Bikepacking in a Sort of Circle

Posted on June 19, 2025 by freestateofjen

Halfway along Heidke Road, Woodgate: 1st day, just setting out

This year I decided I was going to start back on adventure. I kind of lost my mojo for it a while back after being diagnosed with degenerative disc disease and the last hike I tried to do felt like my back had snapped in seventeen places. I told myself that if I started bikepacking then the bike was carrying the weight not me, so everything would be solved. Easy. Well…

Just about to head out onto Woodgate Road. There was dead cow just next to this sign with crime scene tape on it. WTF!

I mapped a bikepacking trip from my home in Woodgate, Qld to Ballina in NSW, which would take me 17 days to complete, but after struggling to ride the 58km between the start point and the first campsite I began to question my ability to plan such a long ride. I hadn’t taken into account the difficulty of riding up hills. I’m sure it’ll be fine, I tried to convince myself as I kept riding. Afterall, I’d spent a lot of time mapping everything and organising stops and accomodation all the way down the coast to Byron Bay.

Things started to go sideways early. For a start, I went the wrong way at the end of a road and had to ride all the way back, then when I got back to where I veered off I didn’t know which one of the other two roads I was meant to go down. Luckily I picked the right road, but wasn’t sure until I’d gotten almost all the way to end of it. All of this because of my ridiculous aversion to technology. A small example of this is how I haven’t written a blog post in a few years because I didn’t want to have to face turning this new computer on. I bought it and it’s sat there doing nothing for several years, which means I’ve also done nothing in the way of writing. Another example of my aversion is this:

Paper maps I made from Google Earth images as a form of navigation for an 800Km solo bikepacking trip. It would be great if I could let go of the idea I have of myself of being a neo-luddite.

On the way from Woodgate I stopped in at the Isis River BP and got a cup of tea. I thought I only had a little way to go to get to the road that ran along the railway corridor off Buxton Road, but I totally underestimated how far down the Buxton Road the level crossing was and it felt like I would never get there. I got across the crossing ok, but I was a bit worried about riding through the water because the concrete surface is underwater and all slimy, but it was ok.

Isis River crossing underneath rail bridge. I only found this by looking at tracks as I drive along and going back later to investigate. This track takes you from Buxton Road up into Barretts Road area.

It got bad after this. The road up and out of the crossing is almost vertical and it was so fucking hard to push the bike. It was very close to me not actually being able to push the bike forward, but I couldn’t go back either, so I just had to go one step at time, put the brakes on, take another step, repeat X 100. It was horrible. This wouldn’t be the last time I’d wish for a Steerstopper. The track after the concrete road was all kinds of fucked up, but I was going ok and didn’t think to put the seat down and when I lost balance down a big washout I fell off because I couldn’t reach the ground with my feet. It didn’t really hurt, but I got some skin off my right knee and something jabbed the absolute shit out of my other leg. The worst thing was trying to move the bike out of the fuck up. That was hard. Pushing it all the way up to the road was very hard too and I started to get the shits with the whole thing. What the fuck? I yelled at the scrub repeatedly.

One voice in my head said, just camp anywhere, it’ll be fine, but the other voice said, no, it’s shit, let’s keep going. I started to worry about water, but I found the billabong I knew was in the bush, so it was fine.

First campsite at secret billabong off Barretts Road, Isis

The next day was 47km from the camp at the billabong to Wongi Waterholes campground. I was pretty complacent about this stretch. That would be part of my downfall, but I didn’t know it at the time.

Oh my fucking god!! What a horrendous nightmare! I had a lot of trouble sleeping because it was so cold. My sleeping bag and liner that had always worked a treat in the past didn’t keep me warm at all and I had to get up after a few hours and put extra clothes on. It made no difference though and I was freezing all night long. This is a result of another aversion I had: washing and drying my good Mont down sleeping bag. My Grayl Geopress water filter also wouldn’t work properly to filter the billabong water and I was pissed off I didn’t bring the Sawyer filter as a backup, so I started out with only about 1 litre of water. It’ll be fine. I’ll be at Wongi in no time, I thought.

