Adventures in 2014

A lot goes into planning for a trip such as the Munda Biddi bike ride, especially when you have to consider the requirements of a group. I normally do all of this on my own, spending weeks and months reading up on various blogs, travel books and studying maps. This time I enlisted the aid of the group participants to help research accommodation and assist with the route plans

Mark had to have some major renovations on his bike, as he wanted it in good repair for his return to Siberia. The cassette and chain was replaced as well as a general service. We also enjoyed a sausage sizzle hosted by the local Lions club. Funny, no one was around until we arrived, then a horde of people came over for a feed.

It was quite cool this morning. With only 50km or so to cover we were not in a hurry to leave early. The birds were quite loud with their competitive singing and the sun was streaming in quite brightly, so  an actual sleep in wasn't possible.  

We left Donnybrook at 9:00am today, we had some time up our sleeve and the owner of the hotel consumed a bit of it, as he loves to have a chat, and was quite engaging. He was having a challenging time renovating the hotel and juggling an almost capacity loading of the accommodation. He bought the place as a sideline to a farm but now finds the farm a sideline to his tourism enterprise.

This ride was memorable for its dangerous diversion onto Vernon Road. If you ever do this track my advice is to find an alternative to Vernon Road. It is a dirt road running by the forest  with steep roller hills on pea gravel corrugations. My bike handled them well, but even so you are flying by the seat of your pants as the whole machine and your body is working overtime to keep in a balanced state. Not at all pleasurable, when it goes on for kilometres and it somewhat tarnished the general experience of this day. I was grateful that the Loctite and straps were doing their job holding the rack and panniers in place.

At 8:00am, we are all packed and ready to go and sitting in the general store reviewing the day ahead. We could not resist starting the day with scones, jam and cream, along with that ubiquitous kickstarter beverage: coffee.

My fears about hoons and loud trucks rumbling through the night, let alone trains were unfounded, well, at least I did not hear them, and the night's rest was very settled. Another nice shower, packed up and we were ready to meet Mark and Nev in town at about 9:00.

Long day. It started out wet, and continued on an intermittent basis up until we reached Quinninup. We are lucky with the weather in general, so a wet day here and there wasn't going to hurt our spirit.

Today is a rest day, we are 1/2 way on our journey. After seven days of riding it was good to have a day off. We chose it well because we would have got a tad wet had we of ridden today.

Today we had relative easy day of riding, which was welcome after the last few long ones we've just had. It took us through shaded forest trails , we had plenty of stops to allow us to appreciate what was around us.

We awoke early with the noises of bush life and the sunrise. A cup of tea then we were off to look at the pool and rocks that form the Fernhook falls. The reflections off the water were mirror perfect. I was the only one brave enough to immerse myself. Needless to say it was quite chilly, but it's good to start the day all refreshed.

This was a day of mishaps. After a relatively incident free 4 days, occasional flat and tumble in the sand, this is the one where things change. Not hugely so, but a bit of a wake up call. Jon fell over and cut his arm and my rack fell apart and I lost my speedo whilst negotiating my way under some fallen branches.

I loved this section of the Munda Biddi taking us to the small coastal town of Walpole. Scenery abound, single track with some glorious descents through beautiful leafy forest.

We had a good night's rest awakening early with the song of kookaburras. Just as well as we have a long day ahead with over 70km to cover. It doesn't sound much, on a road bike I'd cover 70km in  2 to 3 hours. On a mountain bike laden with panniers your speed is cut down to an average 10 to 15 kph depending on what the road surface and gradients are like.

It was a short day in terms of distance, according to the map only 42km. This gave us time to stock up at the shops, have a coffee and engage in some sideline activities. The local store was well provisioned to cater for our tastes in food. We didn't buy anything last night as the store closed just as we arrived (they open 7:00am to 7pm).

The Munda Biddi is a world class multi-day cycle trail running about 1000km from Albany to Perth. After weeks of planning, collecting a party of fellow adventurers my cycling adventure on the Munda Biddi cycling trail in Western Australia is now a reality. Please refer to the index and trip plan / review for an overview of the whole trip.