Hot jaunt up from Parapara, up the road, keeping clear of traffic (several cars) and then onto the gravel and some seriously hot climbing up up and up. A couple of times I'd find some shade and stop for a rest, then battle on. Does my arse look fat in this?
Just past the good descent track I heard a bird in the bush and wondered... Did my 'talk the birds in' sound and two cute little fernbirds popped out to the edge of the scrub and peeped at me a few times. So cool. My first time. After this I rode all the up way to the end of the public section of road (weird 'art gates' are gone) and back to the bench wherein the view is magnificent:
(could be a carbon copy from rides past - nice full inlet too)
Back down the road, bomby bomb, past the singletrack and climbed a little thinking I'd look for something else when at the high point I found it! Trig, the sign said, and there was a narrow trail I'd not noticed before. Put the bike on it and it was narrow and steep so I rolled it along on the back wheel. Not bad going, a little tricky, but eventually got to the top (couldn't see a trig at this point (tho it was right there)) and followed the trail a little further and found a lovely seat overlooking Milnthorpe and Tukurua.
Back up to the bike, ah! there's the trig! and on down the (too narrow to bike, really) track, rolling semi-scooting down through back to the road.
Down to the singletrack and straight in, careful, careful, yeah, I got this. First narrow gut with a tiny bridge over it (like a foot long) I'm positioning to roll through and bang, foot clips a rock, front-wheel drops into a hole, and bam, I'm over the bars and flying. Left shin gets a pedal and some rock maybe, right forearm gets gravel, right thigh gets something hard (good bruise) and I stop my forward momentum with my nose on a bank. Somehow my sunglasses are full of leaves and snot. Bike is front-wheel-wrong-way lying off the trail. Pick myself up, check, nothing broken, but I'm shaken. Bike, nothing broken. Phew. Whoops. Get rolling again, a lot more carefully. Down, hairpin, down, hairpin, then follow a creek for a bit, nice. Across and some flat stuff, hang a right, up to the wee dam, ride around in there a bit, then back down across a trail that wasnt there last time, explore, hmm, cool, steep descent to terrain I recognised, explore, explore, explore, lots of ways, a couple familiar, one not and really steep, and pretty much all of it too narrow for my 820mm wide bars. Ended up down to where I knew then it went places I'd never been, including a fecking steep climb at the end, up to the gravel road further out from where I'd exited in the past.
Long sore drudge back to the car.
A meandery 10.3 kms, with decidedly low 324 m climbed.
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