Race the Overland

[Taffey]

Hi there - ZigZag and I are intending on racing The Overland train from Melbourne to Adelaide on November 3 and welcome anyone that would like to tag along.

Simply reach out for the specifics. We will be following the current route of the Standard Gauge line stopping 3 or so times to take a picture of our bikes with the train in the background.

Cheers
Taff

[Biggles]

What a great fun idea!

[Taffey]

Racing the Overland – Melbourne to Adelaide

Most rides begin with a plan. This one began, quite deliberately, with the abandonment of one.

A few months before departure, Dominic — ZigZag to those who know him on the forum — and I found ourselves at the Norton Summit Hotel, doing what sensible riders do: mapping out a sensible ride. The idea was straightforward enough — head north into the South Australian outback during the cooler months, take in the Oodnadatta Track up to Marla, then return along the blacktop to Adelaide. Dirt, distance, and just enough discomfort to justify it all afterwards.

I had come prepared, laptop in hand, ready to reveal what I considered a rather tidy plan. But as I opened it, Dominic's eye was caught not by the carefully considered route, but by something far less polished sitting off to the side of the screen.

"Race the Overland."

He looked at it, then at me.

"What's that?"

"Oh, just something I've been tinkering with," I said, perhaps a little too casually. "Chasing the train back from Melbourne."

There was a pause — not long, but long enough for reason to make a brief and ultimately unsuccessful appearance.

"I like motorcycles," he said.
"And I like trains."

And that, as it turned out, was quite enough.

The outback ride was quietly set aside, and in its place something far less sensible, but infinitely more interesting, took shape.

The Ride Out

The weekend itself began with heat — the sort that settles into your gear and stays there — as we made our way through South Australia and Western Victoria on the FarRiders/FarKin/FarRoad run into Harrow. It had been one of those rides where the sun does most of the talking, and by the time we reached Halls Gap on the Saturday evening, both rider and machine were feeling it after two nights on the road.








Dinner that night was pleasant enough, but it was the following morning that lingered. The air had turned crisp, the sky clear, and for a few brief hours everything felt exactly as it should. After a fabulous breakfast under the great cliffs, we rode out across the lower western plains toward Ballarat with that quiet sense of ease that comes when the world aligns just enough.

It did not last.

By the time we joined the Western Freeway, the wind had begun to rise, and with it came the first signs that something was shifting. We abandoned any lingering thoughts of detours and pressed on toward Melbourne, arriving just ahead of what would soon become a thoroughly unpleasant change in the weather.

Our accommodation for the night was tucked behind a character-filled Melbourne pub — the Prince of Wales — a place that had, according to its owner, been renovated in such a way as to make it "more dodgy than grand," which felt like an entirely fair description. Retrieving the key required following a set of instructions that were remarkably obscure, and for a short while we wandered about on the other side of the pub with the quiet determination of men pretending they knew exactly what they were doing. We must have looked a sight.

Eventually, of course, we did find it, and with it the far more important prize: a secure basement carpark where the bikes could be left dry and undisturbed while the weather outside began to turn.

That evening, we were collected by a friend of mine — Andrew, though better known as Howie — who before long had us transported across town, sitting down with his young family, enjoying the sort of easy hospitality that seems to arrive unannounced but is all the more welcome for it. We did not stay overly late — there was, after all, a train to catch — and by the time we returned to Richmond and turned in, the shape of the following day was beginning to settle in the back of the mind.



Morning, when it came, brought with it rain. Not the tentative kind that might pass with a bit of patience, but the committed sort that settles in and makes itself known. We dressed, packed, and made our way down to the basement, only to discover that while entry the night before had been something of a puzzle, exit was proving to be something else entirely.

For a few moments we stood there, fully prepared and entirely unable to leave, contemplating the possibility that the ride might end before it had even begun. Then, as if by quiet agreement with the universe, a car arrived, the door lifted, and we slipped out with just enough composure to suggest it had all been part of the plan.

Which, of course, it had not.

By the time we reached Southern Cross Station, the rain had settled into something relentless. We found what shelter we could beneath an overpass and waited, peering across the station from entirely the wrong vantage point. When, at about 8:06, a blue and silver set of carriages emerged through the rain and eased out of sight, we took it, without further verification, to be our train.



It seemed close enough.

And so, without ceremony, the chase began.

Race that train...

