Welcome to 2011

We left 2010 behind safe in the knowledge that the drought had finally broken as evidenced by Lake Eppalock overflowing for the first time in many years. Unfortunately the drought was replaced by a plague of locusts. In fact the abundance of water has seen all types of insects, spiders and bugs appearing in huge numbers. But I'd rather put up with the bugs than die of thirst even if they do make riding a bit more of a challenge.

Your standard plague locust

The Sunday Morning Crew riders have been doing their own thing over the Christmas/New Year period with a lot of secret training sessions taking place for the guys who have events coming up soon and some others just trying to make sure all that Christmas pudding and trifle doesnt leave a permanent reminder on their waistline.

It was on one of these pudding recovery rides that Phil, Tony and I encountered just how much the insect population is thriving in the bush surrounding Bendigo. We were checking out the trails around Big Hill and Mt Herbert looking for new ways to get up and down and were enjoying an area that was locust free. On this particular section of the track the locusts had been replaced by hundreds of butterflies. I think they were the Common Brown type of Butterfly as shown in the picture below.

It was around 7.30pm in the evening as we rode up this valley full of butterflies and it was a very pleasant experience on a warm summer's night. Being the inventive sort of guys we are we decided to name this piece of track Butterfly Valley.

We continued to make our way up the valley towards the top of Mt Herbert and stopped for a rest before tackling a new way down that Tony and I had discovered earlier in the week. However it wasnt long before we were seeing the more sinister side of nature as we descended down what was to become known as Spider Gully. This particular singletrack decent is rocky and narrow and its lined by trees on both sides. Its a perfect place for spiders to build their nests from one tree to the other to catch their unsuspecting prey. Because its narrow and rocky you have to keep your wits about you which means there isnt much time to be looking up for spiders and their webs. The spiders would normally be after something a bit smaller than a mountain biker but the size of their webs made it difficult to avoid them.

A couple of local orb spiders

 

It certainly made for some unusual riding styles as we made our way down. Phil and I encouraged Tony to go on the front because he was the tallest and should have collected the most webs. It was the job of the second rider to keep an eye out for any passengers on the body of the lead rider and the last guy could just sit back and enjoy the ride along a clear path.