Sunday 25 July 2010 - Oxford Falls and Redhill

Although the weather had been threatening for a while, Sunday dawned clear and even a little warm.

Bob, Whisperer and Stephe left at the very civil hour of 7.30am, and met Mark S at the Morgan Road car park for a morning "investigation ride" - during which, of course, we walked all 'non riding' or closed areas.

While we were waiting for Mark to actually turn up (!), Stephe and Bob had a quick look at the remnants of the Lizard Rock playground - it appears that the downhill stuff on the other side of the road has completely superseded this area, as it was fairly overgrown. The roll off over the big rock still looks just as 'do-able' as ever, but equally just as unlikely to ever be done(!).

Then, it was time for the ride. After a quick road stage to warm up, Whisperer showed us an excellent track into the Oxford Falls bush - and much fun was had by all. We joined back up with Oxford Falls fire trail, where the views, as ever, were spectacular (and only minutes from the city - pretty cool, I reckon).



We then took a reverse loop from the Oxford Falls aerodrome fire trail, with some mild technical playing on the way... (honest, this video activity is *really* scary, and only looks tame because of the incredible skill and talent shown... you should see us on rocks bigger than 10cm!).

[click for very slow loading video!]


Then down past the satellite earth stations, had another road transit, and then dropped into Redhill from the Lady Penryhn car park, but without having to go all the way around (excellent!). A bit of playing about on some tracks in there, and then it occurred to us that we were going to be running out of time... so, we completed the Rim Track, through the Academy of Sport, along the Parkway for a bit, and then back up Deep Creek. Unfortunately, given the time constraints, it was then straight up the fire trail and back to the cars, rather than any further adventure.

A truly great day with lots of larfs!

Photos are up here, with the .kmz here. Mark has a cute interactive map here, and Whisperer's summary page of the ride is below:

Sunday 18 July 2010 - Yarramundi / Yellowmundee

An absolute hoot - perfect conditions, great company.

Matt, Egon, Shov and Stephe - with Egon being the designated international guest of the day...

The track could not have been in better condition - and, despite the fact that there were quite a few cars in the car park, we saw very few people along the way (perhaps it's a much bigger place than we normally give it credit for...).

Egon proved to be an athletic legend, and Matt amused as ever with his trials activity.

Stephe and Shov were content to just have a really excellent time!

Friday 16 July 2010 - The Oaks

A little social ride down the Oaks trail, with Margie, Ruby, Grace, Cooper, Ethan and Stephe.

Was much fun, and very impressive work from the younger members of the tribe (perhaps, even, some credit to the 'less young' members of the tribe who were not mountain bike regulars, eh!).

The best news of the day was, once safely back at the cars after the big climb into Glenbrook National Park entrance (up from the causeway), the younger folk were heard to suggest that it had been 'unreal' and they would one day come back.

The negative news of the day is that Stephe has still not learned that stopping by the Glenbrook Bakery and eating the big cream bun and milkshake etc never really lives up to prior expectation, and the ingested calories are approximately 18x the number burnt off in the previous effort... ah well.

No photos, no track (slack, eh!)