Mount Ninderry is one of the first monoliths you see when you turn off the Bruce Highway at Yandina and approach Coolum.
It’s about 360m high with a car park about halfway up.
I’ve seen it dozens of times on our many trips to Coolum, and eventually decided to check it out.
I cycled there this morning, and hiked to the top for some great views of the the coast and farmland around Coolum.
Some of the hills were a challenge.
After the hike, I discovered the dirt part of Ninderry Road which is a steep horse trail leading down the north-eastern side of the mountain. It was a lot of fun on the mountain bike – although I took it pretty slowly.
Then it was an easy ride along mostly dirt roads back to the main drag and home.
All up about 43km with maybe 520m of ascending (according to http://GPSies.com)
Here’s some pictures from my ride from Coolum up to Noosa and back this morning. What a beautiful ride! Beach on one side, National Park on the other for most of the ride. I think I’ve found a few tracks that might be suitable for mountain biking, too!
Our ride to Mt Nebo was a big one. We thought the climb up the mountain would be difficult, but it wasn’t. We thought the ride back down via Bellbird Grove and Camp Mountain would be easy, but it wasn’t. All up we travelled about 55km. I burned over 4,200 calories and drank copious quantities of sports drinks, and had a large “lunch” at about 10am at the Mt Nebo cafe.
Our total ascent for the ride was 1,437 metres (about 4,500 feet).
I just want to say how much I admire my mate Simon. This was the hardest ride he’s ever done, and he just kept going – even when he was hurting and didn’t really want to go on at one stage. Even when we should have given him a break and taken a quicker route back to Samford from Camp Mountain. Simon – you’re amazing, mate. This ride brought home to me the important lesson that we do this because it’s fun. We don’t do it to set world records, or to be heroes, or to win races. And when riding in a team everyone in the team needs to look out for each other. So that’s going to be my #2 rule in future, after riding safely.
Here’s some pictures:
The Goat Track is a dirt road “short cut” from Samford to Mt Nebo. It’s one way – you’re only allowed to go UP the road, not down it. It’s pretty steep – but we overestimed the grade, and got up quite easily. The total climb up the track is just under 440m in about 5km.
Some of the route along South Boundary Road once we got to the top of the range
South Boundary Road was pretty difficult. The descents were rocky and the final ascent before rejoining the bitumen road is a killer. I had to walk part of the way because it was too steep.
Bellbird Grove was deserted – which was unusual for a Saturday lunch time. There’s no drinkable water there, but lots of picnic tables, BBQ’s and shade. We rested here before trying to attack the fire road up Camp Mountain, which leans down into the Samford Valley.
One of the many pony trails in the Samford Valley. One way to avoid the cars, but at the end of a 55km ride, the trails were hard work!
Simon, Steve and I decided to combine two great off-road rides into one today.
First we rode along Browns Creek Road where my bike sunk in muddy water up to my axels and my feet got soaked. I’ve got into the habit of taking spare socks with me now, so the water isn’t so much of a hassle.
We came back along Smith’s Road and decided to detour down Dunlop Lane which appears to run through a horse riding ranch.
And finally we crossed the main road and ventured along some SEQ Water tracks near Lake Samsonvale, coming out at the McGavin View picnic area.
All up about 55km of MTB goodness, most of it off-road.
Young eucalypts close to the shoreline of Lake Samsonvale have been flooded by recent welcome rain….
An angry looking Brahman Bull looks at us as he protects his “girls”….
Me, my bike, and the Glasshouse Mountains….
Simon and his new bike….
Look carefully and you can see Moreton Island in the distance….
If you look carefully you can see some sailboats on the lake….
I found this one by accident, after playing around with google maps for an hour or two. My aim was to find some quiet country roads, and see if I could add in a bit of dirt track, gravel roads, and some hill climbs. And I got it all.
Mosquito Creek Winery is hidden away in the back of Kurwongbah. The problem is that the creek bisects the road, so you can’t drive through it.
But with a bit of persistent rummaging around, I found a horse trail winding through the scrub, and was able to cross the creek and emerge triumphantly on the other side.
The other pleasant surprise is Browns Road. It’s a “phantom road” which appears on the map, but is not much more than a dirt track. I waded through some muddy grass at the end of McCormack Road, and eventually found a muddy washed out dirt track, with lots of ruts, bumps and puddles. It wound its way between several hidden away farms for a few kilometres before finally emerging at the end of a gravel road
And then a couple of kilometres later, the icing on the cake, a picturesque location with some fascinating history. Browns Creek:
In her book “Reminiscences of Early Queensland”, Constance Campbell Petrie recounted some fascinating history about Browns Creek. The incident probably occurred sometime in the 1840’s.
