Outback Odyssey Day 4, May 19th 2013, Laura to Melrose

Early morning

Knowing it was a shorter day we let ourselves sleep an extra 5 minutes, though thankfully it didn’t feel as cold as previous mornings. It was also the first morning we packed up a dry tent! Breakfast was an alfresco, or alfreezo, affair in the caravan park but we did manage to score seats around the fire. We also managed for the first time to camp close to the luggage truck, so no lugging heavy luggage halfway across a field. All in all it was a good start to the morning and it only got better.

Name's a bit of a worry!

The first 5km was along the rail trail that runs between Laura and Stone Hut. It’s a gorgeous trail to ride and I fully intend to go back and ride the whole thing. There was a little incident along the trail that provided a brief moment of panic. My jacket, which I love, is missing the end of the zipper that you grab to do it up, so I’ve replaced it with a paper clip. Somehow I had managed to thread the paper clip (which was at my neck as the jacket was done up) through my glove in my attempts to unzip the jacket. I realised that I wasn’t going to be able to stop gracefully with my arm held in that position and there was a brief moment of panic as I envisioned my self tumbling down the side of the trail. Sanity returned and I realised I could get my hand out of the glove to stop the bike and correct the whole situation. Disaster averted!

The rolling hills of Laura

After this little excitement, we headed west into the lush, green farmland around Laura. It was such a contrast to our ride on day one, travelling through the dry mallee scrub to come here which was so green and almost manicured in comparison. We headed up some dirt roads until we were directed onto a farmers track that possibly hasn’t been driven on in a while. This was the closest we came to single track for the whole ride and it was fun! There were rocky, overgrown sections to spin up followed by descents that had just enough gradient to keep you on your toes and a mud puddle at the bottom of one of these that proved the undoing of some of our fellow riders. The top of this section gave us our first glimpse of Mount Remarkable for the day before sending us speeding downhill out onto a gravel road.

The puddle of doom!

CLP showing MTB savvy

Morning tea shortly followed at the Wirrabara Forestry Office and I was very excited to see that it included facilities! It was here we heard a tale of a rider sitting beside the mud puddle wringing out his socks and warning other riders. Have to say this particular rider was a top bloke and he took his sudden drenching in his stride.

This made me happy

Showing off the jersey

From morning tea we headed deeper into the Wirrabara Forest and found some hills. Unfortunately my partner was having a rough day and struggled up those hills with a very sore knee. Before too long a group of ride marshals joined us and with a bit of seat adjustment and some stick on icepacks, we were off again. The Marshals kept us company to the lunch stop and the cheerful conversation went a long way to helping my partner conquer our final day.

Downhill!

Lunch was excellent as always and the chocolate cake went down a treat. In my partners case it went down very quickly then he was back on the bike, pedalling away so he didn’t stiffen up. I took my time enjoying lunch, then took off after him. It took me just over 10km going fairly hard (there were some good, slightly downhill sections where it was fun to push a bit) to catch him and by then we were meant to be less than 10km away from finishing.

CLP's pain face

Unfortunately there were some final hills that weren’t that easy to spot on the map and they were between us and Melrose. So we geared down and spun, taking it easy and trying to avoid the dust of passing cars. We thought we had passed all the hills once we reached Battagunyah winery, as we had scoped out the section between the winery and Melrose over Easter. I swear I remembered being all up hill on the way out and downhill on the way back into Melrose but there was one hill left. Finally we reached the top and stopped to enjoy the view before flying into town.

Mount Remarkable

I was excited to finally reach Melrose as it’s a town we’ve visited a few times before. It was also the end of our journey which meant we had successfully completed the Mini Mawson 2 section of the Outback Odyssey. With this buzzing in my head I was full of energy and after setting up the tent decided to have a crack at my favourite trail, Weaving Camels. What I discovered is that I was more tired than I thought and while my legs were good for turning over pedals on dirt roads, the accumulated fatigue was not good for riding technical trails. Still I did one loop and made it up a bit of the trail that I hadn’t been able to before, so I was happy.

