KAPUNDA TO CLARE

KAPUNDA TO CLARE
(Kapunda to Riverton, Riverton to Clare)

5^th - 7^th February 2016

77.2km (32.4km/352m and 44.8km/297m)

https://www.strava.com/activities/487700931

https://www.strava.com/activities/487700975

On Friday afternoon we packed the car and the two bikes and headed off for a weekend of riding. Our camp for the weekend was at Riverton Caravan Park. Such a beautiful setting adjacent to the local sports oval, swimming pool and playground. The oval was really well kept and had the most amazing footy score board I had ever seen with a game clock including quarter time clock. Lush green immaculately kept surface all set up for a local Saturday afternoon cricket game. Other than two caravans and a couple of people in the cabins we were the only ones camping in a tent. We had the brand new camp kitchen all to ourselves and the brand new toilet and shower facilities. The camp grounds were green, flat and shady. Very luxurious tent camping.




Preparing the ride

Saturday morning we drove one car out to Kapunda and started our ride to Riverton.  It was an early start to beat the forecast heat. We travelled north following the east side of the Light Range through a beautiful forested valley. Turning west we climbed up and over the Light Range and then a long descent into a parched Gilbert Valley and were missing the shade of the trees that we had earlier. With the heat came those pesky black flies. Arriving in Riverton late morning we proceeded to cruise around the town admiring some of Riverton's historic buildings. During the afternoon we ran a car out to Clare in preparation for Sundays ride.










































Sunday morning we left just after dawn and headed straight out onto the Rattler Rail Trail through a beautiful tunnel of sheoaks.

























We followed the rail trail all the way to Clare climbing all the way. Even though the trail was only 1-2 % grade it was climbing most of the way. We stopped off at a café in Auburn for a great coffee and cake. All the way along the rail trail we found fruit trees. We were able to forage for fresh fruit along our way and ate peaches, apples, nectarines, figs and of course a few grapes.


Great Café at Auburn

The last 5km was the easiest we have had yet being a lovely downhill run into the Clare Trail Head.

Beautiful Sculpture at Sevenhill Winery that they did just for Mary

TANUNDA TO KAPUNDA

TANUNDA TO KAPUNDA

26^th January 2016

44.2km/469m
https://www.strava.com/activities/483380836

 

Australia Day....what better way to celebrate living in such a beautiful country than to be riding out with nature on our bikes. It's customary to celebrate Australia Day with a BBQ, beer, cricket at the beach and a time to have fun with your friends. For us this day has more meaning than a day off to play. It is a day that we reflect on what happened to the Aboriginal people. The stealing of their land, the killing of their people, the abuse that white man inflicted on the true custodians of this country. We celebrate Australia Day for its beauty of vast untamed land and nature and are thankful for our freedom. We acknowledge the truth of white mans invasion and take over of the Aboriginals lands, their home, their country. Let us never forget our History.

Our ride started in the Main Street of Tanunda with a second breakfast of coffee and croissants at a café that lucky for us was open on a public holiday. From the Main Street we were able to quickly access the local bike track that was close to 10km long that led us out of town.

Our ride was over rolling hills across the beautiful valley. Just before the township of Kapunda we rode past St John's Cemetery. We stopped outside the gate to have a quick snack and proceeded to have a little explore of this old cemetery. As my dad often said "you can learn a lot about the history of the area just from visiting a cemetery". Here we found a lot of old grave stones with very Irish names. Many had made the long voyage over to this country from their homeland in Ireland by sea. Many young women's names were on the grave stones and a few named babies and toddlers. What really shocked us was a plaque that had been recently erected near the gate to the entrance. It stated that many unnamed babies were buried along the fence line of the cemetery and that they would never be forgotten. Apparently if your baby died before he or she was baptised the church would not allow the baby to be buried inside the cemetery, the baby would be buried on the outside on the fence line and the baby would be buried unnamed. How awful is that. How traumatic for that mother to have lost her baby and then not have her baby recognised. How heartbreaking for both the mother and father to know they had a baby but in their churches eyes this baby didn't actually exist.

We had a disaster when we came to the cemetery. When I opened my handle bar bag I found my banana had exploded all over the video camera, my sunglasses and absolutely everywhere. Yuk, yuk, yuk stinking banana everywhere. All we could do was a quick clean up and a big job getting the banana off everything once we got home.

