A Tiny Christmas Eve Adventure

When you move from the northern to the southern hemisphere, Christmas is no longer in the winter. This is confusing as far as trying to feel festive goes, but it’s great for being able to get outside and enjoy the summer! And so it happened that I arranged a teeny tiny adventure for 'Thursday', without having realised that Thursday was Christmas Eve...

No-one minded though, and so Christmas Eve was spent enjoying a wilder part of Townsville I hadn’t visited enough before, Pallarenda. I have been out and mountain biked the long trail ‘Under The Radar’ before, and had walked a couple of the short trails, but this time we were combining the two activities.

Meeting at the start of the road down to Pallarenda, 4 of us got together on our mountain bikes to head for the walking track up Mount Marlow, a relatively small hill but significant in this little area.

Following the road almost all the way to the end, we turned off onto a track that goes around and through some patches of salt flat in an area known as Town Common. I didn’t manage to get any photos of the ride in unfortunately, the track was far too corrugated for me to be able to take pictures while riding, and as I was already holding up the pace with my little 26” wheels struggling to keep up with the three 29ers, I didn’t think people would appreciate further delays if I stopped to take pictures!

My bike looks mini next to the 29er!

Ian has a fat bike rather than a mountain bike with suspension

Once at the start of the walking track, we locked our bikes together and headed on up. It was quite warm, as you would expect from summer in the tropics, so we all made sure we had hats and plenty of water. The insect repellent didn’t go amiss either.

I hear that 'bright red tomato face' will be the next big thing in 2016...

The track was rough with loose stones, and a little bit steep in places. A nice change from so many boardwalks that you tend to get around here. (I do appreciate that the environment needs protecting and I’m not criticising boardwalks, it’s just that for walking’s sake I prefer more rough, natural tracks).

It’s also fairly short, and it didn’t take us long to reach the summit of Mt Marlow.

We had a breather and shared some home baked veggie muffins (not my handiwork I confess) at the top while taking in the views all around.

Looking over the patches of salt flat, towards the city.

Then it was time to reverse the journey. Following the track back down, my ankle managed to give out on me a few times. It’s weak from many previous injuries, and so often it can twist right over without causing any further damage. On this occasion I wasn’t so lucky, and one of the twists was accompanied by a popping noise and excruciating pain. On examination I had damaged the retinaculum (the band of tissue that helps to hold tendons in place across the joint) and it was a slow painful descent for the rest of the way. I was well looked after by my mates though, who assisted with strapping up my ankle and gave plenty of sympathy for the fact that I would now have to pedal out pretty much one legged!

Luckily we had cycled in the long way over the corrugations, and there was a shorter off road route we could take back to the asphalt, where one legged pedalling would be easier. We were even treated to the sight of a few brolgas as we cycled the track back towards the road, the first time I had seen them so close.

We rounded off the micro adventure by enjoying a coffee on the Strand before heading our separate ways. Amazing the fun you can have before lunchtime if you can get up early enough!

A Great Recipe For An Australian 'Orphans Christmas'

You will need: 

Great friends
A beautiful location
Bicycles 
Coffee
2kg of Prawns
Plenty of wine and food


What to do:

Put all friends on to bicycles, and have them cycle up to the top of Castle Hill

At the top of the Hill, any cycling 'Hill Virgins' must pose with bicycles held aloft

Allow friends to mix while adding some of the wine and food

Once this process is complete, add friends to water at the Rockpool swimming pool (via coffee, if this is available)

After a good soaking, allow friends to dry off in the sunshine and add 2kg of freshly cooked prawns, along with any other available nibbles

Once all nibbles have been absorbed, remove all friends to The Bicycle Pedlar's place to add the rest of the wine and food.

Perfection :)

Biking Under The Radar

My mountain biking fitness is gradually improving, so today Owen took me to tackle a new challenge: the Under The Radar trail at Cape Pallarenda.

Under the Radar is the white dotted trail above

We had kayaked near here the other day, and it would to be interesting to see the area from a different perspective.

We returned to the carpark via the Lagoon Trail (pink on the map) for about a 16km round-trip. This track passed some flat patches which are sometimes wet and home to lots of birdlife, but which were pretty dry salt flats when we passed them.

I didn’t manage to get many photos from the ride, but I really enjoyed the track – even if I did get a bit too hot by the end and felt a little unwell.

 Still, an ice cream on the Strand afterwards helps to fix a bit of overheating nicely :)

Townsville Sea Kayaking

A couple of weeks ago I went out kayaking on the local Ross River. This time Owen and I headed out to Pallarenda to go sea kayaking.

Putting into the water in Rowes Bay, we paddled off to the north and around the coastline to the west, pulling up again on Shelley Beach.

The red star on the right is the start/finish, the red star at the top is the furthest point we paddled to.

Approaching the 'corner' of the coastline

Taking just a short break as the sun was so hot once off the water, we admired the view briefly from the sparse shade of a twiggy tree before returning to our starting point.

The view to Magnetic Island

A brief but fun little adventure :)

Gentle Kayaking on the Ross River

I’ve been going mountain biking a bit recently with a friend who I met through sailing, and we have obviously been chatting during our rides. This has led to the discovery of more interests in common, including kayaking.

Owen had a spare kayak, and I asked if I could borrow it for a trip to Magnetic Island I hope to make with another friend in the future. Being safety-minded, Owen wouldn’t let me out on the sea in the kayak without being sure that I was competent. I didn’t mind too much, as I respected him taking responsibility in this way, but it was a little frustrating that he didn’t believe I could kayak properly…

Meeting up at his place early in the morning so that we would have the best chance to see wildlife, we got the kayaks strapped onto his trolley wheels and walked them down the suburban roads to the riverway path, and along to a suitable launch site.

Launching under a road bridge between two weirs about 4kms apart, we had a decent flat expanse of river to explore. Heading upriver initially, we kayaked past the beautiful waterlilies hosting little jacana birds.

A jacana from further downstrem

We saw river turtles basking on logs.

I spotted some magpie geese with their tiny brown goslings – unfortunately the little goslings didn’t show too well as my waterproof camera doesn’t perform well in low light, but you can just about make them out as tiny brown blobs at the water's edge, around the feet of the rearmost goose.

Being early, wallabies hadn’t yet been disturbed and they watched us with caution from the riverbank.

We watched egrets fishing

And then we were at the upriver weir.

More beautiful water flowers were here

We crossed to the other riverbank for the downstream journey, to see what else we could spot.

In the end though competitive nature got the best of us, and we paddled back down to the bridge at ‘a fitness pace’. Having reached the bridge in good style, Owen suggested that we carry on down to the other weir then back, as that way I would have paddled 8km and he would feel better about my ability to paddle to Maggie Island. I think that he was a bit miffed I had been able to keep up with him and that he wanted another chance to beat me ;)

At the downstream weir there so many little toad- or froglets – I hope they weren't the introduced cane toads that have such a devastating effect on the native wildlife, although I fear that they were.

There was also a lot of litter that had gathered there, and Owen collected a lot to clear it from the river. A good deed indeed! That done, we returned to our start point and took the kayaks back. What a lovely morning :)