My Scottish great-grandfather (my mother’s father’s father) migrated to Victoria in 1873 where he ended up owning a drapery store in the township of Ballan, a staging-post on the way from Melbourne to the Ballarat goldfields. Since Ballan is only about 100 km west of Melbourne I decided to cycle out there to see what more I could find out about my family history. It was just a quick trip: one day out via the scenic route, and one day back via the freeway.
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[By the way, it’s pronounced <Ba- lann>]
The big difference between Europe and Australia as far as eBike touring is concerned is that in Europe you can nearly always guarantee you’ll find somewhere to charge up the bike batteries whereas in Australia you can’t. Thus in Australia, the limiting factor on a long trip is the battery range unless you take along your own means of generating electricity to recharge them. Since this trip was just an overnighter to a caravan park and well within a day’s battery range of Melbourne, I just used the typical bike set-up that I normally use in Europe and relied on being able to find a power outlet whenever I needed one, and left the generator, and the trailer, at home.
I bought two Ortlieb mini-panniers called Fork Packs that attach to the front shocks and can take 3-3½ kg each, and I matched these with the two smaller-sized R&K (Rixen & Kaul) rear panniers that came with my original eBike (that was stolen in October of 2018).
The two battery chargers, and all the tools and spares plus first-aid kit, went into the fork packs; clothes and most of the camping gear went in the rear panniers; and I put my tent in a dry sack that I slung across the top of the panniers. This load distribution made for a much more stable eBike, but it did mean that I had to leave a lot of stuff behind, such as most food and cooking and camera gear – there was just not enough space. This reduced the overall load I was carrying from typically around 40 kg to about 25 kg.
Wednesday 31 March 2021. Abbotsford • Ballan |103 km|
It felt good and I was strong and confident heading west out across Melbourne on familiar bike paths as far as the Footscray Bridge over the Maribrynong River, then turning north under GPS guidance to thread my way through suburban Footscray and onto the bike lane alongside first the old Ballarat Road and then the main railway line.
Where the present edge of Melbourne suburbia begins to peter out at Carolyn Springs, 32 km from downtown, I was routed onto the minor Griegs, Exford and Nerowrie Roads to avoid the M8 freeway. But all through here the edge of the city is marching westwards at a great pace. There is major construction activity on maybe a dozen massive building sites all at once all along here, strung out along the roads I was on as far as Eynesbury, 22 km further into the flat and barren countryside.
The trouble is, those roads haven’t been upgraded yet. So the lone cyclist, me, doesn’t really mix well with all that heavy traffic. I tried my hand at making a little video clip to give you the gist:
If that truck had tried overtaking just a few seconds later I’ve no doubt he would have plowed into me to avoid a head-on collision with that truck coming the other way over the blind crest. As it was, he nearly did run himself off the road in trying to get back onto our side of the road in a big hurry.
After crossing the C704 road I was onto Glenmore Road, cycling in relatively quiet flat open country for the next 15 km, all ripe for future suburbs no doubt. The only two cars that did come along both stopped to enquire whether I was OK when I was pulled over briefly for a quick drink. Bless ’em eh – I knew I’d arrived in the true-blue countryside!
As I worked my way up the valley, the same road sign repeated every few kilometers made me think I was in for a bit of a climb to get out of it.
But my mind wasn’t too distracted by the ominous warnings. I was just enjoying the ride.
The climb, when it came, did not disappoint; 1½ kilometres at 13½% average, with some short sections up to 17½%. I got down to 2nd gear and a wobbly 9 km/h in places, and had to ride on the loose gravel shoulder when 2 impatient drivers simply had to pass me near the top (the only cars I’d seen for an hour too, and followed by 2 more coming the other way).
I definitely wouldn’t have been able to make that climb on an ordinary pushbike even without any luggage, but it was no trouble at all on the eBike 😁.
After my Big Hill experience of the day I continued on for the 15 km into Ballan on the much flatter but busier and wide-shouldered C141 road.
Adam, the manager of the council-run caravan park in Ballan, was friendly enough as he was booking me in for the night for $20 and pointing me to my pitch. But he became quite stroppy later on when I told him the Wi-Fi code he gave me didn’t work. [He had written it down for me even though it was quite easy to remember <Password123>!, and I tried it at least a dozen times].