I rode out to the highway and along the inside of the treeline in the direction of where I thought I had to cross to get onto Broadhurst Homestead Road, but I got scared I’d go too far down the hill then not be able to push the bike up the side of the highway to get across it. I couldn’t see the highway from where I was, but I knew I was only around 80 metres away from it, so to avoid the disaster of getting stuck down the bottom of the hill and having to push the bike all the way back up I pushed it through the trees towards the highway, which was really bloody difficult because it was full of kneehigh grasstrees and fallen logs and jabby sticks. I made it in the end and wasn’t too far from where I had to cross over.

Now the easy stuff will start, I thought because I knew where I was going and the road ahead was nowhere near as difficult as the roads I’d already ridden on after leaving my house. I’m golden, I told myself, but I was pretty wrong, actually I was totally wrong.

It was pretty hard to get through the first gate onto the powerline easment, but I knew that gate was difficult and got through eventually. Things weren’t as easy on the powerline easment as I’d fantasised they would be and I had to get off the bike every 50 or 100 metres to push it up really short, steep hills, which was just as bad as the day before when I almost couldn’t push the bike up the road leading out of the river crossing, but probably worse because there were what seemed like hundreds of these hills and they kept coming and coming. I couldn’t remember it being this hard when I’d done it in the past, but told myself I must’ve glorified the last trips I’d done.

What actually happened was at some point I’d migrated onto the wrong easment. There are two that run parrallel to each other, but due to my neo-luddite tendancies, had no way to know if this is what I’d done. It’s fine because although they diverge, they converge again at where the powerlines meet the forestry, so no big deal, I reminded myself and started to relax a bit. Except they didn’t because I ended up at a gate that I hadn’t seen before, which opened onto a big paddock with a house and shed on it. I stood there staring at the house, which looked like a total murder house, and wondering what I should do. I had to go forward (I could see pine trees in the distance), but to do that I had to ride through the paddock and right past the house. Ok, I’m not in America, they’re not going to shoot me, so the worst thing that can really happen is that they’ll yell at me, I told myself, so I opened the gate and started riding only to see that access to the top of the property was cut off by a massive eroded gully that I had no way of traversing. I rode along all sides of it and couldn’t see a way across and small flutters of panic began in my chest. But somehow, in a little corner behind some trees I spotted a tiny gap, which I was able to slosh through and heave the bike up to get up onto the paddock. I rode towards the house thinking, please don’t let there be dogs, please no dogs, please, please, please. But there was nobody home and there were no dogs, but as I passed right by I could see that it was most definitely a murder house and I was so glad that nobody was home. I could imagine bodies hanging from the rafters and all kinds of maligned shit going down right here. Yep, I probably would have been shot.

After forcing my way through the longest, seediest grass of all time (I had to throw my socks out the next day) I made it out onto a forestry road. This is when I started to feel a little bit scared because I had absolutely no idea where I was in the 11 000 hectares of forestry that surrounded me. Plus, it was mid to late afternoon and I had only around 600ml of water left in my hydration belt and I was totally exhausted. I tried to use Google maps to navigate my way to Wongi campground, but after riding 750m in the direction it told me to go, it wanted me to turn left into a gate that lead back into the property I’d just come out of, so I called it a fucking idiot, put the phone back on flight mode to conserve battery and rode back to where the 750m had started. I’ll just ride straight and generally to the left, I told myself because it seemed to me that I was meant to go in that direction, but I kept saying very loudly to the trees, I don’t know what to do! which is not a common headspace for me because I am usually very decisive. After a while I saw I was approaching a t-intersection and I wished silently for someone to help me, but I knew that was unlikely, so I stopped thinking about it and almost started to cry, but I yelled outloud, “No! Stop that, you dickhead. It’s going to be fine!” Almost straight away, two white vans drove around a corner and I waved them down to help me. The two drivers got out and showed me where to go on their phones (this is when I realised it wasn’t google maps that was the fucking idiot, it was me for not knowing how to use it properly).

I tried not to think about how weird it was for the timing of the vans and me to be in same place at the same time in the middle of a massive forestry. I reckon if it wasn’t for them, I’d probably be out there still, lost like a dickhead in the middle of buttfuck nowhere. This is where believing in god would come in handy to explain how the vans and me crossed paths, but I don’t believe in that, so I just have to accept it as something that happened. It still feels wierd though.

Old wooden bridge in Wongi on the way to the campground.

I didn’t get to the campsite until almost 8pm and was totally dead by that stage. It was hard to put the tent up and get my dinner. I just wanted to go to sleep, which I couldn’t do again because I was even colder than the night before. It really felt like it was the worst day of my life!

