Northern Rivers Rail Trail - Again - But Different

 

Dan had a mate from Cairns coming to south east Queensland for a month for a work gig and as Steve was a keen cyclist, thought it would be a good idea to show him the Northern Rivers Rail Trail. I thought so too and I also thought I should come along as I had heard a lot about Steve and what he does for a living.

Leaving early because we would lose an hour crossing into NSW with its Daylight Saving Time thing kicking in that morning we picked Steve up at his Kingscliff abode.  It wasn't much longer until we were unloading at the old railway station in Murwillumbah.  The car park was full and there were dozens of people milling around, even at 0730.

We didn't muck around,  getting the bikes off the rack and our bums onto seats. The trail starts off fully sealed which makes for an easy warm up. It soon turns to well manicured gravel though and enters almost constant tree cover. 

There wasn't much traffic once we got away from the trail head which allowed us to chat a bit. 

Dan had met Steve while working in Singapore during the Covid years.  While Dan came home to his current employer,  Steve chose to go completely off piste from his previous profession.  He landed a job with the Australian Armour And Artillery museum in Cairns! 

I had never heard of the museum prior to Covid but being able to watch plenty of YouTube content during that time I had stumbled onto their amazing "Workshop Wednesday " series of restoration posts. To say what they do with the sometimes small pile of scrap metal that they have to work with is an understatement! They have a huge array of drivable tanks and vehicles from every protagonist in World War II and many from the following decades, most painstaking restored from the ground up. 

Steve, like the other employees, is a jack of all trades working on anything from a 1940s Stug transmission to a more modern Leopard tank. He is currently down here operating two Shermans for a $100M Netflix movie that is being filmed right near Murwillumbah. Check the link above or the  YouTube clips I have posted below and go from there! Be prepared to be sucked down that awesome rabbit hole though!

Yeah, they get the tanks out once a year in Augaust for AusArmourFest! 

The Burringbar tunnel didn't disappoint. While it is a long slog climbing up to it, you get to coast downhill through it. At about 900m in length you definitely need lights lest you start to lose balance with no visual cues in the dark at it's centre. 

We quickly rolled through to the end of the trail just past Stokers Siding. 

While there is a bollard at the end of the trail it was clear that people had been riding around it and continuing along the sleepers, between the rails. People are keen for the trail to continue!

We turned around here today as our bikes weren't really suitable for that style of trail....plus the fact that we were getting a little hungry. So it was off to the Moo Moo cafe' at Moobal for a slap up breakfast.

The cafe' was busy with cyclists, motorcyclists and general tourists. It was far busier than it had been during visits pre rail trail. I bet people are wondering why they fought the idea of a rail trail for so many years - like they still do in so many other places around Australia.

Time to head for home - well, the car anyway and it was muuuch busier on the way back as people had rolled out of bed.

The main trouble with the trail is that it is too popular. Hire bike companies have sprung up and they hire out electric bikes with small diameter fat tyres that look difficult to control. Couple this with inexperienced cyclists wobbling all over the trail and you get head on incidents. We stopped to chat to a woman who had a small child on her bike that had been crashed into by some other women in the tunnel. I almost had a big head on myself when one of a bunch of young women coming the other way wobbled headlong onto my side of the trail. Some locked brake/sideways action saw me narrowly avert a prang.

The answer to me is to open more trail to spread the load out (plus to also ride early before the general public is roused). At only 24km long the trail is being massively oversubscribed. Here's hoping that the adjoining councils look to cash in on the tourism bonanza and open their sections of trail.

Anyway, it was a very nice day out that we capped off with a beer in the Riverview Hotel, across the road from the old railway station. Steve filled us in on a few details about the tank museum and the movie that he is working on. Bloody interesting stuff! Here is another link to one of the MANY YouTube videos that the museum has up.

Enjoy!

Cheers.

Tour Interlude And Catch Up

I feel it is time to interrupt my ongoing “Not A Midlife Crisis, Just An Extended Tour” series of posts with a bit of a catch up on what else has been going on in daily life the last few months. This will be a bit “warts and all”, so strap in.

A Munda Biddy Sampler

The Great Cycle Challenge rolls on despite a work trip getting in the way. Actually, this time around a work trip helped facilitate some more riding. You see, while it was nice and dry here in Perth, it has been quite wet at home which would have put the brakes on my challenge odometer had I been at home.