Downhill to Melrose (finally)

Dinner was a bit of a happy and sad affair, everybody was happy to reach Melrose and have their rest day, I was happy that we made it but sad that we were leaving our friends. They were possibly sad they were loosing the people that had brought the sun, especially when the weather girls started to predict rain again. But Melrose turned on a wonderful meal of roast lamb and beef, followed by apple crumble and washed down by numerous glasses of Battagunyah’s wine. A very merry night indeed.

A true Man Of Steel!

For those of you interested in the technical side of things, here’s the strava file of the ride: http://app.strava.com/activities/55234479

And just in case you’re interested, here’s the Weaving Camels file: http://app.strava.com/activities/55234391

Outback Odyssey Day 3, May 18th 2013, Spalding to Laura

Freezing!

Today was meant to be a long one, with the route covering 80km. With that in mind we had set an early alarm to try and get a bit of a head start. Setting an alarm is one thing, but getting out of a warm sleeping bag when the temperature had dropped to 3 degrees Celsius over night is a whole different story. When we eventually stuck our heads out we were again greeted with a misty view and we realised that we would be packing our tent up wet once again. However, Spalding had put on a hot breakfast for us (even if we did freeze walking to the hall) so all was well with the world.

The view from the channels

Eventually we headed off, back onto the channels that were so enjoyable to ride the day before. We had been passionately warned about the likelihood of punctures along this route, however I have to say I had no trouble myself and didn’t hear of anyone else having any difficulty. All in all, the channels were a pleasant place to ride, even if we did have to keep opening and closing gates.

Awesome Engineering

Eventually we came to the Bundaleer Reservoir, and the associated aqueduct. Quite an impressive piece of engineering, though it did leak a little. Considering it’s over a hundred years old, a little leak isn’t too bad. From here we slogged up some dirt tracks that seemed to suck the energy out of you, either that or my legs were a little tired and ended out on the main road. We had been advised at our route briefing that we could either follow the road for about 5 km, or follow the pipeline which ran parallel to the road and was the true Mawson trail. However, the true mawson trail apparently runs over some good cropping land and as neither of us felt like slogging through churned up soil, we took the road option.

The view from the top

We turned off the road and into morning tea, with me looking forward to my morning cuppa. Morning tea had been cunningly located at the base of the major “short” hill climb of the day. “Short” was the description provided to us the night before, possibly accompanied with the word “intense” but I definitely remembered “short”. So after fortifying ourselves with cake and tea we decided to tackle the hill. As it turns out there were lots of photography opportunities on the way up the hill, which at 3km long, does not qualify for short! But it was fun spinning my way up there and negotiating the rocky sections and the view from the top was worth the climb.

Into the forest

Unlike previous climbs, this one wasn’t followed by a fast descent, rather we meandered our way up and down along the ridgeline then headed into Budaleer Forest for a final climb through a paddock. Once we were there I think we found the most fun down hill of the whole ride, straight down a grassy paddock! And then we went down another one! By the time I got to the bottom I was grinning ear to ear (though there was one moment I was worried that I might crash into a fence, but then I realised the gate was open). After that we meandered through the forest, keeping an eye out for signs as we had heard it was easy to get lost.

Down the hill!

The road less travelled

CLP on the road

The trail eventually came out onto a dirt road, however a locked gate required a bit of co-operation as about five of us intrepid Mawsonites worked together to get each others (not so light) bikes over the gate. Then onto lunch, which was meant to be at about the 50km mark, however road conditions meant it was a little further away and so with our stomachs rumbling we kept pedalling.

Lunch was about 4km further on and after a brief stop to refuel on sandwiches and cake, we pedalled off to cover the last 25km into Laura. The map had indicated that overall, this was a downwards stretch, however there were still a couple of hills that were hard work towards the end. After a few breathers along the way and a brief pit stop to see how the guy running the afternoon water stop was going, we made it into Laura.

Manatoo Schoolhouse

Laura’s a town I have fond memories of as a kid going to the folk fair that they hold every year, so it was nice to come to a place that was a little bit familiar. They also make the Golden North ice cream here so I was really looking forward to dessert. With that in mind we quickly got our tent up (we may have inadvertently camped next to an ants nest, but it was cold enough that they didn’t seem to mind) and headed over to the hall for tea. Tonight was pumpkin soup (trust me, when you’re cold this is the best thing ever), various chicken dishes (curry, satay, casserole and apricot chicken) with salad and the much anticipated Golden North Giant Twin. I managed to score a honey one which was just delicious!

