I took a few photos with our Canon EOS 400D. Unfortunately the zoom wasn’t very powerful, so I finished by taking a few photos with Liz’s Canon Powershot. I was surprized that the Powershot took much clearer photos than the DSLR. I was also surpsied how little exposure I needed. With the DSLR I used ISO 100, F/5.6 and speeds between 1/200 and 1/800 sec. With the EOS, I used ISO-800, F/8 and 1/2500 sec.
I enjoyed the experiment. This one was much easier to photograph than the Transit of Venus which happens tomorrow. I might leave that one to more experienced photographers 🙂
We arrived at the starting point at about 8:30am after a two and a half hour drive from Brisbane, and immediately started the long climb up into the National Park.
Normally, this ride has some amazing views. Rising over 1,100 meters, some of the lookouts are perched atop shear drops, and let you see forever in every direction. The clouds, mist and rain made that impossible today, but it was still a wonderful experience riding through the lush rainforest.
The rain also made it impossible to take photos. My camera is out of action, so all I had was my mobile phone which doesn’t handle moisture too well. Thankfully, Darb was able to capture the high points of the ride on his Contour video camera. Here’s a link to his video of it.
The challenging thing about this route is that apart from three fast descents, we were climbing for almost 35km, which took us about three and a half hours. All the while, it was raining, and the temperature was hovering around 11C. So it was hard work.
Eric and Darb are strong hill climbers. I found it impossible to keep up with them on the long ascents, and was thankful they stopped several times to help me catch up.
The fast descents were exhillarating though. Shooting down a dirt track at about 40 km/h with fogged up mud-covered glasses, and chill breezes cutting through rain-soaked clothes really makes you feel alive – and cold 🙂 I was glad I added a couple of Snickers Bars to my normal stash of food – they helped to warm me up again.
The final descent out of the National Park is awesome. We dropped 1,000 metres of altitude in just over 10km. That’s the longest descent I’ve ever done.
Normally on a run like this my brakes would overheat, and I’d end up losing them. This time my local bike shop had installed an 8″ brake rotor on the front, and a 7″ rotor on the back. They handled the descent with ease. My brakes didn’t fade at all. Thank you, Sam from Strathpine Bicycle Centre!
Once we left the park, we took a detour through some private property. I had been in touch with a local land owner who said he didn’t mind us riding down through his property to Horseshoe Creek. This was another fun descent down a steep boggy 4wd track with a couple of dozen water bars.
(Picture – Dean Dwyer)
At the bottom of the boggy track, with the bikes covered in mud, we had to cross a flooded Horseshoe Creek. Eric just lifted his bike above his head and waded across in the knee-deep water. I pussy-footed around trying to hop across the rocks and keep my feet dry. In the end, Eric took pity on me, waded back into the water and grabbed my bike, while I finished crossing the creek. My efforts were to no avail – my feet were soaked despite wearing plastic feezer bags over my socks.
The creek was a good spot to wash the mud off the bikes and start the second half of the trip through the much flatter farmland in the valley below the ranges.
For me, the toughest part of the ride was the final two kilometers. With the end of the day seamingly in sight, and 80 tough kilometers on our legs, the road became suddenly steeper, and we had to grind our way up the hill back to the car.
We did a total of 2,000m of vertical ascent on this ride. It took us seven and a half hours to ride 81.5 km (including an hour in breaks). I burned about 8,000 kcal.
Doing this ride in cold wet weather and having to drive two and a half hours each way to get there definitely rates this one 10 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter.
Total distance: 82.71 km Total climbing: 1999 m Average temperature: NAN Total time: 07:33:35
(Many thanks to Ron Perske for taking the pictures today. My camera has broken from over-use, so Ron very kindly agreed to be our photographer)
The late Autumn weather in South East Queensland has been amazing, which inspired me to do some more exploration around the Glasshouse Mountains and Peachester. The only problem was that once I’d committed with a couple of friends to do the ride, it started raining 🙂 So it ended up being a bit muddier than we had anticipated.
(Photo by Ron Perske)
Eric, Ron and I started our ride from Matthew Flinders park at Beerburrum, under the brooding watch of Tibrogargan. The park is named after Matthew Flinders who camped there in 1799 – the first european to visit the area. He intended to climb Tibro, but it proved too steep for him, so he decided to have a go at the much easier Mount Beerburrum instead. (Photo by Ron Perske)
We headed west through the forest towards the lookout. Rain from the night before had soaked some of the trails, so within a quarter of an hour we and our bikes were quite muddy.
After completing the steep climb through the bush up to the lookout, we took a break to enjoy the view and try and get some of the mud out of the bike chains. I brought an old rag, and a bottle of wet-weather chain lube. I discovered that drowning the chain in lube kept most of the mud at bay. (Photo by Ron Perske)
As we headed into Peachester Forest, we just followed whatever trails looked interesting. We had a basic plan of where we wanted to go, but whenever we came across a winding trail heading off to the side, we checked it out. Sometimes that turned out well. Sometimes we ended up to our axels in muddy water 🙂 (Photo by Ron Perske)
…sometimes we got our feet wet.
Eventually we ended up at Peachester for a bit to eat and a drink, followed by a quick descent down Old Peachester Road, then back to the cars along Old Gympie Road.
The fun thing about today was that we didn’t have a fixed agenda / schedule. The flexibility meant we could follow a whim and see where some trails ended up. The knowledge we gained will be really useful in planning future group rides through the area.