What followed was, by any reasonable measure, some of the worst riding either of us had experienced. The rain fell heavily enough to reduce visibility to little more than suggestion, and the spray from passing traffic turned the freeway into a shifting wall of grey. Both of us held a steady 100 km/h, though how much of that was sight and how much instinct is difficult to say.

Somewhere along the way, my GoPro gave up entirely, and the iPhone mounted in the Quadlock quietly stopped charging, the ingress of water doing what it does best. It left us riding not only blind in the physical sense, but just slightly uncertain in the navigational one as well.

We reached Geelong ahead of the train — comfortably so — and for a moment there was the option to wait. But the numbers suggested that this was the last point at which we might hold any real advantage, and so, rather than linger, we pressed on.

It was a decision that felt correct at the time.

Should have gone before we started... 

By the time we reached the village of Cressy, however, the human element began to assert itself. Cold, damp, and steadily losing warmth, we pulled in briefly — a stop that was both necessary but, in hindsight, costly. Back on the road, the rail line appeared to our left, running quietly alongside us, and it was there, near the almost-imaginary locality of Vite Vite, that thought gave way to reality.

I crossed the line.

Dominic did not.

The alarms sounded, and not long after, the train came through — swift, deliberate, and entirely unconcerned with our efforts.

From that moment on, we were no longer ahead.

We were chasing.



We've got this...

Ararat arrived slowly, and with it a growing sense that the race might already have been decided. And yet, as we rolled into Ararat railway station, there it was, just departing, as though waiting to remind us that the story was not yet finished.

We paused only long enough to acknowledge it, then moved on to Stawell, the next station, reaching it fully fuelled mind, but late as we could see and hear the train leaving the station and moving off into the distance.

And so it was from here to Horsham that things began, briefly, to unravel.

The decision to follow the rail line — logical in theory — proved less so in practice, and by the time we arrived at Horsham railway station, the absence of the train told its own story.

Asking after the train, we were advised, "Left about five minutes ago," which, allowing for regional translation, meant rather longer, more like 15 minutes ago.

Frustration, which had been quietly building, now found expression as Dominic attempted a tight turn within the station area and, in that moment of just slightly too much pressure, lost the bike.

It was not dramatic, nor damaging, but it was telling.

We righted it without comment.

And so we reset, properly this time, and set about the business of chasing.

Now we are well behind...

From there, the ride took on a different tone. The stops became shorter, the decisions quicker, and the sense of purpose sharper. At Nhill it was clear the train had come through around 30 minutes earlier by the complete lack of anyone around whatsoever. By the time we reached Bordertown, South Australia we needed full tanks and a clearer strategy. The idea of catching the train had shifted from expectation to panicked tactics — I sensed we still had a chance, but the train had the advantage.

The Adelaide Hills presented their own calculation. Our plan was to follow the train through them to admire the view and keep the faith with the route. This had cost us on the approach to Horsham; bit would not twice. It was clear that following the route while consistent with theme, would lose us the race, and so we chose instead the more direct line, taking the Southeastern Freeway, committing to the direct run into the city.

The pressure of failure removed; the anticipation of competition amped up to 11 as we approached our home city.

It was there in the peak hour of Adelaide traffic, at a level crossing not far from the end, that the failure tension returned in earnest. We arrived just after 5:30, the crossing ahead of us, traffic gathering, both of us watching with quiet certainty that at any moment the gates would fall and the train would pass through, leaving us with nothing to do but watch.

But the moment did not come.

And so we moved.

Are we there yet???

We arrived at Adelaide Parklands Terminal just before 5:45, some fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, and found, to our mild surprise, that the train was not there.

Delayed, we were told.

Somewhere.

By about twenty minutes.

And that, as it turned out, was enough.

Victory!!!

We stood there for a moment, letting it settle, before realising that we had, almost incidentally, covered 800 kilometres in under eight and a half hours. Not a small thing, given the conditions, the interruptions, and the occasional misstep along the way.

Cold, damp, and with little inclination to wait for a train that had already lost, we took our photos, acknowledged the result, and went our separate ways.

Dominic rode off into the fading light.

I went the other way.





Final Score

FarKin Motorcyclists — 1
The Overland train — 0

And, as with all good ideas that begin without quite enough thought, we agreed on one thing.

We would be back.

And next time, please, no rain.

[Taffey]

Hi there - for those that like a video story, here is something we threw together rather too quickly as a companion to the blog.

[Biggles]

Excellent compilation, Taffey!  Nice commentary, some great music.  Really made me want to jump on the bike and get out there with a challenge in mind!