Taming the Lions

I had been planning to ride the Lions Tourist Road between Rathdowney and Kyogle as a day ride for some time, but for one reason or another, I didn't get around to it during the cooler months when the temperature would have been a little more pleasant. Consequently, I did it yesterday. It was actually a surprisingly pleasant opening to the ride after clearing suburbia, and getting into the Canungra Valley, accompanied by little pieces of mist, apparently left over from some storm somewhere.



It was after passing through Beaudesert and turning south that the ride really began. Early on it's not so interesting on this stretch (although there seemed to be a surprising number of cyclists around, considering I generally never see any here), but shortly after the little deviation around Rathdowney, it began to pick up. Along the way I produced a piece of pure magpie ownage, with a squirt of water from my bottle causing one to do a very sharp about-face and find someone else to harass. This was made even more interesting by the little Butcher Bird (pesky little birds that generally mimic what other birds do, including magpies) doing a very accurate impersonation of what the magpie had done, including the sudden change of direction after getting within squirting range. It was all quite entertaining.

The temperature was increasing, eventually hitting 32 degrees C, but so was the scenery, vistas opening up around every turn.











The final climb to the Richmond Gap pass at the NSW border is 12% -- on absolutely shadeless roads in the heat. It was tough going, and it took me quite a while to recover. I did get some more water after descending to a new cafe in the Valley (although I could only get salad there). After that it was a relatively uneventful ride to Kyogle, before the ride home was suddenly made a lot more interesting by a change in weather.

The wind, which had done nothing all day, suddenly blew like crazy from the north-east (i.e. the direction I was heading). A storm was brewing somewhere around Nimbin, and contending with the heat on the climbs of the Mackellar and Nightcap ranges, I would have been glad to have some rain.

As it turned out, the storm fizzled away by the time I reached Uki (more food and water here). After that, the ride through Murwillumbah and back to Urliup was relatively uneventful. Urliup was beautiful as always, this little dirt road is one of the last great survivors from a bygone era, from a time when narrow winding dirt roads were all the rage in the Tweed Valley. I don't know how much longer it will be there, but it's always a refreshing twist at the end of the ride.

The lights went on at the top of Bilambil, and the remainder of the ride was done in the night air. In the end I finished with 283.6km, and a little over 2,700 metres of climbing. Despite being extremely tired at the finish, I'm already planning to do it again. Maybe I'll try to pick a cooler day this time, but it was an extremely rewarding ride overall.