Tweed Coast Treadly

Tonight saw the beginning of this years Early Summer storms. Even though there was no lightning and thunder, locally, the build-up was there and the rain has begun. Hopefully the tank will get a fresh supply if we get at least 25mm plus, that is. I have noticed the water carter about over the last week or so. Now also the mangoe tree will not set fruit for another year with the full tree of flowers getting wet! Also the possibility of a bush fire has been put on hold for another couple of weeks…

It looked like rain all day but we only had a light isolated shower last night showing on the roads during this mornings 50km ride. I have managed to sift one of the eight truckloads of Terranora soil for the NEW raised Vegie garden, so that only took me 4 days, lets see that’s another 28 days left to go! and the dumped loads are only going to getting further and further away from where I want the soil to be so more and more wheelbarrow work to come as time goes by… I was desperatly in need of some upper-body workout so it’s convenient really??? All up I rode about 65kms today riding to Hastings twice and Cabarita once to get some replacement tubes after todays puncture.

One thing I didn’t say about this mornings ride2work was that during the 52k trip I saw only one other rider!

Rode Round Mountain, Reserve Creek and the Tweed Valley Way to Murwillumbah. Had a quick chat with a couple of touring foreign tourists (no English maybe?) riding into Mur’bah to book a Yoga and meditation seminar for this Sunday.

The ride over Reserve Creek didn’t take too much out of me even with the heat and thin Queensland bushfire smoke hanging in the air. With the wind from the West I thought that a push over Burringbah Range and a slow ride along the coast from Wooyung with a cross wind would round off the ride. But the reflected road heat and the sun beating on my back  all the wy up the range ( I found very little shade on the way up the range) was a bit too much for me. I managed to get over the crest but felt the last 500 metres with my left foot noticeably painful I decided to push on to the Mooball Victory Hotel for a schooner of soda water and a 15 minute rest stop.

The only road kill was 2 green tree snakes (about 600mm) on the Round Mountain gravel road section and a very large bandicoot near South Mur’bah.

The length of the ride was only 64km but the sun, heat and smoke took their toll. Along the Wooyung to Pottsville Stretch of road. It was head down and grind non-stop for 10km along the flat road against the now freshening seabreeze, dropping to 16km/hr at one point until I stood in the saddle to relieve the dedicates and managed to increase the momentum and wake me up a little.

I continued on, struggling. I basically just headed home using up what little energy I had managed to save in reserve in the attacks from the Sun, Smoke and Wind. 

The BOM said

MURWILLUMBAH   1500 WNW/022 31

 It took 4hours including stops and the average HR was 149bpm, also including Mur’bah stop and rest at Mooball. 

One good?? thing to come out was that I hit a top speed of 69kmph down the Fernvale Hill(?) and a minimum of 6kmph on one of the last pinches of  the Burringbah Range climb.