Category: South East Qld

As part of my plans to take some friends on a ride over the D’Aguilar Range in a few weeks, I thought I’d investigate a bit more our planned route.

A riding friend, Dean, kindly offered to ride with me, and we met up at the Dundas Road water tower.

There are a few shelters like this throughout the forest, using a rain tank to provide emergency drinking water to hikers and mountain bikers. If you pass by here in the afternoon you’ll often see hikers setting up camp for the night.

After a long, steep, and loose ride down Dundas Road, we eventually hit the bottom of the range.

Banks Creek Road starts from the bottom of the D’Aguilar Range and can take you all the way to Fernvale, north-west of Ipswich. We’ll be heading down here in a few weeks. For today, I just admired the old Hoop Pines (Araucaria Cunninghamii).

Here’s another steep descent. With more skill, and dual-suspension, Dean flew down most of the hills and over the water bars. I was more circumspect, and often ended up just eating his dust. In fact, I lost traction in one spot and fell off, but luckily I was going pretty slowly and only suffered a few minor scratches and loss of pride 🙂

Eventually we reached the bottom of Cabbage Tree Range Road, which is where we stopped for lunch – after riding in the forest for a few hours, you really work up an appetite.

Dean rode a total of about 100km today and chewed through three toasted cheese and bacon sandwiches and numerous jelly snakes.

A vehicle which runs on toasted sandwiches and jelly snakes – who would have thought????

I rode up Cabbage Tree Range Road today non-stop.

It’s a 7.5km climb which gains about 500m in altitude, and takes about an hour.

Last time I rode this, I had to walk some of the steeper bits. Today I kept my head down, kept pushing the pedals, and nailed the hill!

I really enjoyed today’s ride, and felt great having nailed that last hill. Unlike Dean, I only rode 37km, but ended up climbing almost 1,500m, and burned about 3,500 kcal. On the tough-o-meter I’d give it 8.5 because of the long climb.

I spent today exploring some trails south of Fernvale because I’m planning to visit here in a few weeks with some friends on an over-the-mountain 80km ride from Ferny Grove Railway Station. Since this section will be the final part of the ride, and we’ll probably have a few tired riders, I thought it would be worthwhile to double check the area to make sure everything was ok.

The original plan was to follow the Railtrail south from Fernvale. The problem is that this area had some very heavy rain earlier this year, and parts of the trail are still being repaired, and are unrideable.


As you can see in the photos, the Railtrail bridge had been washed away, the creek was too deep to cross, and the trail was closed. So when my original plan was foiled by the “Trail Closed” sign, I had to improvise and find a new route!

I headed off down a gravel road and took some wrong turns which found me at a few dead-ends in the middle of a couple of horse paddocks.

Eventually, I persevered down a track called “By Road” which my GPS insisted was there, but which just appeared to be more paddocks with thick grass, scrub. logs and spider webs. I persevered and eventually scrambled out the other side on a “real” road.

Some of the roads aren’t as imaginary as By Road, but they’re still quite rough. But that’s what makes them so much fun to ride on a mountain bike.

The gravel roads and tracks continued south to Haigslea, just off the Cunningham Highway.


In the mid to late nineteenth century Haigslea was settled by German migrants. Some of them are buried in this cemetery.

Here’s a picture of the original church around the turn of the century. While the girls in the white dresses may no longer be there, the pine trees are still on the corner where the road meets the highway as you drive to Toowoomba.

This blazed survey tree is across the road from the cemetery.

I followed the road which comes to an end and turns into a track, and then into a lovely bit of single trail which winds into the town of Walloon, where we’ll be catching the train in a few weeks 🙂

All up, about 60km, with 750m of ascent, and 2500cal. I’d give it about 6.5 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter. It’s an easy pleasant ride, which is perfect for when I bring a few friends next month.

Today I had a great time riding with some buddies from the MTBDirt mountain biking forum. Ron, Eric and I decided to explore Bellthorpe State Forest north-west of Woodford. It was hilly, muddy and beautiful.


The ride started with a long slow 10km climb up Stony Creek Road as we gained an extra 500m in elevation to reach the summit of the ride at about 650m. The road is steep in parts, but it’s worth the effort to see some of the spectacular rainforest.

At the top we were pretty much level with the cloudline, and were treated to some great views of the Glasshouse Mountains, with Mount Beerwah partially obscured by clouds.

Then it’s a fun descent through the forest to the bottom, along some muddy and slippery tracks.

We were both grateful to Eric for showing us a more enjoyable track through the forest. Eric shows us here what real mountain bikers can do at Bellthorpe. I thought (very briefly) about imitating him, but chickened out.

The roads through the forest rise and fall very steeply, and there are many creek crossings like this one, as well as muddy bog-holes where 4WD’s have tried to get through.

Eventually we came out the other side of the forest, and had to negotiate one more slippery descent with more amazing views.

All up about 50km, 1200m of climbing and 3,300kcal burned. On the tough-o-meter, I’d give it 8 out of 10 because of the steep, slippery ascents and descents in the forest.

Earlier this year I rode to Lake Manchester. Today I thought I’d try it again, but with a riding buddy.

I’m really glad I did – riding with Mike today had some major advantages:
1. Better photos (it sucks trying to take photos of yourself)
2. It’s safer (if something happens, someone else is there to help out)
3. Better performance (Mike is a better rider than me. He rode up hills that I’d normally walk up, so I tried riding up instead, and I made it!)

The first leg of the ride out of Samford led us up the Goat Track, home of some wierd and wonderful rock sculptures. Some of them have been knocked down, so some bright and budding artist decided to build their sculpture in a tree. Art knows no bounds 🙂

After our 10km climb, we rode down Light Line Road, which is a 10km descent down to Lake Manchester. Along the way we passed this camping shelter. I think I might come back here with Harrison one evening and try an overnighter 🙂

Some of the views on the way down are fantastic, and we had to stop and take the photos. Mike commented that you can never capture the magnificent panorama with one photo, and he’s right. There are some magnificent views of the lake.

Once we reached the bottom there were (what felt like) dozens of Creek Crossings to ride through and one or two beautiful Bilabongs.

I think this Bilabong on Cabbage Tree Creek would be great for a swim in summer!

From there we started the long climb up Creek Road to South Boundary Road. Then a quick run down to the creek crossing on Centre Road, and another long slow climb up Centre Road to the bitumen on Mt Nebo Road. We then rode down to Bellbird Grove, before one final long steep climb up Link Road in Camp Mountain before rolling, exhausted but happy, back into Samford.

Check out some of those hills!

The GPS got it wrong. We did almost 56km, with about 1,800m of vertical ascent. I burned up about 4,500 calories, which is the equivalent of about 10 Big Macs.

On the tough-o-metre I’d give this one nine out of ten. The three climbs up Creek Road, Centre Road, and Link Road were tough. Yes. I’d definitely do it again.