On a Thursday sometime in August the ACT went into a snap lockdown. Brenton, Charles, Stan, Chris and I had planned to walk up to Pryor’s hut from Corin Dam on Friday night. A few of us had experienced this walk before, it’s a top way to spend a Friday night after a dump of snow under a full moon. The moonlight reflects off the snow and the snowgums, lighting your way through the enchanted silver forest. Friday was going to be snowless and provide less than a full moon but we’d still earn the 600m of hard earth elevation in 1.5km or so. Stockyard Spur used to be one of the more difficult gazetted climbs in the ACT. A footpad up a heavily vegetated and steep spur that rises up from the dam wall all the way onto the spine of the Brindabellas. A few years back it was cleared for ten metres either side of the track and tamed with the addition of stairs that provide sure footing and wincing knees for most of the tougher section. The stairs make it worse I reckon, but I’ll grant you, you’re not grasping at saplings as you slide backwards towards the dam anymore.

I was looking forward to returning to Pryor’s the proper way, but the lockdown really dashed those plans. Dashed them real good, along with other sweet roadmaps to human connection and that stung a bit.

With those feels felt, sometime during the lockdown I proposed that we ride into Horse Gully Hut at the first available opportunity. So we did. And this is that story, I know there was a lot of Pryor’s Hut before but this isn’t that, it’s Horse Gully Hut. Pryors will come. But not now.

One of the joys of human powered locomotion is that it will break you if you do it too long without stopping. This is a joy, because being broken delivers unto you the realisation that you are mortal, fallible, temporary, tiny and completely and utterly fucked. American people who ride bikes a lot call it bonking, but bonking feels different in Australia. Bonking is actually amazing in Australia and I dunno what they’re complaining about. But being broken by riding too far with more to go and proper topo between you and there confronts you with your being. You are being. And being is time. And there is being and then there is nothingness. Standing at the bottom of a long, direct and steep firetrail climb at dusk with nowhere flat to camp and a sense you have nothing left to give is the perfect way to learn how much you have left in reserve and shrink your world to you, gravity and topography.

And your mates. They’ll be there and everyone will unspokenly gift energy between each other. It pays to be aware that this gifting of energy could take the form of giving you a whole lot of shit about falling off or having short legs. Not all bike rides necessitate this undetectable energy transfer. Some rides are hard, some are easy overnighters but all that depends on you and what you’re being towards.

The trip to Horse Gully Hut, which is pretty cruisy let's be real, started from Charlie’s place in Ainslie. We gathered around 10:30, imbibed the juice of the caffeinated bean and made our last preparations. We rode out from Charlie’s on the bike paths. Our bikes were laden with all the bikepacking accoutrements. Somewhere along the way there was a lovely woman who shouted out ‘I don’t know where you’re going but I hope you have a good time’ I responded back ‘we’re just going for a picnic’. Which we were. So we buzzed along, our knobby mountain bike tyres verbalising their inefficiency on the tarmac surface as we gained ground on Lanyon Marketplace, the last outpost of homogenised retail on our route.

It was there that we took onboard critical sports nutrition. I availed myself of an iced latte and a chicken flavoured product, deep fried, with the internal consistency of toothpaste to accompany the venison salami I’d smuggled south of the lake. Charlie had a hamburger with the lot - tomato sauce - Chris was feeling the steak sandwich and Stan reached for the particular blend of carbs and fats offered by a Kingsley's chicken burger. After this balanced dietary pause we continued south and as we did the going deteriorated from double asphalt bike path to concrete footpath, to singletrack, to trackless nature strip, to on road riding. On road riding can go eat a bag, but there was no other option for this section between Lanyon and the Namadgi visitor’s centre. We pushed into a headwind past the roadside memorials and Aussie Buggy Adventures gate. I was towing the group at this point. Stan said it was because my frontal area was more conducive to cutting into the wind but I think it was because they wanted to make sure I didn’t peel off and go back to the pub.

Chris and I pulled into the visitor’s centre car park and we remarked at how chockers it was, first Saturday out of lockdown and Canberrans flock to the bush? Legends. Looking around though, we couldn’t see a Charlie or even a Stan. Stan is harder to see than Charlie due to Charlie’s towering stature. Charlie is formidable. He has the relaxed nature that comes with pile driver legs and the size and strength to silently command respect, and he always provides respect in return. Just don’t reverse into him in a carpark while he’s loading his kids into the back seat, pinning him between his car and the car door. You’ll know about it. Stan’s lower centre of gravity and densely packed muscle mass manifest his elegant line choices. He descends singletrack and impassable fire trails with grace applied with earthmoving force. Stan disinters to you the depth of his earned confidence when, after piloting down an unknown firetrail descent striated with deep erosion ruts that you’d lose a Charlie in, he says shit like ‘just don’t touch your brakes’ and ‘bikes just want to go downhill’.