The day started with a pleasant ride out East from near the Perth CBD.  As I have mentioned in the past, Perth has some great cycling infrastructure with dual lane paths snaking all over the city. I followed one of these East toward the airport, occasionally taking to various back streets to get out to Midlands.

Ascot Racecourse

I had made a last minute decision to take the bike on this trip so had no pre-prepared navigation notes to follow, just a sketchy memory of which way to go. The sketchy memory came through for me with an "almost" flawless ride out to Midland and beyond to Bellevue and the start of the Heritage Rail Trail.

I have done this trail several times now so just got stuck in with climbing the range.

Darlington station

My aim was to get to Mundaring then make a decision on weather to keep heading East along the Kep Track to Northam or to turn South and sample some of the famous Munda Biddy Track.

The Munda Biddy runs from Mundaring all the way to Albany, 1000km (621mi) away on the south coast of Western Australia.

I did have a .gpx file to follow out to Northam on the Kep, but nothing at all for the Munda Biddy. Ah well, sometimes you have to live on the edge. The Munda Biddy it was going to be!!

I had a rough idea of riding down to Jarrahdale. Rough in that I knew it was south along the track but I had no idea whether it was 80km or 120km away. I also had no idea of the surface conditions and must admit I was thinking it must be like the awesome surface of the rail trail. FAIL on that one!! I did look at Trailforks and found one ride from Mundaring to Brookton Highway - quite a way from Jarrahdale - that quoted 46km. This was going to be a solid day but on the plus side, I did have ALL day! (plus lights)

Decision made, I quickly pulled into Woolies for some snacks and sustenance to keep me powering along for however long I needed to......


Did I mention it was a cracking bluebird day at about 20C(68F) and just a perfect day to be riding? Well it was! And even better, being a work trip, technically I was being paid to do this stuff....... ;) happy days!

Trail Marker Number 1

Anyway, I pushed off toward Mundaring Weir and the Weir Hotel. The track took quite a few twists and turns along here and all I had to go by were the Munda Biddy Trail blazes.

This turn obviously gets missed a bit!

Being on the CX bike I was smoking along and as a result I shot past about 6 or 8 corners. This was going to be a long day if I kept missing turns like this!

Anyway, after getting very good at feet up u-turns on gravel I was soon enough standing outside the Mundaring Weir Hotel. My neighbour, Chris, just happened to call and I was able to brag about where I was (Chris did a few years in Perth so appreciated where I was).

A little bit of  blacktop and I was back onto the dirt, looking for the yellow trail blazes. They eventually became easier to find and once I was past the maze of singletrack that is just South of Mundaring Weir they actually became very easy to spot and progress increased markedly. The trail also criss-crossed the Bibbulman Track a few times. It looked superb but alas, it is a walking only trail.

Progress increased, apart from the few hills that I had to get off and walk up as a combination of high gearing, skinny tyres and loose surface made it just not worthwhile hurting too much.

I don't want to bang on about it as every other article written about the Munda Biddy devotes many words to it but I must make mention of the loose gravel/sand (Pea Gravel) that is quite widespread, especially on downhill corners. I was running 35mm tyres at 60psi. Always going to be sketchy.

A very good section.

 While I did have 8-10 "oh shit" moments where I thought the front was folded and gone, the Sammy Slicks I was running seemed to grip on their side knobs and right me at the last moment. It certainly made it tougher but in no way was it terribly difficult to navigate. There, Pea Gravel done. Lets not speak of it again.

I pedaled on.and on.......and...on. I couldn't beleive how isolated it felt being on the trail, even though I was probably not at any time more than 50 odd kilometres from Perth city. I didn't see another soul all afternoon, apart from the two road crossings where cars were whizzing by at what looked like warp speed after my ant like progress through the twists and turns of the Munda Biddy.

I made a point of not looking at the distance measured on my GPS as I find this always underwhelms me. You know, you think you have done 100 miles and really you have only done 15.......anyway, I eventually came to Brookton Highway which I knew from my look at Trailforks in Mundaring was 46km away. Shit. 46km? That was tougher than it should have been!

Here I found a fly in the ointment of my Southward progress. There had been a controlled burn conducted in the last few days and it was still smoldering in places, so the trail was closed. There was a gravel road alternate which navigated around the burn. While I was a bit bummed, on the other hand I was down to about 200ml (6oz) of water with no prospect of getting a top up before Jarrahdale - however far that was away......