We rode through Kapunda and came across the end trail marker for the Kidman Trail at the Kapunda Trotting Track/Showgrounds. We continued for about another 10km's before we ended our ride for the day. This last 10km's was ridiculously hot. 40+ degrees in the sun which sapped the stuffing out of us both as the last 10km's included a big climb. This climb in the heat really took the zing out of me and a few forced rests along the way under the shade of trees and sips of sucky warm water kept me going until we finally ended the day with the sight of the car and a big sigh of relief.

Once back in the car I realised I had lost my good sunglasses. I didn't realise before as I had my riding ones on. With a bit of thought we were pretty sure I must have left them at the cemetery after taking them out of the handle bar bag after the exploding banana incident. We drove back to the cemetery and there they were sitting on a post right near the gate to the entrance. Lucky day I say.

MT CRAWFORD FOREST TO TANUNDAth

MT CRAWFORD FOREST TO TANUNDA
 

21^st December 2015

38.8km/523m

https://www.strava.com/activities/456265580

Heading off on the fat bikes for a day ride starting at Mt Crawford Forest just 4 days before Christmas Day was nothing more than perfect. The Mawson Trail took us on some great dirt roads and tracks with a few small climbs and lots of long awesome rolling down hill runs.

We came across the cutest little koala sitting on a low limb of a gum tree who interestingly watched us ride past. We couldn't resist but to stop and go back and take a few happy snaps of this little guy.

A great climb into Steingarten Riesling Vineyard gave us a breathtaking view of the Barossa Valley. From this vantage point you could clearly see the fire path from the recent Pinery Fire. Kilometre after kilometre of burnt ground could be seen as far as the eye could take you, showing the devastation this unforgiving fire created.

The final leg of this ride was a long, fast downhill into the valley. Great coffee was had at the end of the ride at a great little café in the main street.  

DAWESLEY TO MT CRAWFORD FOREST

DAWESLEY TO MT CRAWFORD FOREST
(Dawesley to Rockleigh, Rockleigh to Mt Crawford Forest)

13^th- 14^th December 2015

73.8km (33km/641m & 40.8km/607m)
https://www.strava.com/activities/452479279
https://www.strava.com/activities/452479287





I am so grateful for having fun and adventures in my life.

Last week we made a big effort and got a few decent gym workouts done YAY 😊😊 On Friday we did one with lots of FAF front squats with a rest day on Saturday giving time for the legs to recover before heading off on the bikes for our first 2 day mini bike packing adventure. WRONG!!!! On Sunday the legs were still in pieces 😳 oh crap!!!!

Unfortunately our fur kids thought they were coming too and there were 5 sad faces when we left without them.

We headed out on our first overnight bike packing adventure. I rode my fat bike Priscilla for the first time loaded with gear. Oh boy does that ever change things. That extra weight alters balance, steering and power. Yep had to find my Big girl undies and dig deep. Well we also had hills, killer  
 
hills. One hill was even called Steep Hill Road wtf...and we thought that would be fun - ha - pushing a fully loaded fat bike up ‪#‎steepasfuckhillroad nearly BUT didn't make me cry. Yeah yeah yeah the view at the top was amazing but seeing the sign at the top saying 'No Trucks' well that just cracked us up. This badass hill was too steep for tough old trucks 😜😜

We got to camp out in our little tent at an old school house at Rockleigh. Opposite was a very old disused tennis court stuck out in the middle of nowhere with large grain properties either side. It turned out it wasn’t disused, as a local family of 5 rocked up with their rackets, a rope for a net, an eski for cool drinks and a fold up chair for the mum. Here the Dad and 3 kids played tennis for well over an hour while the Mum relaxed under the shade of a tree. After an hour or so they packed up and headed back home leaving us to the sights of a promising sunset. I was out to it shortly after dinner way before the sun went down totally knackered. Dave took his camera in hand and stayed up happily clicking away waiting for that perfect sunset shot that didn’t quite eventuate.

Monday morning brought a very hot day. We were on the bikes before 9am and headed off with smiles. Legs felt really good, energy was high and attitude positive. We melted in the sun quite a few times when the Garmin was reading 40 degrees + but nature provided us with coolness on some awesome shady downhill runs. We came across one slithery brown snake wanting to share our road so we offered him right of way. We finished our awesome little adventure with a fresh salad wrap at the Mt Pleasant bakery before completing our last 7km.

This is just our beginnings of our bike packing adventures, just little one and two days at a time, getting the feeling of things and working out all the do's and don'ts. It is tough work and no room for princesses. The shower comes in a packet called Active Wipes. The loo comes with a shovel, (or if you're really lucky you may get a long drop with red back spiders and all) And the best thing of all is the feeling of freedom and the excitement of doing it over and over again.

