Touring Townsville II

The second day of my work trip dawned bright and clear. Got to love the dry season in the tropics.

I planned to walk along the waterfront, then loop around the western side of Castle Hill to find the Ironbark Trail that my knees have refused to take me down the previous day.

As I said in my previous post, Townsville has some interesting architecture. It was obviously an important town in Australia's early years as evidenced by the old stone buildings along the river and near what would have originally been the port.

The old post office is now a micro brewery that makes some delicious beers. If in town, I recommend you try the Ned's Red on for size.

There are plenty of old buildings along the river. I imagine this would have been the main port back in the day.

How much do you like spiders? This on is about 15ft long!

Yes, we are on the Great Barrier Reef here.

Townsville was a major US and Australian base during WWII. There is a large section of park along The Strand with various dedications to those that made the ultimate sacrifice.

And Castle Hill watches over EVERYTHING!

For you fish and chips?

There were many artists setting up art works all along the beach and park lands. While I don't know anything about art, I know what I like and I liked quite a few of the pieces.

This old Ag cat is on floats and was in the Phantom movie back in 1996. You can go for joy rides over town these days.

The view across to Magnetic Island. Nice?!

And the reason for the vinegar? Yep, stingers. These little buggers will kill you.(remember Finding Nemo?)

Much safer to swim in the kiddies pool.

The floor boards must be bolted down in this house. Facing out to sea, I could imagine this place getting some "lift" with a category 5 Cyclone(Hurricane/Typhoon) bearing down upon it!

And finally, I was back around Castle Hill for the trail that I missed yesterday, The Ironbark.

I am glad I made the effort as it turned out to be a nice trail. THen it was time to drop down the face again and suit up for work again.

Stats for the morning are below. I am not sure about this hiking/running thing. It appears to be pretty hard on the knees.

But it gets you to some magic places when you don't have a bike!

Cheers and thanks for reading.

Touring Townsville

This week's work trip had me in the North Queensland city of  Townsville (or Brownsville as it is disparagingly called) for a few days. 

I knew I had a great opportunity to look around the heart of the city while on layover, so I thought I would make the most of my time in town by putting my new Garmin Forerunner 110 GPS watch to the test and doing my best, walk all of the trails on the feature that DOMINATES Townsville's skyline. 

Yep, it was to be a fun few days hiking up, down and around Castle Hill !

My initial plan to be up at the top of the hill for sunrise was scuppered by poor planning when I discovered that I had left my headlight at home. This proved a blessing in disguise, as I was bloody tired and enjoyed a sleep in until 7am instead.

Finally heading out I decided to scout around the southern side of the hill rather than taking the ubiquitous "Goat Track" that every man and his dog takes up the face of the hill. No, I would include the Goat Track later in the day. 

Leaving from the centre of town, outside the North QLD Cowboys rugby leauge club seemed somehow appropriate. I bet the players know the Castle Hill trails all too well !

There is some interesting architecture in Townsville and just a WARNING , this will be a photo heavy post.

Within just a minutes walk, Castle Hill dominates the skyline. It really is visible from pretty much anywhere in town. The structure on the right-side peak is a World War II observation point(pillbox).

I am soon off the streets and climbing the lower slopes to walk a track the follows an old pipeline around the contour of the hill.

I have seen snakes basking in the sun along this trail before, so I keep my eyes peeled for any that might be soaking up the early rays. 

Even from these lowly slopes the view across Townsville to the distant hills is pretty special.

I soon come to an intersection where the trail starts to really climb the hill.

I like the fact that the trail isn't too "tame". Around this side of the hill it is very basic natural rock steps and a scramble up the hillside.

And across the hillside.

Keeping with the spirit of my hike I drop down the Dianella Track to it's starting point in suburbia. Interestingly, it starts on the edge of an old cemetery. 

I also see that the mining boom that we have been riding here in Australia for the last 10 years is giving back in a small way to the peeps of Browns...er...Townsville.

1276 steps it will be then ! At least until I get to the road that leads to the peak of Castle Hill. Then there will be countless more...!

The Dianella Trail is one of my favourites as it consists of rough, natural steps and huge slabs of granite where the only way to find the trail is to follow the arrows that are painted on the rock.

Even here, on a quiet midweek morning you will still pass the odd adventurous soul. Good to see it too.

Reaching the roadway you can look back and savour the view that your effort has delivered.

But, there is still hill above to attack. I decided, in my "attack all tracks" challenge to not head straight to the top but to drop down the Goat Track until the Cudtheringa intersection, then head for it's intersection with the road. Then I would start climbing again.

Back onto the access road I dropped down the first track (Erythrina) to the right. It didn't take long to reach the suburbs again where I turned around and climbed back up to the access road.

The view around the northern side of the hill takes in the airport and another cemetery. This one is located just off the end of the runway !

The hill also sees plenty of scrub fire action as evidenced by the many burnt off sections.

