bikes

For the third day in a row, the temperature is expected to peak at over 40 degrees. Which is why on Sunday at 7am, when all good poets should be in bed, I'm unloading the bike from my car at Mount Beauty to begin a 32-kilometre ascent to Falls Creek. It's very quiet this morning - an old lady walks her two pug dogs, three parrots flutter in a pine tree and I cross the bridge over the West Kiewa River. The road climbs past a terraced golf course and a swish new ski development on the hillside overlooking the valley. Meanwhile, this bogan is cycling to Bogong, an alpine village fifteen kilometres up the road. As a child, I was always thrilled by the story of the Bogong Moth, a night-flying brown stealth bomber of an insect that diverts to the bright lights of Canberra on its yearly migration south to the Bogong High Plains. Sidestepping the issue that anyone (or anything) would be attracted by the bright lights of our nation's capital, I longed to go to the mythical high coun...

There's debate as to whether the iconic bogong moth was named after the Bogong High Plains where they return every summer, or that the mountain range was named after the moths. Either way, it's widely accepted that bogong means 'big fellow'. I pedal out of the 'big fellow' village and set my sights on Falls Creek, a climb of nine hundred metres over fourteen kilometres, with an average gradient of 5.7%. Unlike yesterday's ride to Mt Buffalo, this gradient plays tricks, changing from a relaxing 5% to a 'my knees are shaking' 10%. But, don't be dismayed, the hard stuff is near the summit and doesn't last for long. And there's always the view to keep me occupied. The Weather Bureau has warned of high winds, storms and torrential rain. I start early enough, crossing the Pretty Valley Branch of the East Kiewa River - nice name that one. The climbing starts immediately on good tarmac winding through snow gums surrounded by a thick carpet of fer...