Closing the epic

Since my next major ride is just a day away, it's probably time to finish writing about last weekened. On Sunday Martin and I decided to head for the Tweed Valley once again, this time climbing on Brummies Road, a dirt road that climbs around 400 metres, with the gradient reaching 20% at one point. First of all though, we had to climb Tomewin again. From Tomewin it became apparent once again that most of this mist was clustered around the Tweed Valley, but this time it disappeared shortly after we hit the Valley floor.



Again, we had to head out through Chillingham and Tyalgum to get the ride properly started, but this time we took a short detour on a dirt road. It probably didn't add any distance, but it was prettier than the main road. More importantly, it added a few hills and an extremely refreshing creek crossing.



It was after climbing the rolling hills toward Tyalgum that the real ride started. It's a product of taking Swifts Road and Tyalgum Ridge road out of town, and into the Wollumbin National Park. Now the road climbs, varying between steady and steep over a spur of the Mt Warning range. Initially it passes through open farming country, before hitting the rainforest at the top. Much of the climb is just a long grind, it's all about continually working the mountain until it stops. However, the rewards are definitely there.



The ride across the top of the ridge offers it's own challenges, one in particular involves a creek crossing and a short but steep climb out. It's easy to have a minor crash there (I won't say anymore, lest I incriminate myself). This is then followed by a screaming decent back to the valley. This descent was made a little more troublesome by a few 4wd ruts in the road. It became fairly obvious on our return to the valley floor that someone had ignored the "road closed" sign to inflict this damage.



This road conveniently descends right into the prettiest part of the old Tweed Valley ride, and we lapped it up. There are some places that you just need to go and this is one of them. It has rainforest, creeks and streams, mountain views, just about everything a valley ride needs. The final part of the ride comes out near Mt Warning, ready for the final ride into Uki, and eventually home.



Uki is a pleasant place for a lunch stop, but we were soon on our way. With the main interest of the ride over, it was now a case of mopping up the likes of Stokers Siding, Murwillumbah, Bilambil and of course, Urliup, which always provides a pleasant diversion. I made a point of slaughtering Bilambil right at the end, in fact, I even eased up on the Urliup climb to conserve the energy to do it. Needless to say, that provided a final feeling of satisfaction to end what had been a spectacular weekend of riding.

Tomorrow I have a 300km randonee lined up north of Brisbane. Bring it on.