I’d actually wanted to stay for 2 nights but he didn’t want to ruin his chances of securing a 4-day booking on that spot over the impending Easter long weekend just for the sake of my one extra night, so he’d limited me to just the Wednesday night only – fair enough. But I was glad about that in the end because my neighbours – in the single-men’s permanent-occupier section of the park where he put me – came across as rather scary drug-withdrawing dysfunctional types. I was on tender hooks around them in case I inadvertently set one of them off – they had a peculiar habit of finding ways to disagree with me out of any earnest desire on my part to be agreeable. Paranoia, I suppose.
After setting up and settling in, and having unloaded all the luggage off the bike, I made the short ride back into town to begin my genealogical researches. This entailed first buying a pen and note-book from the local newsagent, where, after the usual bit of friendly chit-chat, it turned out the owners, Rick and Gail Biden, are members of the local Historical Society.
They both recalled hearing or seeing the name of my ancestor, Robert Shankland, but couldn’t recall any details and promised to look him up and call me back.
I went over to the Post Office to take a photo of the memorial in front of it that commemorates the men from Ballan who fought in the First World War, my great-grandfather’s son (also Robert – my grandfather) being one of them. I toted up the numbers on the memorial – of the 116 from Ballan who enlisted to fight in the ‘Great War’, 12 were killed. I’d already known my grandpa had been severely wounded in the war from his archived war record. [He survived, but ironically his first wife died in a buggy accident back in Australia while he was off in the war, and he went on to then marry her sister, my grandmother].
I went to the large IGA supermarket in town (everything of a commercial nature is along the main drag called Inglis Street) to get an ice-cream and a coffee milk, and was just enjoying them out front of IGA when Richard called me back.
He gave me some more details about Robert Shankland, including that the store he owned actually used to be on the site where the IGA now stands. Later on he also posted me a couple of photographs, that I have included below.
….and the Masonic Hall, that he paid for and was the first Grand Wizard of, is also on Ingless Street back towards the caravan park, and has been converted into an upmarket gallery ….
My grandad was a member of the Presbyterian Church, which is now a Uniting Church….oops….forgot to get a picture of that. But here’s a picture that has nothing at all to do with him (not that I know of anyway). Dan (Andrews) is the Premier of Victoria, btw:
First they (the NIMBYs) successfully protested against the nuclear power station to be built on French Island, then against gas exploration in Western Victoria, then against the proposed gas import terminal in Westernport Bay, then against the proposed on-shore wind farm at Yarram and now against the HV transmission lines for the nearby Moorabool wind farm (the turbines are already there – I just rode past them going up Pentland Hill). I wonder where they think their power is going to be coming from?
To continue…My great gran was also founding Chairman of the Ballan Electric Supply Company that first brought electricity to the town (using a diesel generator located where the Shire Office now is). (I wonder if they had any protests to contend with in those days, huh?). And he also founded the Sports and Recreation committee that set aside land for and developed the local sports ground. Whew! That’s a lot, great-grandpa.
Flushed with such easy success, and after chatting to Bulgarian immigrant Phil who is trying to make a go of his fancy restaurant in the main street opposite IGA, I retired to the front bar of the Commercial Hotel at 5pm for a cheap counter meal and a couple of beers.
Thursday 1 April 2021. Ballan · Abbotsford |85 km|
The ride back home was certainly a lot shorter and a lot quicker than the .ride out.
A farmer in the pub last night informed me that bicycles are allowed on the M8 freeway. I wasn’t in any particular hurry to get back but it sounded like a good idea to avoid the busy construction traffic I had encountered yesterday, so I decided to take the quicker, and hopefully safer, route. And quick it was too: 3h 20m to go 85 km at 26 km/h average, compared with 5h to go 103 km at 20 km/h on the outward journey.
The thing that staggered me – apart from the exhilaration of speeding down the highway at 50 km/h – was the incredible amount and variety of rubbish that had been flung to the side of the road. Most of the debris was just of one kind – smashed green beer bottles, and most of those were along the first few kilometres out of Ballan. It was a bit nerve-wracking keeping my eyes out to avoid running over glass with potentially catastrophic consequences and I had to do a couple of major swerves. But there were also: two almost complete vehicle front grilles (Toyota and BMW); numerous nuts and bolts (also dangerous); hard hats; a perfectly good pairs of trainers (ie. running shoes); a complete porcelain toilet!; a fun-park dodgem car; hundreds of bundles of undelivered store catalogue/ newsletters; numerous broken hold-down straps; lots of lumps of timber; and thousands of soft drink containers, cans and plastic bottles etc etc.
I couldn’t stop of course for a closer look or to take pictures – too dangerous – but here’s a short clip of me tearing down the freeway at 50 km/h:
Robert Ernest SHANKLAND 1856 – 1938
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