Short battery life

Yesterday morning I woke up still feeling the effects of the fast climb of Springbrook the previous day, but still wanting more. The venue chosen for the morning ride was Numinbah Valley, a little further west, a slightly longer ride (129km), with plenty of climbing of it's own -- albeit more undulating, up and down that the constant climb of Springbrook. It was a chilly start -- down to 7 degrees C (the coldest morning of the year so far), with the early ups and downs near Advancetown Lake providing nice views of some of the clouds lifting.



After the ups and downs comes a forested section, before the road opens up into Numinbah Valley itself, normally with expansive views of the surrounding mountains, but not so this morning due to the mist across the valley.



It's here where the photo essay ends, due to the short life of the batteries that came with that camera a couple of weeks ago. Normally I can get quite good battery life through not using the LCD -- often over 100 photos without even seeing the "low battery" warning. To run out this early in the piece offers cause for concern, although perhaps one should not expect too much from batteries that were sitting on a store shelf for an indeterminate period of time. Perhaps I'll get better life out of the rechargeables that I bought. I hope so. It might be just as well it went now -- given that I have a tour coming up next weekend.

The rest of the ride was still beautiful, as it always is down there. The 10km leading up to the NSW border through that Valley are some of the most spectacular in the entire country, and the John Hogan rainforest on the return is always a special experience. I was able to pull out a surprisingly strong finish too -- keeping the ride under five hours -- with four seconds to spare.