BurbleChaz

Anxious to avoid a repeat of the fuel crises on our last trip to the You Yangs, we started our day with a trip along New Quay for a spot of breakfast. The bacon was excellent, the coffee was perfect and the eggs were appalling. There are many things in life about which reasonable people can disagree. Topics upon which reasoned debate can be worthwile, interesting and even illuminating. Then, there are things that are so clearly true that dissent is a clear sign of imbecility. The recipe for scrambled eggs is firmly in this second category, and, let me be very clear indeed about this, it does not involve milk. Ever. For any reason whatsoever. If you want milk in your eggs, go and cook pancakes. No room for debate: Scrambled Eggs are made from the secretions of birds. Until cows sprout feathers and become airborne, none of their emissions shall be included in the recipe. Ahem. Not that I have strong views or anything. It's just the indisputable truth.

Once we'd fuelled us up, we checked that the car was also prepared for the journey, threw the bikes (well, 'placed reverently' actually) in the back of the truck and zoomed off in a generally western direction. Less than an hour later we were happily bimbling through the single-track trails in the Western Plantation at the You Yangs. It was lovely. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the temperature hovered around 25 degrees. We didn't see much wildlife, except for the flies. They were a bit annoying, but I suspect they will get much worse. The More Sensible Cyclist persuaded herself to have a go at some of the swoopy bits, and (I think) surprised herself by enjoying it.

After 12kms of that, we hauled the bikes up the mountain to the Stockyards area. This is at the top of the ridge, about 300m above the plain. The trails here are rumoured to be a bit more exciting. The Sensible Person grabbed a camera, iPod and book, and went to find a shady spot while I went for a bit of a rootle. There are ten trails in this area, from 5kms to a few hundred metres. They're rated from 'Easiest' to 'Abandon all hope, you who plummet here'. Fast, technical descents are the main theme. I started on Trail 1 (Wussy).

I hammered off up a gentle climb at ludicrous velocity. My bike is amazing. On a moderate climb, I just dial in the pain for 15mph and the speedo says 20. Spiffing. I hacked happily cross-coutry for about half a mile. Then, the trail turned downhill. I hammered into the first descent too quickly to avoid it. The reason I made it to the bottom in company with the bike is a triumph of engineering over incompetence. Somewhat chastened, I pointed the front wheel at the climb out of the chasm and pedalled. And pedalled some more. And fell over sideways. With my weight far enough back to lift the front wheel up, the back tyre was still slipping. So, since nobody was watching, I pushed it up the steep bit. This istself was an interesting task, as my shoes had less grip than the tyres.

It's steeper than it looks

Downhill.

I approached the next vertiginous descent with a little more care, which is just as well. Lying across my path was a sodding great snake. I think it was a Common Brown Snake. It was well over a meter long, and quietly sunning itself right across the path. By the time I had booted the camera, it had moved into the undergrowth and disappeared. I looked for it, but it had vanished. I didn't even consider picking up a stick and having a poke around for it, which is probably just as well. According to our booze supplier, a bloke in Adelaide was bitten by one of these at the weekend, and snuffed it.

A couple more plummeting descents led me to the car park on the other side of the mountain. I turned round and started the long climb back. Apart from a couple of ego-crushing places where I had to get off and push, it was a pleasant 250m climb. Back close to the top, I turned off from my wussy 'Green Dot' (that had challenged me hard) and had a look at a 'Double Black Diamond' run. After about 150m of that, I turned round and went back to sanity. There are screaming nutters in the world, and some of them have mountain bikes.

View from a lump of granite. There's a trail in there somewhere.

We tried barbecuing some steak tonight. Unmitigated disaster. On the plus side, we didn't actually incinerate anything except food. A learning experience.