Binny Lake, Tarraleah -> Lake St Clair

Distance cycled: 44.8 km
Ave: 19.8 km/h
Max speed: 64.3 km/h

In contrast to yesterday, today felt easy.

We stopped to visit The Wall, which is a purpose-housed and carefully lit span of wood sculpture panels. Most of the panels were finished, others were left intentionally unfinished. The whole thing was probably 25 meters long and 2 meters tall, with carving on both sides. The material looked to be many vertical 2″ strips of wood, glued together and then carved.

Although it claims to be a portrayal of local history, it really is a testimony to this guy’s ability to carve pioneer men.

There was a small blurb about him asking indigenous communities to contribute their story, and leaving it out because they didn’t respond. There were multiple notes from the artist about keeping phones put away as to take photos or video would be “unaustralian”.
Among the plethora of labouring male pioneers, there were only four women: one of them was nude (random gal having a shower, super narratively relevant, I’m sure), one dancing with a man, and two at the end portraying mourning the loss of a spouse who died in war.
Portrayal of history ended with the wars.
There was a thank you from the artist to “forestry and hydro” “for their support”.

So I walked out of there with my amazement at the carving skill soured by dislike for the artist.
Why are women still only rarely portrayed, and then often (totally unnecessarily) naked, and only as they relate to men? Why, when I mentioned how few women were portrayed to some guys outside the venue afterwards, had it not even registered to them that women had been missing?
A lot of funds went into setting this up. Perhaps “forestry and hydro” weren’t keen on giving the contract to someone else (like an indigenous artist) who might have portrayed a different attitude to “history”.

Although the gender distribution is just as skewed, there has been no paucity of motorcyclists. Today especially, has been swarming with them. We entertained many motorcyclists with our impressiveness, which felt pretty laughable given the easy short day. It’s fun watching people try (and most often fail) to pick up my loaded bicycle. Mostly, the motored cheating scoundrels are fun, as it’s usually interesting to chat with fellow travellers. But one motorcyclist actually told us it was possible to carry more gear on push bikes than on a motor bike. Dude. You have a motor!

Lake St Clair is a national park (again, nobody checked our passes). There is free camping, which is great, but it’s weirdly far from bathrooms and water – like an 8-10 minute walk.

Over by the bathrooms, there’s a lot of great infrastructure: a lodge, restaurant/cafe, visitor center, showers (only open 10am-4pm, weirdly), and picnic tables. We cooked dinner in a sea of mosquitoes, and we all ate our fill.
I suspect the great infrastructure is because this the end of the famous Overland Track (a week long hut to hut hike which is currently closed because of bushfires). Given the infrastructure, it seems even weirder that the camping is free. But hey, no complaints!

Alice and Felicity