As Chris and I turned to go back out onto the road we could see two figures walking bikes through the gate. Walking bikes from a roadway does not bode well.

Charlie’s girthy meat in the rear position had picked up a puncture. It was spurting tyre sealant but there was no sealing taking place. We parked up at some park benches, refilled water and Stan extracted his tyre repair capsule from somewhere or another. He constructed a tyre sealing tool from the constituent parts of the capsule and successfully plugged the hole.

Celebrations were abridged due to the magpie that had given up on swooping and was now positioned on a branch directly above brandishing its cloaca. We left the visitor’s centre and returned to the bitumen for a rolling section with shoulderless crests and crosswinds on the flat sections. We were meeting Brenton at the confluence of the Naas and Gudgenby rivers. We knew he was already there because I’d called him about borrowing a pair of his old knicks for personal reasons that involved me not bringing any, at all. So we put our heads down and pedaled out the eight or ten kays that lay between us and the Silver Fox. I spent most of my time out of the saddle for personal reasons.

Rounding the nub of a prominent ridge we saw the rivers below intersecting at the rendezvous. We descended down to the bridge and met with Brenton, Richard and Karen. They’d thoughtfully brought water and frosty sports drinks for the crew. We regrouped, refilled and imbibed of the Bentspoke as we plotted the rest of the route. From here, the going would be unknown, dirty and wet.

Farewelling Richard and Karen, we set off and pedaled up a gentle dirt road climb into luscious spring paddocks offering a meat salad of Angus and Black Baldy. A cocky was drenching his stock in some yards as we rolled by. Engrossed in his task or oblivious to our silent mode of travel he didn’t raise an eye. The country opened up to a wide valley floor, a soundless expanse bounded by hills to the east and west. It had a sense of liberating isolation. And I’d dropped the rest of the crew somewhere back at the cocky’s yards.

Chris bridged the gap and we let the evenly spaced star pickets and infrequent gum trees slide by us. Chris is the kind of fit you expect at the AIS, he plays hockey and it could be those bursts of intense bipedal effort that translate well to the bike. For Chris and Charles, this would be their first long overnight ride, and so far it seemed like they were both into the journey, enjoying the exploration of going where you haven’t been before and doing it with your own limbs and some rudimentary mechanical contrivances.

As we rode, Chris and I discussed the road surface. That is something one does both with oneself and others on a push bike. The way ahead is always scanned with the attention that the surface demands and a line, a path within the path, is chosen by the subconscious or, if you’re in the zone, the flow state brain. I had indulged in some solo consideration of this particular surface because it was unlike one I'd encountered before. I was traversing the remnants of a once fresh bitumen road. Laid by workmen long ago with steam shovels and asbestos gloves. It was then left unmaintained for decades, crumbling into a chunky substrate worn smooth by landcruisers, tractors and hooves. Case closed. It’s an old, completely disintegrated, bitumen road.

Then Chris goes ‘do you reckon they’ve bought loads of old bitumen fill in for this road?’.

‘Nah, I reckon it’s a real old bitumen road.’

…. then a few minutes later….

Is it fill? There’s shielded cabling sticking out of it every so often, it could be old bitumen and ‘clean’ fill.

The cocky would know.

But he was way back and Horse Gully Hut beckoned. The bitumen mystery would go unsolved. Pretty sure it was fill like Chris said though.

As we pushed south the valley narrowed and we came abruptly to a ninety degree turn, with an open way to the east and a closed gate to the south. As Chris and I waited for the boys to group up we heard the crack of a high velocity rifle a few hundred metres south, along our way.

It was not followed by duelling banjos and the disappointment was palpable.

We made our way, following the signs to Caloola farm. This is private property with some form of easement or right of way to Namadgi. Still, the owners like you to call them and let them know that you’re passing through.

Pretty soon we came up on the first ford of the Nass river. We splashed through on our bikes and from the eastern bank the going deteriorated, in that good way, as we approached the Namadgi National Park gate.