MACCLESFIELD TO DAWESLEY

MACCLESFIELD TO DAWESLEY

12^th November 2015

36.6km/751m
https://www.strava.com/activities/431171736
 

We have attempted to get our butts on the bikes on a few occasions during the past couple of weeks to get this section ridden but life kept getting in the way. Finally, we managed to find a day that had no other commitments and so  we packed the car with the bikes, drove two cars out to Dawesley, leaving one car here at the end of this section, then driving back in the other car to the start of our ride today at Macclesfield. Ok we need to be super organised to do these day trips and it all worked a treat.

This ride was pretty damn hard in more than one section. Fun though, lots of fun. The Kidman Trail is somewhat hard to spot the markers at times and left us once and thankfully only once just a little off course.

Today’s ride took us out onto mostly dirt tracks and some private property. The private property was a hill. A hill with no visible rideable track, just a hill with a fence to follow down, down, down into a creek bed then up, up, up into the sky…well up. This up, up, up was not rideable but was pushable.

Most of the way we had a lovely tail breeze but during one section there was no breeze at all and was quite hot and omg the little black flies.

We followed the road out near Mt Barker (not the suburb but the actual Mountain) and out on the Back Callington Road to the South Eastern Freeway. Under we went and then followed it on the other side on Ironstone Range Road. Hit some nasty little bugger of hills here that burnt the legs just a tad.

We finished our ride at Pyrites Road at Dawesley just where we left the car. 36.6km of riding today with 751m of elevation.   

 

KANGARILLA TO MACCLESFIELD

KANGARILLA TO MACCLESFIELD

24^th October 2015

26.6km/460m
https://www.strava.com/activities/419117200

 

We headed out of our gate on a glorious day for the beginning of an amazing adventure to come. We rode our secret little sandy single track down to the Main Road and dropped into the local primary school who were having a fundraising car boot sale. Here we met up with our local Country Fire Service volunteers at their sausage sizzle and donated a few dollars to a very important community asset.
https://youtu.be/r-bXEq79z7w

Then back on the bikes and headed up Cut Hill Road, along Razor Back Road until we came to the forest and first trail marker where we started to follow the Kidman Trail. The ride was awesome through the forest and out on the back roads. Some roads were quite steep but rideable. One doozie was Bailey Road, it was just like a roller coaster. Once we got over that sneaky challenge we found a lovely shady tree and sat under it and ate cake. Lucky for me Dave packed some walnut and carrot cake that certainly went down a treat.

We continued along our way following dirt roads along some very beautiful farm properties still with lots of feed for cattle and sheep. We sure did spot lots of fatty’s enjoying the spring grass. We finished the day at Macclesfield having completed our first 26.6km (460m of climbing) of many km’s to come. To get home we continued pedalling and rode into Meadows and back home the dirt way of course.

TRIP OVERVIEW

Trip Overview, Or Plan N?

K2K stands for Kangarilla to Kathmandu

As mentioned in the previous post the initial few hundred k’s will be ridden in stages from Kangarilla to Port Augusta following the Kidman and Mawson Trails. This will allow us to finalise our bike and gear set ups before we head off on the long way around in the first week of May 2016.



Approximate route Stage 2 K2K

One of our biggest aims is to ride as many alternative routes than Highway 1 as possible. We will follow the coast around the Eyre Peninsula then head west across the Nullabor to Esperance and then Albany. Albany is the trail head for the Munda Biddi Trail, 1000km of Mountain Bike Goodness all the way to Perth.

Then we will head North to Broome and across the Gibb River Road through the heart of The Kimberley ultimately reaching Darwin. 

In October, we will head home for a break until the season is right to head to a circumvelo of Bali and Lombok, followed by a flight to Singapore that will begin our tour of South East Asia. Hopefully we will be able to cycle across Myanmar from Thailand to North Eastern India. We intend to ride quite a lot of India, ultimately reaching the Indian Himalaya, riding the highest roads in the world through Kashmir and Jammu.

But wait, there’s more, heading back east through Northern India, we will head up into Nepal to Kathmandu. All going well and seasons aligning with our plans, we will fly to Lhasa in Tibet, riding the Friendship Highway across the Tibetan Plateau to Everest base camp on the Tibetan side, followed by the longest descent in the world back into Nepal and Kathmandu.

And Then?????