got to the point where we can decide to go out at short notice, I was a bit apprehensive about taking all 3 kids by myself but for the most part it worked pretty well.
Snaps
Loaded bikes
#hikeabikeatykepacking
Camp setup
The new pocket billows were a hit
Bushbuddy fuel
#coffeeoutside
Powering home
So awesome. I’m keen to do this in a few years when my kids are capable of doing a few more ks
Bloody excellent
That is rad!
Did you facebook guys see that guy who took his two sons and a friend down from Canberra to the Coast? That was awesome.
do you really fit yourself and 3 kids in here? looks like top fun in any case!
Dal doesn’t sleep.