This ride was about 50km, and took about 4 and a half hours. I burned about 2,700kcal and climbed about 900m in vertical ascent. I’d rate this ride about 7 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter. There are one or two short difficult pinch-climbs, and the mud made it a bit more of a challenge. It’s not really a ride to do in wet weather so leave it for the dryer winter months.
Total distance: 50.72 km Total climbing: 992 m Average temperature: NAN Total time: 04:37:00
Kluvers Lookout is a 680m high peak west of Dayboro in the D’Aguilar Range. My friend Wayne and I took a mid-week ride up there today.
We started from Laceys Creek, riding 6km up Wirth Road, and ascending 400m through the rainforest in the process.
From there we climbed another 200m as the road wound slowly up to the lookout.
The lookout itself is quite small, but the views are fantastic. We were really lucky with the clear blue skies and views out to Moreton Bay.
From the lookout we started the long descent back down to the valley. On the way down we were treated to some great scenery of low-lying clouds in the creek-beds to the west looking out towards Mount Byron. Wayne and I kept stopping frequently to enjoy the view.
Half-way down the mountain, we came across this helicopter landing pad which was built in the park for emergency rescue. Wayne did an amazing impression of a helicopter. His “chooka chooka” noises were so authentic I expected him to take off.
From there it was a fast descent down Lacey’s Creek Road back to the bottom of the range. I worked my brakes so hard that they started to fade half-way through, and I had to pump them furiously to get them working again – not the sort of surprise you like to experience on a quick downhill run!
We rode 25km with about 930m of vertical ascent, and 2,300kcal. This one rates 8 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter because of the long climb and the tricky descent.
Total distance: 24.67 km Total climbing: 966 m Average temperature: NAN Total time: 02:52:58
Here’s some photos from a recent ride I did with some friends from MTBDirt.com.au at Clear Mountain.
The tracks are not far from my place, so I get to ride them once or twice per week. But I enjoyed this ride even more than usual because I was able to share it with friends. I suppose when we share with others something that’s familiar to ourselves, we experience it for the first time again – which adds to the enjoyment.
We started the ride on a couple of sections of tight twisty single tracks, followed by some steep lung-busting ascents and descents, then a climb to the summit of Clear Mountain, and finally a fast snaking down-hill run to the bottom.
Everyone got back happy but exhausted.
I’d rate a big loop of the tracks at Clear Mountain as about 9.5 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter. You need medium to high fitness. If you’re going to try some of the steeper descents, drop-offs and downhills you’ll need at least medium technical ability or better. If you’re not confident with some of the more intimidating sections, there’s nothing wrong with playing it safe and walking those sections.
Total distance: 41.29 km Total climbing: 757 m Average temperature: NAN Total time: 04:12:44
I slept in this morning and didn’t have a clear plan for where I wanted to ride today. I just knew I wanted to go for a long-ish ride and visit some places I hadn’t been before.
I eventually decided to head out into the hills west of Dayboro and see what happened.
It’s amazing what you discover on a bike when you have the time to look around and enjoy the view rather than focusing on goals. (That’s one of the main reasons I don’t do races) This tree stump had an odd mark on it: MP 4 1/2. “What the heck does that mean?” I thought to myself. After a short time I figured it out. It was a “mile stone” marking the distance to the nearest town. Mount Pleasant was about 7km back along the road, so this marker was telling me Mount Pleasant (MP) was 4 and a half miles (7km) away. This got me day-dreaming about what life would have been like here in the early 20th century…
… Not much further down the road I came upon this old building. My friend, Leith Barter, tells me this was the old Laceys Creek Community Hall. It doesn’t look like much today, but I’m sure it was the hub of local social activity on a Saturday night in days gone by.
Leith tells me that Wirth Road is named after the Wirth Family who grew Bananas at Laceys Creek after World War II. The road is a bumpy dirt track which leads up into the hills, so I decided to follow it. As I progressed down the road it became narrower and steeper and the surrounding vegetation became thicker and greener. It took me about an hour to ride to the top, where I discovered I was on one of the main Four Wheel Drive tracks in D’Aguilar National Park – Range Forest Drive. The climb is about 6km long and rises about 500 metres, so it’s hard work.
At this point, I had two choices. The easy option was to roll back down the hill I had climbed up. The more challenging option was to head north through the park until I came out at Mount Brisbane, north of Dayboro. I decided to head north.
“Butcher Shop Creek Road” is one of the roads heading off the main drive to the North West. It’s gated which means 4wds and Motor Bikes can’t drive on it. I would have checked it out but it was heading in the wrong direction for me. I’m not sure where it got the name from, but I’m pretty sure you can’t buy good cuts of meat at the end of this road 🙂
Jacky Creek Road is another gated road heading off to the North West.
The main road follows the ridge line along the top of the range. Some of the views to the east and the west are fantastic. I found myself stopping too often wanting to take photos and enjoy the view, then reminding myself that it was mid-afternoon and I needed to get out of the park before dark.
As it turned out, Range Forest Drive is a fairly easy track to ride, so I had plenty of time, and stopped for a few more photos.
When I eventually got to Peggs Road I realized I had made it, and let out a few loud cries before zooming down the steep descent to Mount Brisbane Road below.
On the way back to the car I stopped one more time for a great view of where I had ridden. The track pretty much followed the top of the range in this picture.
55km with 1290m of ascent in almost 4 hours with 3,500kcal of energy. This one deserves 9.5 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter. Do it in the cooler months. Some of those climbs would be horrible in summer.
Total distance: 56.34 km Total climbing: 1341 m Average temperature: NAN Total time: 04:25:17