The next trail down the hillside that I came to was the West Ridge Track. I had not heard of this one before so dropped down it with great interest.

Withinn a few hundred metres it became even more interesting !

This 2-2.5metre(6-8ft) python was sunning itself across the track. I was trying to give it some scale and that is the shadow of my hand in the bottom of the photo. The snake was about as thick as my arm! He looked pretty doughy but I still gave him a wide berth !

I dropped down to the bottom of this trail, then climbed up again. Yes, giving the snake another wide berth as he was sitting there like he owned the place!

I passed another trail dropping off the side of the hill. This was the Ironbark Trail. My knees were crying enough by this stage and the trail looked pretty steep, so I decided to head up and over the hill for the hotel and some breakfast.

There was still a bit of climbing to go but the reward is the magnificent view. From the very top you are looking across Magnetic Island and out toward the Great Barrier Reef.

Here is the panorama from one of the main lookouts.

The walk down the Goat Track was done gingerly as my knees were really screaming "enough". It felt soo good to sit down to some eggs on toast and coffee while I cooled down.

Suiting up, I was off to work, but ending up in Townsville again later that night I had a plan for tomorrow. It was to contrast the brown with the blue to the east.

If you have made it this far down the page, well done! Phew! Don't be afraid but this post is "to be continued"......

Back To Blackbutt

With the weather finally acting "normal" again we decided it was time to ride some of the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail (BVRT) again. This time as a family.

The plan was- number 1 child and I would head from Linville to Blackbutt, trying to beat the growing darkness after our late start due to kids sporting committments. Number 2 child and The Boss would drive up to Blackbutt to meet us. We would stay the night then all ride down the trail to Linville again on Sunday morning. I figured that this would make an easy introduction to cycling for The Boss.

Kicking off at 4pm made for golden light along the trail as we turned the pedals out of the old Linville railway station.

Number 1 child was super pumped about the ride as well. A year older than the last time she rode it and on a larger wheeled bike I knew she would smash the 22km(14mi) steady climb up to Blackbutt.

We made good time but the sun soon slipped behind the hills and the air quickly felt chill.

This didn't mean there wasn't time to stop and smell the flowers though.

With Number 1 now having clip in pedals she was a bit hesitant about bombing down into the creek crossings where the bridges had once stood. She took it carefully but always with a grin on her face.

This year I had made a careful study of Google Maps and my old GPS traces to pinpoint the location of an Aboriginal Bora ring just off the rail trail. Last year I had tried to go by memory and had failed miserably thus enduring the wrath of a not-very-happy 9 year old!!

In defence of my memory, I had the correct area in mind but I just lacked the detail to nail it down. Not so this time around though! We found it!! This ring is in a pine plantation but to their credit when the pines were sown, they left the Bora Ring intact. They even went to a bit of trouble to fence it off from the forest road.

It is a little difficult to make the ring out in photograph. Lucy is standing on the mound that forms the other side of the ring and when I paced it out, she was 19m(yards) away.

Needless to say, she was CHUFFED.

We rolled into Blackbutt in a glare of AY-UP lights just after dark where we were whisked off to our accomodation and plenty of country pub food.

Next morning after a slap up breakfast we were all back at the trail head ready to get underway. The Boss, in her 50m ride from the car(the first in years), had already been swooped by a stroppy magpie! I hoped it wouldn't be an omen for the day....

We were soon climbing the 1 kilometre of uphill trail before the trail went downhill all the way to Linville. The Boss had Number 2 child for company along here. He was very excited to have Mum joining us for the ride.

This being her first ride with us and not knowing what to expect, there were a few moments of consternation until the trail did really go downhill. This is why this ride is great for beginners as it is 21km of gentle downhill where if you chose to pedal it just propels you even faster.

We soon rolled past all of the points of interest, including the Bora Ring again. 

Before we knew it we were back in Linville and the kids were straight into the old railway carriages to play.

I jumped on the bike and blasted back up the trail to pick up the car from Blackbutt. This made for a very nice social morning capped with a solid ride for an hour. 

Arriving back with the car I loaded up a hungry family for a pit stop at the Fernvale Bakery. All up it was a very pleasant way to spend a day and we might hit another section of the trail once the kids sports have fizzled out for the year.

Cheers.

Winter Ride

Being a bit infected with deadly man flu, I thought I had better take it easy and stay off my bikes. Well, the ones you need to pedal at least. With the winter weather finally acting like winter in the sub tropics, it was time to go and scrub my new tyres in.

The standard south east Queensland/northern New South Wales route was selected for it's mix of interesting scenery, curves and generally quiet roads. A very nice 350km(220mi) loop.

View Larger Map

I had some new AlpineStar SP-8 gloves to break in on this ride, as seen here modelled by young Will.

