In the last post I told you about our ride down the Lepidozamia track. Here’s the video from my helmet cam. It’s bumpy, but as you can see, it was a lot of fun.
Category: Cycling
Down the Lepidozamia Track
Last week I explained our quest to find a track from Mount Glorious down to Kobble Creek. This week we found it, thanks to some advice from the guys at MTBDirt.com.au.
It was a difficult ride climbing the D’Aguilar Range to its summit of almost 800m at Mount Tension Woods, and then an exhilarating ride down some very steep rocky fire trails (The Lepidozamia Track) as we followed Kobble Creek back to civilization.
The Lepidozamia Track is named after all the Cycads (Lepidozamia peroffskyana) that grow there.
All up we rode about 66km with a total ascent / descent of about 1550m. The total ride was about 10 hours because we had to keep stopping – Simon got half a dozen punctures and we went through three spare tubes and half a roll of duct tape before we fixed it.
I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn’t taken 4 spare tubes and three rolls of duct tape. If ever I needed justification for carrying so much “Stuff” on my rides, this is it. We were in some pretty remote country, and getting out on foot would have taken a long time.
This ride covers some beautiful scenery. Normally we’d be able to do it in about 5 hours, and it’s worth the effort if you don’t mind getting your feet wet!
The Mailmans Track
I rode out to Samford this morning via Winn Road, and came back via the Mailman’s Track and Bunya Road.
The Mailman’s Track is wonderfully hilly (just the thing for a Saturday morning bike ride), and leads into some beautiful state forest along Bunya Road.
Although the area is called “Bunya” I had a hard time finding any Bunya Pines (Araucaria Bidwilli). So I was delighted to find a couple of majestic specimens by the side of the road.
The aborigines used to harvest the nuts from these trees for food. They drop their huge 5-10kg cones in abundance every three years, so you have to be careful standing under them in late summer!
Kobble Creek
The purpose of this ride was to find a route from Kobble Creek up to Mt Glorious. There’s a road visible on Google Maps, but as we found out, it disappears into private property.
Due to recent rain, we had to cross a few flooded creeks. The bikes held up really well until the last crossing, when the current snapped my rear derailleur off.
The area around Kobble Creek is beautiful. In drier weather it would be a really pleasant ride, with some challenging hills greater than 17% gradient. When they’re not swollen, some of those creeks look like they’d be really fun to swim in too.
But to be honest, crossing flooded creeks is a pretty stupid thing to do. If you slip, it would be easy to be washed away or lose your bike. And even if you do make it across, there’s a good chance you’ll damage your bike.
So I’m going to be a bit more sensible in future.
Tsunami – Redcliffe Style
All of South-Eastern Australia was on a tsunami alert this morning after the earthquake in Chile. On the hill behind this makeshift sign a lone TV cameraman sat watching the horizon for the scoop of the day which (thankfully) never came.
Irrigation Dam, Joyner’s Hill
William Joyner purchased the “Samsonvale Run” in 1845 from Darling Downs squatters James Sibley and Joseph King.
He died in 1847 in a shipping accident, and his wife, Isabella decided to sail up from Sydney and manage the property.
This irrigation dam is about a kilometer from where the family built “Aust House” in 1865.
This area is rarely visited, and some of the scrub is very thick. It made me wonder what Isabella would have thought of it when she arrived in 1847.
Martin Lavelle Was Here
Surveyor Martin Lavelle marked this tree in 1867 while he was surveying the Griffin area on the northern banks of the Pine River.
Surveyors often used natural features as reference points when preparing a plan of an area. When trees or stumps were used, they would cut a mark in the tree to make it easier to find by others.
This stump is known affectionately by locals as “Tom Petrie’s Stump”, probably because it marks the corner of a property that he purchased in 1870.
The surrounding area is being redeveloped from rural land into a housing estate. Happily, the developers have agreed to protect the tree, erect bollards around it, and place an informative marker near it so people can understand its significance.
Next time you see an old tree with a large triangle cut out of it, listen closely and you might hear the whisper of an old story.
Along the Old North Road (Part 2)
Last week Simon and I rode from Wamuran to Moorina along the historic Old North Road.
This week we wanted to complete the southern section of where we think the road went, between Kurwongbah and Moorina.
We started at Dunlop Lane then headed north along Smiths Road where it crosses Mosquito Creek. I looked around here for any traces of an old bridge but could find nothing except an old beam in one of the banks.
Merelyn very kindly let us look around her property which is on the southern end of historic Franz Road where it used to meet Alf Dobson Road. She showed us the remnants of the Old Road, with what I think are survey marks clearly chopped out of a dead tree near the road.
Merelyn has records of the road reserve being re-gazetted from it’s historic route past her front door, to a point along one of the boundaries of her farm.
The ground is heavily compacted showing evidence of frequent traffic at some time in the past.
Merelyn has had conversations with several old-timers who tell her cattle used to be driven southwards along the road prior to the early 20th century.
Cliff, Owen and Cathy very kindly let us ride through their farm trying to find any remnants of the road.
As Franz Road heads north, we tried to retrace the road by referencing an old survey plan by William Fryar in 1868.
These old trees are close to where Fryar’s plan showed trees that he used as reference markers for his pegs. Unfortunately the original trees are long gone.
I would have made a hopeless surveyor, and found it difficult to differentiate between what I thought were remnants of the old road, and more recent farm tracks.
Cathy showed us this old photo of the old Franz homestead near where we passed.
Judy and Ken kindly showed us the remnants of an old road passing through their property.
Judy tells me that the road was used by Cobb & Co in the 19th century.
It winds up a fairly steep hill, and in some places it’s possible to see evidence of past maintenance, including an old log bridge, and frequent large rocks lining the sides of the road.