Last hill of the day

The route briefing indicated that the route would be true Mawson trail all day tomorrow and what’s more, only 57km with a final downhill run into Melrose. The weather ladies told us the sun would be shining and the Giro update told us Cuddles was coming second. All was good in the world as we headed to bed at the end of our third day, accompanied briefly by the less than clothed Mawsonite who did the fastest sprint of the whole trip down the main street of Laura. 

Made it another day!

For those of you interested in the technical side of things, here’s the strava file of the ride: http://app.strava.com/activities/55234554

A section of Bundaleer Forest that was burnt a few years ago

Outback Odyssey Day 2, May 17th 2013, Hallet to Spalding

Not tripping over tent pegs was a challenge!

Day two of our Outback Odyssey experience was a short, 46km ride from Hallett to Spalding. As it wasn’t going to be the long slog that day one was we had decided to sleep in a little and take it easy getting ready for the day. Which was probably a good idea as when we exited the tent we discovered a fog covered oval where we could barely see the other end of the campsite. Suffice to say it was also freezing, I think we were told it had dropped below 5 degrees Celsius overnight.

The hike down to breakfast was quick, and though we were reluctant to leave the warm hall we eventually hiked back up to the camp site to finish our preparations. Packing up a wet tent with cold fingers isn’t fun but I cheered myself up with the thought that I’d soon be pedalling along.

Lifting Fog

Can you see Hallett?

Finally we left the camp site, about an hour later than we had left the day before, but there was no rush and at least the fog had lifted a little. We very quickly found our way out of town and pedalled along some superb dirt roads. There was a small section of about 1.6km that we had been advised to detour around because of mud and we wisely decided to take this advice. The views were spectacular early on when the mist was still lifting and at one stage I looked back the way we had come and saw Hallett in the distance shrouded in mist, the towns silo just visible. The wind farms in the area also started to appear out of the mist, their huge, elegant blades almost floating above the low lying fog.

We spun our way up a muddy track, which was to be our first “hill” of the day. It was a nice way to warm up the legs and the final kick at the top really got our hearts pumping. The best thing about it though was the down hill that followed. It was probably one of the more technical downhills of the trip even though it was mostly straight. The amount of loose rocks and debris combined with the gradient meant that there was a certain amount of trying not to strangle my handle bars as I flew down hill.

The view from the climb

Eventually we reached morning tea at Willalo Hall, which included a fire to defrost ourselves. The warm cuppa at morning tea was very quickly becoming a highlight of my day as it defrosted both my fingers and my insides. Standing around the fire to warm up it seemed funny to remember that I needed to put some sunscreen on, as I had already burnt what little of my skin had been exposed the day before.

Time for a photo

By the time we left morning tea, the mist had cleared and the blue sky was liberally dotted in fluffy white clouds. We approached the major climb of the day which would apparently take us within spitting distance of one of the wind farm wind mills. I think what I like best about bike touring is that you get to stop and take pictures, and what better place for it than along a climb! Never mind that you may be huffing and puffing, the only reason you’ve stopped is to take in the marvellous view. Still recovery part way along wasn’t a bad idea. 

The road to the top

We made it up the climb, spinning in low gears and enjoying the view. What was even better was the long downhill stretch before us which we flew down, making sure to give each other and everybody else lots of space. With that we were over half way and focused on the getting to Spalding for our baked potatoes.

Not sure I can spit that far!

The rest of the ride was fairly cruisy, though we almost got lost and were very grateful for the marshal who flagged us down and showed us the entrance to the Bundaleer Channels. These channels were constructed in the late 1800’s and were designed to catch surface run off from the local catchment and store it the Bundaleer Reservoir. The channels were designed to flow to the reservoir and as such had a gradient of 1 inch in the mile. Technically this meant we were riding downhill along the channels, though the Garmin was yet to be convinced.

See - not lost!

