The rivers run

Last week I got in touch with Martin, and old riding partner. Initially it was to for "identity verification" purposes for some travel documents that I need to get together. As it was, we decided to go for a ride together today. It should have all been fairly straightforward, a simple 100km or so, but rides I do with Martin rarely turn out as planned. Initially there was a small matter of chasing a couple of other riders down the coastal strip for some fun, but it was after clearing Urliup to the south and heading for Murwillumbah that it really started.



I was absolutely insistent that Tumbulgum Road would lead to Tumbulgum, despite the logical impossibility of it (i.e. on the wrong side of the Tweed River) and the "No Through Road" signs. It almost did, too, with a very pleasant ride by the river before leading to an absolutely definite dead-end, with no way of progressing further apart from swimming with the bike. We weren't deterred by this -- after all, we were the ones who crossed a flooded causeway at night on a 170km ride two years ago.



We backtracked on some other farm roads, which ultimately led to dead-ends. Then we went cross-country, now looking to get back to the way we originally came. The line of telegraph poles in the distance sort of indicated we were on the right track, it was just a matter of negotiating obstacles (i.e. carrying bikes across rickety log "bridges") and riding through the mud to get there. Actually, the mud didn't deface the $580 of new components on my bike a great deal, but I was rather concerned about the prospect of dropping the bike off the "bridge".



Finding our way back to the river seemed almost anti-climactic in the end -- the adventure was effectively over. We returned home via Tumbulgum (the right way this time) and Terranora along a back road. Terranora itself isn't particularly impressive these days, but the back road climb remains beautiful. I'd probably do it more often if it led to somewhere more interesting. That's a ride to ponder for the future I suppose.



The overriding feeling at the end of this ride was a return to the "joys" of the half-day ride. I've done so few rides of this length (115km total) recently, largely because I've been insisting on riding a "century" virtually every week. This ride, while shorter, was ridden with a higher intensity level than one could ever sustain on the longer rides, and presented some different challenges. I really should do this sort of thing more often than I've been doing.