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!