After a relaxing pootle along the channels we made our way into Spalding, specifically the local pub which put on a beautifully warm lunch of baked potatoes with all the trimmings as well as some pastries for dessert. After suitable fortifying ourselves we headed up the street to the camp ground, the local schools soccer pitch. The rest of the afternoon was spent drying and cleaning various parts of the tent as well as enjoying a well deserved massage.

A very busy farmer

 

Tea was a somewhat more jolly affair, with many of us feeling relaxed from our afternoon relaxing in the sun. A combination of pumpkin soup, roast pork, chicken, beef and vegetables followed by apple crumble meant we were a very merry bunch that were happy to relax and listen to the route briefing for tomorrow. Even better the weather girls told us that the sun would be shining tomorrow, even if it would be freezing overnight. However the locals put a dampener on things when they pointed out that this area was well known for its wind farms. Only time would tell what tomorrow would be like.

A beautiful way to end the day

For those of you interested in the technical side of things, here’s the strava file of the ride: http://app.strava.com/activities/55234551

The views from the trail

Outback Odyssey - The Lead Up

This series of posts is going to follow the journey of a recent cycling holiday I undertook with my partner and about another 130 people, the Outback Odyssey. This ride is held by Bike SA and follows the Mawson trail from Adelaide to Blinman in South Australia. It is named after the explorer, Sir Douglas Mawson, who frequented the area on field trips with geology students from the University of Adelaide. The whole trail is about 900km long however, having never undertaken any multi-day cycling tours, we decided to take the option of only doing part of the trail from Burra to Melrose.

Pitchy (left) and Contessa (right) on a another trip

The lead up to our adventure was filled with lists, deliveries and testing. The mountain bikes (my “Contessa” and my partners “Pitchy”) had been serviced and checked to within an inch of their lives. Neither myself nor my partner had done much camping and so on top of trying to figure out which tent to get we also had to test it out. A quick overnight trip to Mount Crawford with friends seemed to indicate everything was working well and so we were set.

The Outback Odyssey actually started from Adelaide on the 11th of May, though we wouldn’t be joining them until the 15th. I’m a compulsive weather watcher at the best of times and so I kept track of the weather our soon to be comrades were dealing with. The first week of the Odyssey required them to detour to avoid a bushfire and then three solid days of Mud and rain. By the time we joined them in Burra, they were a wet, muddy and bedraggled mob with a few bike issues and unfortunately a few injuries as well.

  

The Taj Mahal

It rained most of our trip to Burra, however once we arrived it stopped long enough for us to organise ourselves and put our tent up. As it turned out, our tent was somewhat larger than most and was subsequently christened the Taj Mahal. We did however, receive a few envious glances later in the trip when our dry bikes were stored neatly undercover. 

Camping CLP

Burra put on a great feast, potato and leak soup, steak and salads followed by sticky date pudding. We had our first route briefing where we discovered that there were options! Specifically there were options that involved us reducing the amount of mud we had to go through! Over dinner, we had been regaled with stories of soul sucking, derailleur destroying mud, so we were overjoyed to hear there was an option (taken up by most of the riders) to ride along the highway for a stretch to avoid it. We were also treated to a table top display of how to ascend and descend on a mountain bike, as we had been told that the serious riding began tomorrow.

With full stomachs and a bunch of nerves we retreated to the Taj for a good nights rest in preparation for our first day on the road.

Outback Odyssey Day 1, May 16th 2013, Burra to Hallet

Packing up a wet tent in the pre dawn glimmer was not the most promising start to the day, but we managed and after breakfast headed out to the road before 8am. Given that we’re not morning people at the best of times, I was thoroughly impressed with us, but we did have over 80km to cover that day. We did manage to get a bit lost (even after checking the detour map at breakfast) trying to get out of Burra, but anyone who has ever been there would understand our difficulties! Eventually we found a marshal who pointed us out to the road and we were off.

We're ready to go!

And so are our bikes

Classic Australian album cover

Well by off, I mean we were cruising along somewhat less than 20km/hr on loaded up mountain bikes. Which compared to the rest of the speeds we managed to do is actually fairly fast but it’s still pretty slow for two roadies used to cruising at 25 to 30 km/hr. Still starting on the road was a nice, comfortable place for us and along the way we passed a ruin that featured prominently on the cover of midnight oil album diesel and dust.