Packed up and ready to leave Wongi Waterholes campground

The next day my destination was Maryborough, which was only 23km, but given how difficult the terrain had been so far I was worried about getting there in time to meet my mates at Canegrowers at lunchtime, but I made it by 10am, so I had plenty of time to faff around, buying another sleeping bag and trying to find chain lube, which I’d left at home. I went out for lunch with my buddies and then headed off to the motel I’d booked for the night. The bed was amazing, so was the hot shower. The bike loved it too.

Bike inside the motel room in Maryborough. I didn’t think they’d let me put it in the room, but it was the first thing the dude on reception said, “put your bike in your room.”

I was worried about the next day, which was a 73km stretch to Kia Ora, the increasing distances following that and the unmapped sections I had to get through from Brisbane to Byron. In the comfort of the motel room, while reflecting on what I believed was the worst day of my life, I got talking to the Cool Guy I’m Married to about it and I decided that even though I really wanted to keep going, the wisest thing would be for me to loop back towards home and he could pick me up in a couple of days. I really should have at least driven the section from Maryborough to Tewantin to get an understanding of the landscape and leave water drops for myself, and I definitely should have learnt how to use technology properly before I set off. I wonder how I imagined I’d get through the zig zaggy streets of the Gold Coast to the campsite in Pottsville after that? And what about Byron? How would I find my way there? I had this attitude that boldly claimed, don’t worry, it’ll be fine, but would it? I had started to doubt that approach very much after my experience of getting lost in Wongi and I DID NOT want to get lost on my way to Kia Ora because unlike Wongi, I’d never even been to Kia Ora before.

So, I made my way the next day to Susan River Homestead, which wasn’t very far, but I managed to ride 25km overall because after checking in and unloading my bike I found a secret track, which was really fun to ride on.

Secret track near Susan River Homestead.

On the last day I rode back up the highway towards Maryborough and down Churchill Mine Road. Google maps said it was 17km and a 54min ride from Susan River Homestead to Torbanlea, which is where the Cool Guy was meeting me that afternoon. Piss easy, I thought. Wrong again. I was still riding after 2.5 hours and the actual distance was just over 26km. What pushy can travel that far over that terrain in 54 minutes? Google maps was back to being the fuckhead again.

In total the ride was just over 200km, which isn’t bad, but not the 788km I’d originally imagined I would be riding. Still, who cares. At least I did something. It’s better than sitting around whinging about stuff and waiting for something to happen.

I got a lot of advice and information during this ride from people who have zero adventure experience. This is some of it:

Just put it in highest gear and keep pedalling (in relation to riding up steep hills). Oh gee, thanks, you dickhead, I never though of that.
Get an ebike. Yeah, that would’ve been real helpful when I was trying to push the bike up steep hills because they’re peddle-assited, not throttle-assisted.
It’s only a five minute drive up the road. Go away.
Just pull up and camp anywhere. Not safe or possible if you don’t have a caravan.
My friends just ate tomatoes and they rode 200km a day on their remote bikepacking trip. What a load of codswallop. How did they keep the tomatoes from being squished? Where did they buy them from in the middle of nowhere. Who likes tomoatoes that much?!

Generally, people have no understanding of what it’s like to do something like bikepacking or hiking and give out advice about how to do these things based on their experience of driving a car and/or car-based camping. Also, I don’t think many people do shit like this on their own, so they don’t really get that you have to do everything for yourself by yourself and there’s no one to help you out.

On this trip I had someone ask me why I would do this sort of thing. I couldn’t think of a good answer at the time, but now I know why. It’s because I want to see what I’m made of. Each time I do an adventurous thing I get to see more of what I’m made of, which gives me leverage to keep finding out more about myself. Yeah, shit went sideways a fair bit on this trip, but I handled it and now I get to do more adventures with more knowledge and an even greater understanding of how completely awesome I am.

**Go wild to see how awesome you really are**

One Bike to Rule Them All

Posted on December 1, 2023 by freestateofjen

I got a new bike: Pivot Les Fat. According to the the dudes who sold it to me, it’s the only one of its kind in Australia. It’s a nice bike, that’s for sure, but it’s heaps different to ride compared to Fatty, my Icon Fat Albert, so it’s going to take a bit of getting used to. For example, it almost got away on me down a massive hill last night! It didn’t help that it was dark and I could only see as far as the headlight beam spread: not far at all. Normally down that hill, I don’t have any problems with Fatty taking off on me because Fatty is slow, heavy, chunky and cheap! The Pivot is none of these things at all, especially the cheap part.

