Brown snakes, Angry Rangers and a shit of a hill!

First day of 2013, and a good start to the year it was! After a little bit of a trek and a hunt for a new CamelBack (left one of my 6 at home), and the wife taking our younger 2 kids to play at the park with a friend of our, I decided to head off on a little adventure myself. Mt Kembla was always a good fun place for anything when I was growing up, from riding trail bikes up to the Motocross track via the fire trails when I was about 12, to going for a long run training for a cross country running event while I was at school, to rallying a car up around the many firetrails when I first got my licence, it was always my place to enjoy many random things (and many of the guys of the generation I grew up with). Now that I am older, wiser and realising that many of the things I used to do there growing up were illegal, I decided that going for a ride up there LEGALLY would be a fun thing to do to begin my 2013 season.

From my parents house, I retraced the route I would take when I would go on my training runs growing up. I used to run right up to the gates near Van De Haar's property, but instead of turning around and running home, I lifted my bike over the wire gate and the went over myself. The first thing I noticed was how green it is up there, but not much rain had fallen this past month or so. The second thing was a sign at the start of the climb. I paused and took a photo of the sign, "No shooting/Hunting, no fires/camping, no motor bikes and no dogs", all good for me (or as you will read later, so I thought!).

Heading up to Mt Kembla summit this way clearly hurts. Right off the bat you are hot with a hill, and not just any hill, a hill that seems to have about a million false crests! The initial climb is tarred, with the odd scattering of loose road base. Due to this being a "non permanent road" which is only used bire the Rural Fire Service when back burning operations take place or they are doing the real job, the road is poorly maintained, littered with potholes and loose chunks of tar. After trekking up the "road", past the old caretakers cottages (which are still occupied) the road gradually turns to loose road base and eventually, just your standard Aussie fire road. Along the way, I travelled past the old Field Study Centre, a place long disused and now in a major state of neglect. Perhaps if NSWPWS kept this place open and kept taking school kids up there, they would have a better understanding of the escarpment and its flora and fauna. I paused and remebered a school excursion up there when I was in High School, and wondered how long it had been since they closed it down.

I continued up the fire road, noticing a few mountain bike trails that had been carved out of the bush on either side of the fire road. I marked the entrance to one of these trails with a pile of rocks (now 3 months ago if I saw a pile of rocks piled next to a road, I would of called the Army bomb guys to check for an IED, funny how we do similar things to the insurgents in Afghan and Iraq, but we mark ours for something fun ahead, not something deadly) and continued my climb up the fire road.

After about another kilometer from where I marked the trail entrance, I came to a couple of signs, one reading Mt Kembla Summit, the other pointing to the ring track and Windy Gully. I decided to take the summit track, but seeing as though this was littered with stairs (about 120 tight, sharps bits of rock and timber)I didnt even make 100m into the trail before I turned back, coming to grief on a tricky little obstacle, no biggy, just reopened a cut on my knee). Any way, after coming off, I decided to head back for the easier, but longer, ring track. I pedalled along, taking in the sights that is Mt Kembla, Lyrebirds pecking away at the ground, water and bearded dragons basking in the sun, a 6' red belly basking in the sun shining through the canopy off the side of the trail. I remeber the joint clearly, however lots more lantana these days. Then I heard a noise from behind that was definately from my childhood. 2 guys on motocross bikes come flying past me, throwing roost and leaf litter everywhere. They were only in my view for a few seconds, and these boys were hauling, so much for trail bikes not being allowed up there anymore!!

I was about 200m from the end of the trail when I saw something small and grey in my path. By the time I realised it was a baby brown snake, I had nowhere to go but straight over it. FML I thought to myself, then I looked at my front wheel. Yep, the little bugger was wrapped in my spokes having a go at my tyre! I hit the skids and ditched the bike rather quick at that point. Walking away from my bike, I watched the front wheen and the snake in some sort of demented ballet. When the wheel stopped spinning, I looked at the snake and said "You got yourself into this mess, you get yourself out, I aint touching you, ya little bastard" (for non Aussies readin this, juvenile brown snakes are grey and have potential to make you really sick, but are deadly as adults). So I walked to the other side of the track and waited. Once he was free, off into the lantana he went, and I viligilantly walked back to my bike and rode off.

I rode up to the Windy Gully trail head and stopped for another break and a drink of water. I leaned my bike on a log barrier and walked around, stretching my leg and checking my knee out. A NSWNPWS Ranger was also there, big fat, glaring at me. He walked up and started going mental at me, telling me I cannot be riding up there, I cause unnecessary noise etc etc. I looked at the sign beside him, hmmm, same sign as at the bottom of the track. I looked at my bike, then back to the sign, back at my bike and told him last time I checked, my bike didnt have a motor and I asked if he said anything to the 2 trail bike riders that came out of the trail. This was meant with a grunt, which was my queue to leave. I adjusted my seat height for descend mode, put my forks back to 160mm travel and after circling the road to select a better gear, disappeared down the trail, the ranger looking at me dumb founded.

The ride down was fun, drifting through the long, loose corners, pumping the rollers along the firetrails, hitting the asphalt hair pin at full speed, finding my trail marker and cutting through about 400m of awesome fun single trail, with a couple of nice drops and even a little wooden log bridge. Basically after rejoinging the fire road, it was back past the cottages then back to my folks house, all of which was downhill.

I parked the bike in the shed, with my Dad asking if I fell off. When I replied yes, his response was so typical of my old man "serves yourself right". Funny old bugger he is.

Now I am pondering my next little AM adventure. Might head up to the summit a different way next time, would love to ride the Dombarton Trail from Mt Kembla to the top of Macquarie Pass, but with my current fitness state (not as fit as I want to be due to 7 months away working crap hours, dealing with the shit we dealt with), I might build myself up to that one. It is about 140km round trip, and all fire roads with some fun climbs and descents. Thats all for this one, will be sure to update with my next adventure.

Keep the rubber side down.