On the way down a gentle decline in this area the perpetual problem of line choice was promoted from background process to foreground cognitive load. A series of three or four lengthy and deep puddles burgeoned across the track and into the open grassland on either side. Approaching this at moderate speed I looked to a single use, wafer thin land bridge from open track on this side to open track on the other. The landbridge, barely wider than three fingers across, had a kink in the far third of its length but I adjusted my grip in the drops and eyed the way through, shifting weight to the rear of the bike to unweight the front wheel before the tread met the slimiest portion of this wafer thin, definitely single use, landbridge.

I stopped at the top of the next incline. Stan, with his fat tyres opted for a wider path around the water hazard. Charlie had too and Brenton also took the long way around. Chris, with his gravel bike and similar sized tyres to me, looked to the land bridge for his way.

The single use landbridge not wider than three fingers with a kink in the far third.

I’d already punched that landbridge’s card once and for all time. It was done.

Chris rolled up with bark off his knee, blood flowing down his leg. The landbridge had let him down. Not one to dwell on some strawberry jam, Chris was urging us on after sharing some jerky around.

From here the going was perforated by water crossings. The rolling fire trail trended upwards with frequent descents to and through the Nass River and its tributaries. Sediment of a familiar dimension and colour collected in drifts in the river, a consequence of the Orroral Valley bushfire and the heavy rains that followed. 30-50mm of rain had fallen in the area a few days before so the river was up and we were walking all the crossings.

Stan had interrogated the topo and counted seventeen fords on the map. With that ahead, we left our shoes on for every crossing but the first. This was an easy decision for me, for I was carrying a secret weapon that would provide for great comfort and copious fahshun at the hut. For the others, it may have been a more significant dilemma but leaving shoes on was the right call for this run.

We made the way south and the valley continued to tighten, compressing the track against the mountains and causing it to entwine with the river. The water was pleasant and while the shadows ascended the western faces of the mountains to the east we were warm enough from exertion that the cool air was welcome for now.

Temps were supposed to dip below zero and the going, being as it was, meant our arrival at the hut would be fashionably late. Darkness doesn’t change anything but the amount of light for your eyeballs to see. The land, distance and time broadly remain the same. Camping high, exposed and arriving after dark is where the fun is at.

The imaginary elastic between the group stretched as we came up on the final river crossing. I’d pedaled ahead and came down into the final crossing feeling a bit relieved there wasn’t too much further to go. I walked my bike across and busted out the soft bottles to fill them up from the river.

As I was filling up, Stan arrived and we checked in. We were both pretty depleted, with a bit of a hike to go. Chris turned up next, followed by Brenton and Charlie.

Charlie broke chocolate and distributed it among the group and we were appreciative of this divine sustenance for the last push up the steep ascent towards the hut. It was dark as we crested the top of the fire trail climb and we needed lights for the final few hundred metres to the hut.

We’d been following the tracks of two gravel bikes. The tracks showed us where that pair chose to cross the river, that they had kept their shoes on for crossings and that they had wheeled rather than carried their bikes across. Brenton also got word of a large group heading for the hut via Clear Range Campground. So we knew we’d have some company at the hut for the night.

Breaking out of the scrub and into the hut clearing we could see four or five groups of tents and a group of friendly looking peeps near the hut. We rode up, said hellos, leant bikes against the hut and began to unpack.

That was my opportunity to unleash the expedition grade secret weapon of massive satisfaction.

In recent times, I’ve really appreciated the value of radical transparency. So I said to Stan, “Stan, you know how it’s a bit shit to come all the way out into the mountains and then be a massive showoff?”

Stan said “yeah”

And I said, as I unsheathed my lime green camp booties from the frame bag they’d been stuffed in, “I’m about to do that.”

I took a seat in the hut and, to an audience of my own inner child, I teasingly undid the velcro on my apparently adult cycling shoes. I rolled a wet wool sock from my well proportioned albeit wrinkly foot and patted it dry as one might powder an infant’s bum. The pyrite from the granite sands in the river glistened like fabulous glitter in my discarded socks. I took from my pocket a fresh pair of socks and slid one on, luxuriating in the warm wool and wiggling my toes to ensure a satisfactory fit. Calm anticipation dilated my sense of time and my hand reached for an uncrumpling lime green camp booty. I slipped my woolen sock sheathed foot into the foot hole of the booty and allowed the foot, sock and boot assembly to come to rest on the timber hut floor.