The treeless conservation park

Just pass Mount Bryan we turned east onto White Hill Road, leaving the bitumen behind. It was a nice cruisy dirt road with only a little mud (or so the rest of the riders told me) that took us up to Mokota Conservation Park and morning tea. This was a treeless park and the warm cuppa helped deal with the freezing wind that blew over the exposed hillside. It was here we bumped into one of the true Mawson riders, and caught a glimpse of the mud that we had missed. Apparently one of them spent half an hour at morning tea washing down his bike so that he could continue.

The road ahead

From morning tea we rolled down a hill into the dry country west of the Sugar Loaf Ranges. A steady series of rolling hills on beautiful gravel roads culminated in a final ascent with a view that left us gasping (or that could have been the climbing). Stretched before us to the east was undulating, dry mallee scrub as fast as the eye could see. A swooping descent took us down into the heart of it, cruising along dirt roads with the occasional dive down into dry creeks and back up the other side. Moving north, we eventually came to the Newikie Creek and subsequent hill that took us up to Dust Hole Creek crossing and lunch.

The high point of the day

After lunch we headed up to Dares Hill Summit. Again we were rewarded with amazing views, with rolling hills visible to the horizon. For want of a better description, the landscape feels larger than life out there, so much space. 

The view to forever

We had been warned in the ride briefing the night before that the Mawson trail turned off a short way down the descent and if we missed it, climbing back up to it would be unpleasant to say the least. With that warning ringing in our ears, we descended cautiously, easily spotting the left turn onto what turned out to be almost single track. The descent was a little rocky and fun, my confidence with Contessa slowly growing.

Eventually we took a sharp left turn up Civilization Gate Road, and when I say up I mean it. 60km in the legs meant that this was a fair grind but riding through mallee country always brings a smile to my face. This was the only time we were rained on the whole day and the entire time it rained the sun was shining brightly. Then the mallee country cleared leaving us exposed as we rode through a series of paddocks. Afternoon tea was at Sir Hubert Wilkins Cottage, another intrepid explorer we had learnt about the night before. Riding up to the cottage we could see it tantalisingly close on our right but needed to ride a big loop around it before we found the entrance. Afternoon tea and a chance to get out of the wind was greatly appreciated, as was the long drop.

The much appreciated long drop

Civilization Road

We made it!

In truth there is little else to say about the remaining ride. We knew we had somewhat over 80km to ride in total, but we weren’t sure how much our early morning detour had added. As it turns out, it was a fair bit with the days total just shy of 89km. The last 20km or so was slightly uphill and into a headwind. Seriously a struggle but we made it after almost 8.5 hours on the road (just over 6 hours riding). We quickly managed to put up our tent and run through the shower before heading down to the local hall for tea.

It’s at this point in time that I need to point out I was extremely tired, hungry and a little bit sore so when some ladies suggested I buy a raffle ticket I was a little short in my response. After inhaling some awesome pumpkin soup I was feeling somewhat more civilised and a little guilty for not supporting the community so I chased down a lady who chased down another lady hiding in the corner preparing raffle tickets. In good community spirit I purchased some before it was too late and returned to finish my meal, which was amazing bbq (beef, chicken patties and sausages) with a vast array of salads.

After we had all been sufficiently fed and watered that we would stay quiet enough to listen, the ride briefing began. Mostly all I heard was the word short, which made me extremely happy. We also had a weather report, which much to everyone’s delight included the word dry. It was then time to draw the raffle, which included lots of chocolate as third prize, a bottle of wine as second and a big hamper as first. I had previously made a bit of a smart remark that the hamper wasn’t the most practical of prizes, given that we were on bikes and had limited space in the luggage trucks. It was possibly the first time I had hoped not to be the winner, when lo and behold my ticket gets pulled out for first prize. As it turns out there were lots of awesome goodies, and we did actually need a new washing basket! So I should probably end this post by saying a big thanks to the Hallett community for an awesome dinner and raffle and also to our wonderful luggage truck guys who transported my prize all the way to Melrose (and wouldn’t even take the box of chocolates as thanks).

How was this going to fit on my bike?

For those of you interested in the technical side of things, here’s the strava file of the ride: http://app.strava.com/activities/55234623