The cool guy I’m married to decided he needed to get himself a new bike X 2 so he could join in on bike adventures. While I waited for the Pivot to arrive from America, Fatty broke (I bent the derailleur and the brakes stopped working. I don’t think these cheap bikes are designed to cope with being ridden the way I’ve been riding poor Fatty), so I rode the Cool Guy’s new Norco Bigfoot 3, which he got upgraded with hydraulic brakes, Renthal bars, and Bluetooth seat dropper. I was able to swap out the shitty brakes on Fatty with the original Norco brakes. I feel a weird attachment to Fatty and feel kind of guilty that I’ve gotten a new bike and have been riding a Norco in the interim. Sorry Fatty, I still love you!

I took the BF on some adventures recently. I’d always wanted to ride along the side of the highway down to the Isis River, which was just a couple of puddles when I was there. This is just south of Childers.

BF at the Isis River, just under the bridge (Bruce Highway)

The same day I found a cool track in the bush and came across this hippy lady living out of her van. She was set up on a bush track in the middle of nowhere. There were plants growing out of the van and her tow vehicle. She was really happy and friendly and gave me permission to take a photo of her rig.

Hippy lady’s van in the middle of nowhere.

The BF and I went on a little trip to Toowoomba together a couple of weekends ago and we rode the trails at Gordonbrook just outside of Kingaroy and Russell Park at the Bunya Mountains.

BF on one of the trails at Russell Park.

I had a good buster at the Bunya Mountains. I didn’t get a corner right at the bottom of a hill and somehow fell off and got trapped in the bike frame because the handle bars had flipped around the wrong way. So, I sat there for about a minute trapped in the frame, trying to work my way out. I wasn’t particularly impressed, but got some awesome bruises that I was able to show off the following week at work. I was very glad that no one else was there to see how ridiculous I must’ve looked!

On the same trip I was able to go exploring and found this secret rail trail:

Secret rail trail. It’s not open to the public and I only found it because the little voice inside my head kept telling me to “just” go have a look around the corner, and another corner and another, until I found it. I was on foot, which was difficult enough. I’m not sure how you’d even get a bike on the trail. I love finding secrets in the bush. That’s what being adventurous is really all about.

In a little country town outside of Toowoomba I saw this awesome bike:

The BF and I also rode a fair bit at the local tracks at Cordalba. This guy didn’t make it:

I found this busted-arse car when I bush bashed my way through a secret track that caught my eye.

So, we have quite a bike family now:

Pivot Les Fat, Norco BF3, Specialised something or other (it’s got skinny wheels, so it’s not a real bike), Icon Fat Albert (Fatty). In the background is my awesome 4WD van, The Nonce.

I recently got a fat bike themed number plate for The Nonce. This is the caption:

I felt like was extremely clever coming up with this! No one else is likely to understand it, but I reckon it’s hilarious!

I really love being a fat chick because fat is where it’s at

I Found a Secret

Posted on May 1, 2023 by freestateofjen

I took Fatty out for a ride yesterday to a spot I found a while ago. It was awesome: I rode through a muddy creek and muddy water flicked up everywhere. I love it when this happens because for some weird reason it feels like I’m really doing something, really getting right into being in nature, and because I’m getting dirty, I’m doing it properly. I know this is ridiculous, but who cares!

I rode over a river crossing, up a massive hill and took off into the bush. I can’t tell anyone where this is because I’m not really meant to be riding there. It’s not private property, but still I’m not meant to be there, no one is, but I actually don’t care because I’m not doing anything antisocial, like illegal dumping, I’m just riding my bike. It’s a great spot. I really like it.

I rode a fair way, but the track ended at a creek, which I couldn’t get across, so turned around to come back. About half way back I noticed a track off to my right. I’d already gone down a track like this on my way to the creek I couldn’t cross, so I kept riding, telling myself that it probably wouldn’t go anywhere and I’d get disappointed like I had when I’d taken the last side track to nowhere.

