I took Fatty out for a ride yesterday to a spot I found a while ago. It was awesome: I rode through a muddy creek and muddy water flicked up everywhere. I love it when this happens because for some weird reason it feels like I’m really doing something, really getting right into being in nature, and because I’m getting dirty, I’m doing it properly. I know this is ridiculous, but who cares!

I rode over a river crossing, up a massive hill and took off into the bush. I can’t tell anyone where this is because I’m not really meant to be riding there. It’s not private property, but still I’m not meant to be there, no one is, but I actually don’t care because I’m not doing anything antisocial, like illegal dumping, I’m just riding my bike. It’s a great spot. I really like it.

I rode a fair way, but the track ended at a creek, which I couldn’t get across, so turned around to come back. About half way back I noticed a track off to my right. I’d already gone down a track like this on my way to the creek I couldn’t cross, so I kept riding, telling myself that it probably wouldn’t go anywhere and I’d get disappointed like I had when I’d taken the last side track to nowhere.

See, I love finding relics in the bush. The ultimate relic for me is a dead body. I want to find one before I die. I know it’s weird and I don’t care. A skeleton is what I’m really aiming for. This isn’t likely to happen, but it doesn’t stop me from getting excited everytime I come across a remote area. The next best relics are old abandoned buildings and weird stuff that is hard to explain, like how a car got to the bottom of a massive cliff that is nowhere near a road, or why a house in the middle of nowhere, still full of books, clothes and personal items was abondoned and left to rot, or how did this old Zippo lighter and leather tobacco pouch end up here in the middle of the bush, just for me to find twenty years after it was lost?

I got some way down the main track and decided that in the spirit of adventure and exploration I really should go back and check out the side track, so I turned around and followed it. It went for much further than the earlier side track had gone and I started to worry about where I’d end up because it was getting late. I won’t turn any corners I told myself, I’ll just keep going straight. I have a problem with knowing when to stop and didn’t want to end up in the middle of nowhere, fighting my way through spiders to find the car in the dark. God, I hate spiders! They always build their webs at face height across tracks.

My breath caught in my throat when I looked up to see the edge of a building come into view.” Holy shit” I said out loud. It was hard not to get too excited, but I made myself slow down, lean my bike against a tree in the direction of escape, and approach with caution. I left my helmet on so I wasn’t trying dick around with it incase a gunman came at me, even though I knew that wasn’t likely given the condition of the track I’d ridden in on – nobody had driven on it for a long, long time.

I thought I might find some bodies hanging from the beams in the theme of the Violent Femmes Country Death Song, but there was nothing in there. I’d done a pretty good job of creeping myself out by this stage, so it was just as well really. Here’s a link to that song. It’s my favourite Femmes song: Country Death Song