It’s About the Journey

Last week I tried to ride a large loop from home which took in Scrub Road and South Boundary Road… but didn’t quite make it. I tried again this week, and didn’t quite make it again. The problem last week was lack of water and time. This week the mud defeated us. The people from DERM have recently taken a bulldozer down some of the paths to clear fire breaks, and the roads have become impassable due to the thick mud caused by recent heavy rain.

Dean and I set out from my place at the ungodly time of 6am (he’s an early riser) and headed out to Bunyaville via some local bike paths.

From there we rode to Ironbark Gully in Samford Forest via Wongan Creek. The creek crossing was flooded, so I smugly let Dean know I thought we could ride across it without any problems. Halfway across the creek my wheel sunk into a hidden hole, I went over the handle bars, and and ended up sitting in water up to my neck wondering what was going on.

In the meantime, Dean did the commonsense thing and rode around the flooded bit without even taking a foot off the pedals.

I’ve really got to learn my lesson about flooded creeks I think!

(Picture by Dean)
From Ironbark Gully we headed up to Camp Mountain for the gruelling climb up the short track. It’s always a painful climb, but I love the sense of achievement when I reach the picnic ground at the top having beaten the hill.

The recent rain has cleared the haze from the air, so the views from Camp Mountain south to the Brisbane CBD were beautiful.

(Picture by Dean)
From there it was a quick ride up the bitumen to the gate at Scrub Road, and a fun descent for a couple of km down this steep firetrail to the creek and causeway at the bottom.

The only problem was the mud on the track up which clogged our wheels up so much they stopped turning. So the sensible thing to do (as Dean managed to convince me) was to turn around, climb back up to the bitumen, skip this section of dirt trails, and ride the road up to Mount Nebo.

I was disappointed. It’s annoying to be defeated twice in a week by the same stretch of track. But it forced me to face up to my main reason for doing all this anyway. And if I’m honest, it’s not about achieving objectives, it’s about getting to visit great places with good friends.

(Picture by Dean)
The views from the Mount Nebo Road looking down into Samford Valley were pretty special anyway, so I don’t think we really missed out that badly!

Just over 82km, with 5:30 hours rolling, and a tad under 1,800m of vertical ascent, and 4,800kcal of energy. The BLT sandwich at Jones Tea Rooms, Mt Nebo, was worth the effort to get there. Once again, this ride rates 9 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter for the hot weather, tough climb up Camp Mountain, and the mud on Scrub Road. Let’s do it again some time 🙂