See, I love finding relics in the bush. The ultimate relic for me is a dead body. I want to find one before I die. I know it’s weird and I don’t care. A skeleton is what I’m really aiming for. This isn’t likely to happen, but it doesn’t stop me from getting excited everytime I come across a remote area. The next best relics are old abandoned buildings and weird stuff that is hard to explain, like how a car got to the bottom of a massive cliff that is nowhere near a road, or why a house in the middle of nowhere, still full of books, clothes and personal items was abondoned and left to rot, or how did this old Zippo lighter and leather tobacco pouch end up here in the middle of the bush, just for me to find twenty years after it was lost?

I got some way down the main track and decided that in the spirit of adventure and exploration I really should go back and check out the side track, so I turned around and followed it. It went for much further than the earlier side track had gone and I started to worry about where I’d end up because it was getting late. I won’t turn any corners I told myself, I’ll just keep going straight. I have a problem with knowing when to stop and didn’t want to end up in the middle of nowhere, fighting my way through spiders to find the car in the dark. God, I hate spiders! They always build their webs at face height across tracks.

My breath caught in my throat when I looked up to see the edge of a building come into view.” Holy shit” I said out loud. It was hard not to get too excited, but I made myself slow down, lean my bike against a tree in the direction of escape, and approach with caution. I left my helmet on so I wasn’t trying dick around with it incase a gunman came at me, even though I knew that wasn’t likely given the condition of the track I’d ridden in on – nobody had driven on it for a long, long time.

A drawing of the building I found in the absolute guts of nowhere. Wolf Creek much?

I thought I might find some bodies hanging from the beams in the theme of the Violent Femmes Country Death Song, but there was nothing in there. I’d done a pretty good job of creeping myself out by this stage, so it was just as well really. Here’s a link to that song. It’s my favourite Femmes song: Country Death Song

Toowoomba Adventure

Posted on March 10, 2023 by freestateofjen

The coolest chic I know lives in Toowoomba, and a while back, she bought us tickets to see some banjo players at QPAC. I’d noticed last time I visted her that Toowoomba has some cool outdoor/adventure spots, so I decided to turn the whole trip into a mountain biking and hiking adventure.

On the first day I drove to Wondai to see if I could find the mountain bike track I’d overheard some mountain bikers talking about a few weeks back. I went to the tourist information centre, but the lady there didn’t really know anything about it, so I thought I’d try and find it on the stupid map app thing that someone put on my phone a couple of weeks ago. It took me around the block twice, so I promptly deleted it and just went back to google. Luckily I saw some mountain bikers heading down the hill, so I drove down the road and caught up to them. I asked the girl at the back if they were going on the loop (I didn’t realise that it was an actual single track mountain bike track, not just a rail trail loop). “We’re going to the mountain bike track,” she said, looking at me suspiciously. At this point I remembered I was driving a white van. “Ohh, cool! Can I follow you because I’m trying to find it and I don’t know where I’m going?” I said.

I pulled over before the carpark (I didn’t realise there was one), and she rode back to tell me that I could keep driving and park at the carpark about 800 metres further along the road. I felt good about that because it meant she didn’t think I was a white-van-stalker.

This is a bloody awesome track: lots of cool hills and do-able jumps and obstacles. It was heaps of fun. I met a cool fella here called Morris, who took me around the whole thing. He was really nice and I felt like I could be friends with him in everyday life, but as usual, I felt weird about asking if he wanted to stay in touch, so I said nothing, which is stupid.

After Wondai, I headed to Wooroolin with an 18km loop off the rail trail in mind. There was a sign at the start, which I followed up a MASSIVE hill to another sign that sent me down a nice, flat dirt road. A huge dog came running out of a house and I got a bit worried it was going to have a go at me, but it was a big sook. It had its teeth out, but was only doing a stupid grin to let me know it was friendly. I gave it a big pat and told it to go home, which it did. After that, there were no more signs, so I just continued to ride in a staight line, which took me over a grid and onto what looked like a long driveway. It was a long driveway: To someone’s farm house. I turned around and decided to head back to the car because I couldn’t tell which way I was meant to go because there were no more signs. AAAAarrghhh! As it turned out, I couldn’t go back the way I’d come because someone had closed a gate across the road where I’d met the huge dog. That meant I got to ride down a massive hill and managed to go the fastest I’ve ever gone on the bike: 39km/hr. I thought I was pretty cool, but I didn’t realise how much faster I could actually go until I got to Crows Nest the next day.