And then I did exactly the same thing with my other well proportioned dry foot. It was an experience I wished I could share but I only had but two booties, one for each of my well proportioned dry feet. So, to share as best I could in the situation at hand, I described the sensation to everyone within earshot as they clomped around in wet bike shoes.

I assured all that the lime green colourway communicates the fahshun, the prestige and signals deep: the legitimacy.

If I ever don’t return from one of these trips, you’ll know why, right? And it’s cool, that’s the risk I run sharing my experience so generously with my companions and new hut friends. Don’t charge them with murder, charge them with misdemeanors against fahshun and buy them a beer.

With our sleeping quarters erected, my tarp hitched to a hitching post, our group and the lovely peeps we met at the hut earlier gathered inside for eats and drinks. Beers of both the Bentspoke and the Capital breweries, plum liquor and rum made the rounds along with such nourishing delights as venison salami, pork salami, cheddar cheese, vintage cheddar cheese and brie cheese. Dessert treats too were abundant as was the camaraderie that melded with the sense of place, feasting and festivities.

Nine of the delicious aforementioned frothy chops were procured and carried into the remote wilderness by Brenton. A 375ml can of Bentspoke weighs 407g, putting the quantum of this flex at 3.6kg. The reverence earned by this act will follow the Silver Fox through life from this day forth.

With bellies filling we exchanged stories under the glow of LEDs reflected from the corrugated iron roof. Hearty laughs bounced around the timber framed hut. This crew we met consisted of some well equipped bikepackers and an ultra runner out for one of their first bikepacking trips. Sharing these places with great people doing fun stuff is a real pleasure.

Sometime approaching midnight we dispersed into our shelters. I stopped for a moment to look into the patch of star encrusted sky we'd be sleeping under, framed by mountains on each side of the valley. Then I got real serious about snoring all night.

I awoke well after daybreak to the sound of Charlie and Brenton conversing about an opera or quoting Shakespeare or naming the birds or something like that. I found myself thinking about how positively advantageous it is to travel remotely with an international trade lawyer with two masters degrees and an extensively read Silver Fox who took full advantage of the free university of the olden days and now maintains an ear for music and something approaching an encyclopedic knowledge of the western canon. Of course there was a spare lawyer on this trip with Chris in attendance but I find it drives performance when lawyers know they’re a little bit redundant. Stan of course with his bike mechanic, navigation, remote travel and fabrication skills rounds out the group and I’m just there as a food source if it all goes south. I live a wagyu life.

And with that my mind turned to breakfast, and coffee. I’d be no use to the group if my flesh was not ready to hand and that demands caffeine and whatever the other type of sustenance is. I can never tell before coffee. Is it me?

Not today.

Today my breakfast would be some of Stan’s homemade bacon, some venison salami and cheese. I live a wagyu life. And I was seeing what riding without a stove for cooking would be like, turns out not bad. But I still had my penny stove for coffee and a backup dehy meal if I really didn’t like the continuous meat and cheese diet. But it was fine, apart from the ethics of eating animals, but as a mobile food source myself I felt I could grapple with that question after I survived the trip.

The hut served as a base for us again that morning as we came and went in Mont down jackets and Mont long stretch pants and lime green camp booties, from Mont. And as Charlie packed his canvas bike bags complete with leather zipper awnings for some reason my mind turned to the original occupants of this hut. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure the reason that happened was Charlie’s bike bags. They’d look right at home next to a drover, his horse and a steaming billy tea in an enamel coated tin mug.

I’ve heard from locals that Horse Gully gets its name from its use. Apparently stockmen, the Man From Snowy River no doubt among them, used to run feral horses up into the narrowing gully to bail them up, get them tethered and then take them back to some yards to break and sell them. Cool story.

The only thing on the hitching post that morning was my 2010 Salsa Fargo in Funguy green. Fresh from its Monkey Wrench service it was chomping at the bit to get into the hills. I wasn’t quite matching that level of enthusiasm yet, but with some of Stan’s bacon in my belly and caffeination levels approaching homeostasis I wasn’t far off.

We left Horse gully Hut via a different route that I’d planned to the South with a significant walk up and over a prominent spur. This way out was a severely degraded firetrail but it was shorter and involved fewer water crossings. So after a few short hours, and still more chocolate kindly distributed from Charlie’s chocolate sack, we arrived at my place and a well stocked beer fridge. Frosty sports drinks were distributed all round and some lunch devoured. We called the ride done. Horse Gully hut had been returned to and one small lockdown interference was made right.