Sunday 16 August 2009 - OGNR - Donney's Loop

An excellent short ride: with a long downhill, a flat, a good uphill, a downhill flat with a challenging hill at the end, a fast downhill and a long uphill back to the cars... 26km of fire trail, but fun nonetheless.

Ben, Doug and Stephe set out a little after 6.32am, and arrived at the Mangrove Mountain chook farm entrance at around 8am (ooops, a little later than anticipated!). We bumped into some lads from Turramurra Cycles at the turning circle, scoping out a ride for a couple of weeks away - anyone know who they are?



In any case, we then set off on Ben's first ride on a mountain bike. Turns out, as always, that fitness counts for much - and, without anything technical, Ben was comfortable the whole way. That said, at three hours for the ride, we weren't breaking any land speed records, eh!



We road from the chook shed down to the valley floor, then up Simpson's Track to Ten Mile Hollow. From there, we meandered up to Clare's Bridge, and then to the junction of Donney's Trail and OGNR North. A quick bite to eat, and then along Donney's Trail back to the valley floor, and a long climb up the hill to the car.

The wattle was beautiful, the wild flowers were out, and we even took the chance to do a little more investigating the Mangrove Mountain settler's cemetry, taking good care not to disturb any of the fairly old site... Was very impressed to see that the early settlers at Mangrove Mountain managed to live pretty decent lives (92 and 93 years old in 1947 seems impressive even by todays standards with 'modern medicine' etc).



There was even time for a quick relax before the final hill, and a look back at the ridge over which Donney's Trail travels:



Profile tells the story, even if not a real long ride:



Back at the cars, happy and pleased to have taken Ben on his first ride out...



All photos up here (thank goodness Doug is back!), and the .kmz is here.