Wooroolin from the bike loop. Wetlands in the background

I headed to Kingaroy thinking I’d find a stealth camp there, but after driving around there for about an hour and not finding anywhere I felt OK about, I decided to head towards Crows Nest and find somewhere on the way. I ended up at Goodger, which was a much better spot than down the end of some dodgy suburban industrial estate.

I write all this stuff in a journal while I’m doing an adventure so that I can remember it properly later on. I really, really hate doing this! It’s the most annoying form of wrting for me and I have to write very fast so I can out-write the feeling of the approaching tantrum of I DON’T WANNA!! This is what happens when I write in a journal:

The next day at Crows Nest I called into the tourist information centre to see if they had any stuff on the local mountain bike tracks. The lady was really nice, but the biggest Covid conspiracy theorist I’ve ever come across. Apparently everyone who got vaccinated only has five years to live. She claimed that the vaccine was a way of getting us all transformed into AI because the global elite want to control everything and depopulate the world. I kept asking her why, not belligerently, but because I was genuinely interested in where she was going with her particular theory, but when she no longer had a way to answer my enquiries, she reverted to beliefs (a war between god and satan), which you can’t really question, so that shut the whole thing down. Ohhh, what a shame.

After that I went into Crows Nest to get a coffee and looked at a few maps to work out where to ride. I decided on a 20km mountain bike loop, which was pretty challenging. The first bit was OK and it was before the road went to dirt that I got the bike up to 50km/hr. That was pretty cool! The bike had a small speed wobble, but it was barely noticeable. Not long after that, the road when to dirt with massive corrugations on gigantic hills and I had to get off and push the bike a lot. It was really hot and I kept fantasising about getting a Crows Nest softdrink when I got back to the car. It was on the back end of the loop that I noticed my back brake wasn’t really working, which was a pain because there were some massive down hills on the way back towards Crows Nest and I could’ve picked up some good speed on these if I wasn’t worried about needing to slow down should a car come over the next crest or whatever. There was really only about 2km of nice riding on this loop. The rest was too corrugated and steep to really stay on the bike.

Fatty on the nice part of the Crows Nest loop

After the loop I went to Crows Nest National Park. I did the hikes there, but was struggling a bit by this point because my legs were so sore from a big run I’d done two days prior (the 2nd day after the exercise is always the most painful), and I had to find a big stick to help me get up and down all the stairs on the hike to the lookout at the top. It was worth it. I got to do some great cooees and yelps from the lookout. It was really echoey.

That night, I wrote in my journal: ” I think it’s good to not know too much about what you’re going to do. There’s no way to get disappointed: That bike loop at Crows Nest wasn’t really fun, but it didn’t piss me off like the Rainbow Beach ride did because I had no ideas about what it would be like.”

The next day I went for a drive in the forestry at Hampton, with the idea that I’d end up at Lake Perserverence and then Lake Cressbrook. At Lake Perserverence I found a secret hike:

I got really excited about this because I’d looked into the valley the day before from the Crows Nest Falls lookout and thought how cool it would be to go down and follow the creek bed and explore the bush. I went back to the car and got the GPS so I wouldn’t be held back by worrying about getting lost, but I didn’t get that far. I spent around 2 hours climbing around all the boulders in the creek bed, but couldn’t see where the trail went after the second marker. I assumed you follow the creek bed, but I just rocked hopped around up to the spillway and climbed back out to the car. I didn’t feel like getting stuck in the guts of nowhere. Given the condition of the sign and the two markers I did see, it’s obvious that this trail isn’t really used anymore, so it’s not likely that it’s going to be obvious where to go to get out of the valley at the other end.

Perseverance Creek. I think you follow this creek to get to the falls

After Lake Cressbrook, which was full of rules (YOU CAN’T! DON’T! STOP! NO DOGS! KEEP OUT! NO! NONE OF THAT! KEEP IT DOWN! SLOW! ). I went to Ravensbourne National Park, which was awesome. I found an old memorial at the Gus Beutel lookout, but I couldn’t read who it memorialised because the engraving was worn away. I did all the hikes in the park and at one point, in the middle of the rainforest, with the picabeens towering above me, two army Chinooks beat their way overhead. It gave me goosebumps as images of Vietnam sprung to mind.

