We didn’t want to stray too far from home today, so I took my friends on an exploration of my “back yard” starting from the railway station down the road, and riding up into the mountains at Ocean View (near Mount Mee) before rolling back to Burpengary to catch the train. I love rides like this because it reminds me how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place. Even though we might sometimes drive a few hours to explore a place on the mountain bikes, it’s reassuring to prove the old proverb that there is no place like home.
We started off riding along the shoreline at Lake Kurwongbah. As if on cue, as soon as I started taking pictures, these rowers appeared out of nowhere. Don’t you just love days like that?
From there we headed for the shoreline of Lake Samsonvale and rode a few of the trails there. It’s quite hilly under the power lines, so we stopped for a rest at the top of the hill to enjoy the great view of the D’Aguilar Range to the west.
This led us to one of the more historic trails in the area. “The Old North Road” was used here in the 1840′s by the Archer Brothers as a way of getting from Nundah near the Moreton Bay Settlement to Durrundur Station, near present day Woodford. It was based on an old Aboriginal pathway used for generations by people who walked from Meanjin (what we call “Brisbane” today) to the Blackall Ranges (near present day Maleny). These days, an un-built gazetted road, Dunlop Lane, follows the parts of this route. It’s a popular trail for horse riders.
As we slowly made our way in a north-westerly direction towards Ocean View, the hills grew steeper, and the climbs became more challenging…
Eventually we reached the major climb of the day – Mountain View Road. What a big hill!
Photos don’t do it justice, but even Eric and Jason (both very strong hill climbers) had to walk bits of it. I did too. 
We had a well-earned lunch at the top of the hill in a picnic area. In whatever direction we looked we were treated to great views.
After lunch we continued north towards our next point of interest – the source of the Caboolture River. This river starts as a mountain stream in the rainforest at Ocean View. I thought it would be interesting to check it out.
(Photo: Eric Dousi)
As we made our way along the track the sound of rushing water echoed through the trees. It wasn’t until we were almost right on top of it that we found the Caboolture River pouring over a waterfall.
It looked impressive but we couldn’t find a place to cross the river at this spot, so we made our way back up the hill to try and find a way above the waterfall.
It was a bit of a circuitous route through fern covered gullies…
…along barbed wire fence lines…
… and over more river crossings…
… until we finally made our way out of the thick bush and back onto the edge of the mountain range on Dean Drive. We’d paid our taxes in advance to the gravity gods, and so now we were able to enjoy an intense descent back down the hill.
We took one last view at the panorama looking east towards Moreton Bay, and started the downhill run. This was one of the steeper tracks I’ve ridden down. To maintain control, I hung my backside out over the back wheel as far as I could. So far, in fact, that it was almost touching my rear tyre. But I survived the descent and was able to stay on the bike.
As we reached the bottom of the range, it started raining quite heavily. We adjusted our route to get back to Burpengary Station as quickly as possible, shaving a few kilometres from our original route. We were still able to enjoy a quick (but wet) ride through Sheep Station Creek.
We eventually made it to the train with about 15 minutes to spare, having ridden almost 70 km in seven hours. We climbed almost 1,800 metres and I burned about 3,500 kcal.
I’m rating this one 8.5 out of 10 on the tough-o-meter. The climb up Mountain View Road was tough. It was quite difficult bashing through the rainforest to get across the Caboolture River. The descent back down the range was challenging as well – not for beginners.
Thanks to Rebecca, Eric, Paul and Jason for a great ride through my back yard!
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