The dirt road was very wide and consisted of red gravel. It was quite smooth and it reminded me very much of the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

This is a massive state but the soil seems to be the same from top to bottom. I soft pedalled along this 19km diversion so as not to increase my thirst. I was thankful it was quite a cool day and my water consumption was low as a result.

I could see an area called Gleneagle on my GPS and was hoping that there might be a small town or shop there. There wasn't.

There was a campground which was pretty bloody grubby with rubbish everywhere-too close to the Albany highway-and no campers, whom I was hoping to cadge some water from. :(

Looking at the GPS I could see the Munda Biddy snaking around to the East before swinging back toward Jarrahdale. It crossed a sealed road, a sealed road that went straight into Jarrahdale. Being about 4pm I decided to just roll along the seal as I wasn't really sure what I would find in Jarrahdale. Yeah, yeah, do your research, I know....but this was spur of the moment and you have got to live on the edge occasionally!

I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was only 14km to Jarrahdale as it looked further on my 1 3/4" GPS screen. It proved to be a rather pleasant roll into town although apparently I did miss some really nice sections of the trail that ran through an old P.O.W. camp and along an elevated ex railway. Oh well, next time.

50ml left....and I hadn't really drank for 2 hours.....

Once in Jarrahdale I quickly found the general store and went mad in the fridge, emerging to sit in the late afternoon sun with water, chocolate milk, chicken sandwich, fruit cake etc.......and settled into it.

Food and lodging - both top notch!

Sitting at the table next to me were two guys I took to be hikers. Chatting, it quickly emerged that they were from Victoria and doing an End to End of the Munda Biddy on bikes. We chatted away for a bit when I learned that the general store also had a B & B upstairs. For a modest price I could get a room with continental breakfast. I could also have dinner in the Jarrahdale Tavern with my newly found friends. SOLD!

Jarrahdale Tavern - the photo does not do it justice.

After draining the Jarrahdale water supply in the shower (did I mention it was getting cold now?) I doused myself in deodorant (only travelling with my now stinky riding gear)  and wandered down to the Tavern for dinner. Dave and Ross turned out to be brothers from Bright and Ballarat in Victoria and were taking 3 weeks to do the Munda Biddy. We enjoyed a great meal, even better beers and discussed all things mtbing for quite a while. Well, until about 7:30, when we all decided we were stuffed and elected to turn in for the night.

The stats for the day were -

Day 2

I was up early the next morning and tucked into the continental breakfast my hosts had left out. I wanted to be on the road early to beat the traffic and to give myself plenty of time to get back to the hotel as I would be more or less following my nose. 

I headed out of town and turned right onto Nettleton Road as instructed by Jim, the owner of the Jarrahdale Bed and Breakfast/Store who promised me that it was a nice quiet road with not much climbing. Thankfully he was bang on the money with only a half dozen cars passing me on the entire road and what hills there were, were very gentle.

When I finally met the South Western Highway at Byford I was instantly back in the bustle of a city with cars whizzing along the road and it took a few minutes before a break large enough for me to safely cross the highway emerged. Talk about leaving a time warp! Yuk!

Most of the rest of the morning consisted of battling ever increasing morning traffic which is the same as traffic in any major city - just bloody awful. There were flashes of brilliance when I would find one of Perth's great bike paths but these tended to petre out into nothing, then I was back on the road, dodging idiots who should have got out of bed just 5 minutes earlier.

I eventually found my regular river loop bike path and trundled along the Swan River and around to a cafe' that I like to frequent when in Perth and in possession of a bike. The Bayside Kitchen is a great location to kick back and watch the water. As a bonus they do awesome food and coffee too!

From here I ambled back around the river with no particular goal in mind. It was too early to head back to the hotel and the riding was too easy on the flat bike path not to keep riding, so I did keep rolling around the place soaking up the glorious day.

Eventually doing nothing in particular got the better of me and I went back to the hotel to prepare for work that night. All in all, a great morning on the bike that felt soooo easy yet yielded 86km(53mi) for the tally.

So, at Thursday lunchtime - Day 12 - I sat at 737km(457mi) for the month. I might not quite make my self imposed 14 day/1000km but it will not be far off.

 Is 2000km for October still possible? 

Time for a controlled burn........

Cheers and thanks for checking in.