A Bit of Everything

Thought about a ride today, even though I was feeling buggered and pulled a slow 45km which took 3 hours. Rode off toward Cabba, might as well get Cabarita Cycles to check the tyre pressure... My god it was humid with a brisk North Easterly blowing... Well even though it was expected to change to the South later in the afternoon I might as well ride North and look at climbing Duranbah and Farrants Hills. When I got to the top of Duranbah, I changed my mind and thought why not try to get through Forest Hill Road to Clothiers Creek.... it was not to be.

I rode round Duranbah Road to where I worked in 1987, memories.... and then back to Forest Hill Road.   After trying the center route and finding it ends in the swamp at the North West Corner of Cudgen Lake I climbed the return circle, coming off numerous times. At the top I noticed a fairly well marked track to the east, maybe this would make it around the Northern edge of the Lake... After rolling to the small creek at the bottom of this track I noticed a new fence line climbing straight back up the side of the spur on the otherside.... Nearly vertical! Ah well around here there are lots of old fire trails and I wrongly assumed there would be one along the ridge somewhere.... Dragging slipping and sliding my way up the very steep slope with the peddly over fallen logs and loose rocks slipping backwards occasionally. Finally after about 30 mins I made the 300 meters to the top and looked out through the trees toward another valley with another ridge beyond that.

[caption id="attachment_316" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="That Steep Bit"][/caption]

The push up the hill had left me disorientated and the sky was closing in so I was not sensing where I was I decided to follow the ridge upwards. I came to a fence line of a property follwed it and it happened to be on Duranbah Road thus I had completed a Circle... the hard way... By now I was fairly exhausted, not to speak of wet from the rain that had started to fall and decided to take the Cudgen Quarry track down to the coast road via Kings Forest...

Here I missed a turn and when I lazily did a U-Turn over the edge of the track to rectify this I managed to pick up a large thorn in the rear tyre and the rain was getting heavier. I pushed the bike to an area of clay fill near a cattle grid with a gate? in amongst all the sand tracks covered with pine cones. All thumbs I swapped the tube for a new one taking out the thorn and refitted the wheel.... By now the rain had decided to really come down and with it the wind was picking up from the South....

I cruised slowly back along the track towards the coast road, where all the cars had their lights blazing in the rain. Thinking of the waiting beer in the fridge at home didn't get me riding any faster!