Flatland

Tuesday, 10 October
Methven to Geraldine, 72.5 km
After a night of reconciliatory dreams, the mind trying to put the past to rest, I set off from Methven under an overcast sky. The town is gone in a moment, and the mountains quickly shrink behind. Within an hour there is only me, the road stretching indefinitely ahead, and wide spaces to either side. The overcast sky hides the sun completely, so there’s no sense of cardinal directions. I could be heading east, south, or some other direction entirely. I pass pasture, shelter belts of pines or long rows of poplar, occasionally farmers working tractors out in the middle of their fields.
The ride is easy, the road smooth, descending gradually and, with a light wind from the left or slightly behind, quick. Indeed, the easterly breeze is the clue to the direction in which I’m going.
I cross three- or four-way intersections at which roads extend straight to the horizon with little to differentiate them. It’s oddly disorienting, and also a great meditation, the cadence even and only rarely changing gears for a barely noticeable incline. As I pass herds of cattle, they gallop across the field to gather at the fence to say ’Hello’. Perhaps they are bored living on this flat grassland?
Late morning the cloud begins to thin and the sun intermittently breaks weakly through. A new line of hills emerges on the right and the route converges on this range as gradually as it descends. The highest of the peaks, Mt Peel, rises to 1743 masl, and I’m reminded of a very enjoyable 3 ½ days hike in the Peel Forest area in 2015.
Pausing briefly in Mayfield I half expect tumbleweed to come rolling down the main street. Instead, I meet a mum with two small children. She tells me she will be taking part in the Alps to Ocean ride in a couple of weeks and asks if this is what I’m doing. I look it up later and find I’m not yet on the route, but if things go to plan, will be on part of the route in a few days, incidentally.
Southwest of Mayfield, the road continues straight for 15 km before I opt to take a diversion. The angle south then west-southwest to rejoin Route 72 makes hardly any difference to the outlook or the rhythm.
Geraldine, when I reach there shortly before 2:00, is quiet. I roll once down the main street before finding a side road out to a park where I boil water for tea and take care of protein needs with a can of tuna, a boiled egg and cheese on bagel. It seems absurdly early to be checking in the Geraldine Heritage Hotel, but I do anyway then wander through town for a while. I realise this is the first town of any size I’ve been in for 8 days. In fact, after Hanmer Springs, there were three days when none of the small towns passed through had a grocery store worth speaking about. Here, there are two.
In The Cottage Pantry and Gallery I find an amazingly well-stocked store of artisanal foods, cards and homeware, and knick knacks distinguished by their quality and non-standard style. Looking more closely, I find that many of the knick knacks are imported from The Netherlands or Germany and I ask the owner/manager if she has the traffic to make this viable.
’Well,’ she says, ’there are not so many people as there used to be. People are vanishing.’ By this she means she’s seen a video in which a couple sitting on a bench in a shopping street somewhere simply vanish. And this leads us to a long and winding conversation about how humans are ’supposed’ to live for centuries, but we’ve been manipulated to have shorter lives. Because this means shadowy organisations that really govern the world can rewrite history to suit their agenda. Things are not as they seem. That general premise I can agree with, but I know I’m speaking from a rather different point of view than she is suggesting. It’s a fascinating, if somewhat discombobulating, conversation.