Sunday 21 September 2008 - Mooney (Oranges)

As Spring settled over Sydney, we were looking forward to a beautiful day at Mooney, and we were not disappointed... The sun was out from very early on, although it remained a fairly pleasant temperature, without getting too extreme.

Doug, Richard and Stephe met Aimee and Dan at the kick off point underneath the Mooney Mooney bridge on the F3 at about 7.45am, and we set off not too long afterwards.




There was still a fair bit of water around, and the obligatory attempts were made on Lake Mooney, with the necessary resultant wet feet (except for those too wussy to even give it a go!).



The ford across the creek was no longer covered in water, but was incredibly slippery, apparently not having dried out from the recent rains - and there was no prospect of a successful 'dab less' crossing (despite a couple of valiant attempts). By the time we'd got to the dam, we were already a wee bit tired (with some whingeing from Stephe about his brakes being locked on, but not so much so as to think about fixing them (!)) - but we still appreciated the striking blue sky background to the trees (and the ever beautiful flowers):



Once we were back on the bikes, Dan and Aimee were fearless in their attack on the loose rocky climb, with Aimee in particular winning the "keep on keeping on" award (and Richard finding the first section of what was to prove to be a fairly troubling back pain in all later sections...):




From there it was up to the water towers, and on to Oranges, with some room for fun along the way - some successful, some not quite so successful:



We finished the Oranges loop, had a quick bite to eat back at the water towers, and then headed back down the climb, with much fun and amusement (at least for the initial stages).



Unfortunately, about half way down Stephe proved that speed and lack of skill can do ugly things to a derailleur hanger (not to mention the body), and we had a quick rest as we (successfully) rebuilt the bike...



And Aimee proving that she was not only keeping up technically and physically, but scoring well in the "damaging the body" stakes as well...



All in all, an excellent 22 kilometres, up a tricky rocky hill, with lots of beautiful bits around, and then back down again!

All the photos are here.