Another good corrobboree was based on an incident which happened when my father was a boy. This time it had reference to a young gin — Kulkarawa— who belonged to the Brisbane or Turrbal tribe. A prisoner, a coloured man (an Indian), Shake Brown by name, stole a boat, and making off down the bay, took with him this Kulkarawa, without her people’s immediate knowledge or consent. The boat was blown out to sea, and eventually the pair were washed ashore at Noosa Head—or as the blacks called it then, ” Wantima,” which meant ” rising up,” or ” climbing up.” They got ashore all right with just a few bruises, though the boat was broken to pieces. After rambling about for a couple of days, they came across a camp of blacks, and these latter took Kulkarawa from Shake Brown, saying that he must give her up, as she was a relative of theirs ; but he might stop with them and they would feed him. So he stayed with them a long time, and the bon-yi season coming round, he accompanied them to the Blackall Range, joining in the feast there.
Before the bon-yi gathering had broken up. Shake Brown, grown tired of living the life of the blacks, left them to make his way to Brisbane. He got on to the old Northern Road going to Durundur, and followed it towards Brisbane. Coming at length to a creek which runs into the North Pine River, there, at the crossing, were a number of Turrbal blacks, who, recognising him, knew that he was the man who had stolen Kulkarawa. They asked what he had done with her, and he replied that the tribe of blacks he had fallen in with had taken her from him, and that she was now at the bon-yi gathering with them. But this, of course, did not satisfy the feeling for revenge that Shake Brown had roused when he took off the young gin from her people, and they turned on him and killed him, throwing his body into the bed of the creek at the crossing. A day or two later, men with a bullock dray going up to Durundur with rations, passing that way, came across Brown’s body lying there, and they sent word to Brisbane, also christening the creek Brown’s Creek, by which name it is known to this day.
Kulkarawa, living with the Noosa blacks, fretted for her people, and she made a song which ran as follows : ” Oh, flour, where oh where are you now that I used to eat ? Oh, oh, take me back to my mother, there to be happy, and roam no more.” She evidently missed the flour which her own tribe got from the white people. The Noosa blacks made a dance to suit the song, and the corrobboree was considered a grand one.
The hill climbs were hard work (Total ascent about 600m), but the views were worth it!
This is basically a gradual climb along the southern shore of lake Samsonvale, and then a monster climb to the top of Clear Mountain.
Coming down the other side, you can achieve speeds of up to 100km/h but it was raining heavily, so we were alot more cautious.
To mix things up a bit, we added some dirt riding as well. All up I burnt 2160 kcal on this ride – one of the toughest I’ve done.
Some of the gradients on the bitumen were 20% (one in five) which is difficult even for a car 🙂
I really enjoyed the dirt section best. It was slow, dirty, and I was covered in mud, but MTB’s are built for this sort of thing. I would have taken more photos, but it was raining lots, so I couldn’t take the phone out of the plastic to take photos – otherwise it would have got soaked!
I’ve just realized how lucky I am to live so close to so many good quality dirt tracks. But sadly, developers are circling like vultures. New housing estates are springing up everywhere, and soon the best dirt tracks will only be on the roads marked "No Tresspassing".
I often look at Google Maps to find new places to ride. Some of the roads look fascinating going through some beautiful country. The problem is a lot of them don’t exist.
Mistake Road is a classic example. Driving along Dunlop Lane in Kurwongbah, if you read the Google Map, you’d expect a nice ride through to Shea Road. But the bitumen gives way to gravel, which gives way to dirt and mud, and in the end, all that is left is a horse trail.
And off that horse trail is Mistake Road.
So Steve and I bashed through some bush on the bikes, down Mistake Road. It went through a creek that was knee deep, so I cunningly took off my shoes and socks to keep them dry and waded through, holding up the bike.
The next creek, Steve said “Ride through it, it’s easy” so I did, stalled mid-way and soaked my lovely dry shoes.
At this point the track disappeared and we found ourselves in a paddock near a farm house.
“Woops, we’re accidentally trespassing” I thought. And just as we were about to get out onto the main road, we met up with the land owner driving her car out.
I had my spiel all worked out “I’m really sorry. We’re lost, can you tell us how to get out of here?”. But before I could, she congratulated us telling us that they’d only just prepared a new horse riding trail through their property, and we were the first people to come along it on our bikes.
Wendy was really friendly, and I was relieved that we hadn’t antagonized some old hermit of a farmer who was going to set (in my imagination) hungry dobermans onto us.
But the point is that there are hundreds of old roads that are on maps, that “aren’t really there”. But if you ride down them on a bike, just at the point where they “disappear” you can bash through the bush and find horse trails that are probably more than a century old.
I’ve got a hunch that the “Old North Road” from Brisbane to Durrundur came through here somewhere.
Constance Campbell Petrie writes about a Indian fellow by the name of Shake Brown who kidnapped an Aboriginal woman and sailed to what is now Noosa Heads. After he’d had enough of roughing it, he came down the Old North Road on his way back to Brisbane, where he was met by some Aboriginal relatives of the kidnapped woman who exacted revenge from Brown and killed him on the banks of what is now Browns Creek.
Browns Creek runs through this area, as you can see on the map, so it’s very likely we rode today near where Shake Brown was killed, which is also where the Archer Brothers would have ridden their horses in the 1840’s on the way to Durrundur Station near present day Woodford.
So next time you drive your car to the end of road that really ought to be there according to the map, remember that the road probably still is there – you just need a good horse (or a mountain bike) to go any further.