I made my way down to the border along the Mt Lindesay Highway. The road is as rough as ever in places and I had the added excitement of coming around a 35km/h bend to find the road pretty well completely covered in loose gravel( the white substance on the road in the video). The road maintenance crews had been patching potholes and not bothered to put a "loose gravel" sign up. Typical. But, as I was taking it easy it didn't cause me any concern, it just ruined the rest of that section of twisty, bumpy road.

The Summerland Way down into NSW is always a very nice ride with thickly forested hillsides overlooking the greenery of the valley. It opens out slightly as you approach Kyogle but it still very pretty country.

Riding into Kyogle I fuel the bike up, then myself with a coffee and the morning tea of champions, a meat pie. Having a cold I can't honestly tell if the pie is any good but I sense I have had better. It fills a hole though!

Leaving Kyogle I head out the Murwillumbah road. I have not ridden this road since about 2003, waay back when I owned my last road bike. Back then it was a narrow, bumpy bit of goat track and I am not expecting any different today. I am not disappointed.

But it does traverse through some amazing country. This area is home to the infamous hippy community of Nimbin. I say infamous slightly tongue in cheek as its detractors back in the day were probably just jealous that they couldn't drop out of society and smoke pot as well.

Nipping around the back of Mt Warning via Tyalgum there are some spectacular views over the valley.

Most of the roads are tight and twisty, staying under the tree cover but there are also some magic sweepers between the greenery of cow pasture.

Heading up and over the border via the Numinbah Valley is a must ride section of road. Not because of any great quality it holds but rather because the only other option is the multi lane Pacific highway. Been there-done that-got the flat spot on the tyre to prove it!

Speaking of tyres, I rediscovered how nice a new set of tyres feel. The bike just tips into and out of corners. It holds a line without any input from me. I just feels right.

The new gloves quickly softened up and felt good by the end of the ride. They will be perfect for hitting New Zealand with next year.

I am glad we finally have some proper Winter weather at last.

Cheers.

Why You Can't Use Electronic Devices On Aeroplanes

A mate sent me this beauty last week. 

The funny thing is there is a little bit of truth in the flight attendant's answer.

https://youtu.be/JYAq-7sOzXQ

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

Cheers.....

(I caint turn orff me pacemaker.......)

Never Work With Children or Animals

In a final post regarding the opening of Ginger Gully I would like to present Andrew's view of the opening day. Yes, I am banging on a bit about this but honestly I put so much effort into this build(as did everyone that came along) not to shout it from the blogospere.

Official opening of 'Ginger Gully' from SEQ Trails Alliance on Vimeo.

You will see my kids and might even catch me trying to stay off camera for everyone's betterment. The numbers of rider that turned up (at our request) was very impressive and everyone looks like they are having a great time...apart from the little fella on the blue bike who clearly thought he was going to DIE!

We have been promoting our trail building efforts in a positive light, trying to encourage more participation and the proof is in the pudding. Pretty much everyone loves the trails.

So, fast forward to the next Saturday morning and our monthly trail care day where we do minor repairs to existing trails. After having about 60 people at the free BBQ we hoped there might be a flow on effect at the trail care morning, a mere 6 days later. 

Well, (insert tumbleweed emoticon here) we had a massive turn out of 5. Yep, thats right, 5. Three regulars, one new bloke(thanks Kevin) and one 12-14 year old boy who was actually at the trail opening day and decided not to do his usual ride but to come do some digging this week(thanks Ryan). I had to run off after just one hour to get to my kids sporting commitment, leaving just 4. Riding the trail a few days later and not surprisingly almost nothing had been done. Three small fixes of the ten to twelve that were on the list. No slight on the guys that were there. They just couldn't do it in the time allotted.

So what is the answer? Somehow we need to engage the volunteers so that they feel a connection and want to come back. Unfortunately we are working with a local government organisation that is setting an inflexible standard and our volunteers(me included) feel excluded from any decision making. Yet we provide ALL of the elbow grease that makes the build happen.

Maybe the volunteers need to be more charitable as well? Social commentator Hugh Mackay puts the case for "giving back" very eloquently in this conversation with the ABC's Richard Fidler. I find that Hugh puts into words the feeling that I have had for the last couple of years and couldn't articulate, even to myself. Don't worry, it isn't religious but please take the time to listen. It is thought provoking stuff.

Or perhaps W.C. Fields famous quote of "never work with children or animals" should be expanded to "Never work with children, animals or volunteers". Actually, it may not be that catchy.......

Cheers and thanks to all of the guys and girls that put so much personal blood, sweat and beers into making some freakin' awesome trails. 

You know who you are.

Ginger Gully

Here is one to take you into the weekend. 

It may not be the coolest, raddest, ripping, stylin' mountain bike video that you ever saw but it s one that was made by us on the trail that we built, so its kinda special to me.

Enjoy Ginger Gully.

Even better, be there at 11am Sunday for the official opening with BBQ and drinks put on by the local council, then ride it (and the rest of Cornubia) with us.

Cheers.