A very cranky goanna Ravensbourne National Park

There were two of these overhangs. Both had little insectivorous bats hanging inside.

That night I wrote in my journal: “Today I felt like this is why I’m alive.”

The next day I faffed around in Toowoomba before heading off to Brisbane for the gig. I bought a new seat for my bike (the existing one had snapped) and asked the dude who sold it to me about fixing my hub and my brakes. Nobody in bike shops ever really likes fat bikes, but this guy wasn’t too bad. He reckoned I should probably buy a new bike because mine needs too much new stuff, which will require me to spend more than the bike is worth. He showed me the one below, which seems pretty bloody expensive at $2K (Fatty cost $650), but he reckons it’s only entry level. Entry to what exactly? Entry to spending even more money next time, then on and on ad infinitum. People get really judgey about equipment when you’re doing a specialist-type activity. This is one of the reasons I’m not a huge fan of clubs. So far, the mountain bikers I’ve met on the tracks have been pretty accepting, but even so, I’m not rushing out to join the local mountain bike club!

After the faffing I headed into Brisbane to catch up with the coolest chic ever. We had a great time and, overall I had another really great adventure, which I would not have been able to do had I not crossed paths with the dangerous and stupid iteration of myself in 2022.

The Cool Chic (LHS) and me (RHS) at a banjo gig. I love banjos, and I love folk music, but this was really freakin’ horrible shit! I was glad I had no expectations because there was no way for me to be disappointed or pissed off. I have never, ever heard music like this before in my life! It was like cats screwing!

EPIC FAIL: Rainbow Beach Ride

Posted on February 26, 2023 by freestateofjen

In January I meticulously planned a ride from Rainbow Beach, across the Leisha Track, up Teewah Beach, across the river on the ferry to Tewantin, and back to Rainbow via the Cooloola Way. It was around 150km of riding in total. I only managed to ride 15km: from the beach ramp at Rainbow to the Teewah side of the Leisha track. I didn’t factor in trying to ride into the galeforce wind on Teewah Beach. Ugh!

The problems started early; before I’d even gone 15km. The beach was blocked by a massive treefall just before Double Island Point. To get through I had to unpack everything off the bike and stash it in the timber. Then I had to grab the bike and carry it through all the logs and sticks while unsuccessfully avoiding the waves breaking around my knees. After I parked the bike on the other side, I had to go back for the packs, which were more difficult and cumbersome to carry though the log jam than the damn bike was! I really wanted to go for a swim because the water looked so nice, but I decided against it and that was a good decision given how much time it took me to get anywhere once I got out onto Teewah Beach.

I was meant to ride 25km from the Leisha track, but only made it 17km because I pushed the bike almost the entire way. When I did try to ride I got a massive rippling cramp in my right thigh, so stopped and drank a little bit of seawater. I also licked my arms to get the salt off. It seemed to help with the cramp, but I couldn’t ride. It was waaay too windy. I did not expect that and felt kind of stupid for not even considering it.

Double Island Point side of Leisha track

In my journal (which I really hate writing by the way) that night, I wrote: It really wasn’t that fun today, or even fun at all if I’m really honest. It was really fucking hard. I don’t remember the Wongi ride being this hard…I don’t know how people camp in sand. It’s fucked. It gets everywhere, even into places you know you haven’t touched or opened. And, it’s sticky too because it’s kind of wet, so it’s not like you can dust it off. It’s sooooo annoying!

Lots of people stopped to give me lifts on the two days I was on Teewah Beach, but I wouldn’t have been able to fit Fatty in any of their cars, so I kept saying no. Some people eventually did come along with an empty ute tray, so I got a lift with them. They also gave me mini Mars Bars, so that was pretty cool. They were all very beautiful people. Beautiful in the way that people from cities normally are, not like me; someone who looks like they just fell out of a tree! Ange, who sat in the front told me about her business: About Faces Noosa. No wonder she was beautiful! They talked a lot about Yoga and it made me want to give it a go.

In total I rode for 15km and pushed the bike for 33km. I don’t recommend doing this! I couldn’t even complete the “easy” return section of the ride along the Cooloola Way, so I had to stay in a caravan park and get picked up the next day. When I was there, I wrote in my journal: I like Tewantin. I reckon I could live here.

When I got home I came up with a five year plan to buy a house in Tewantin. I would never have thought of this had I not had this epic fail, so it wasn’t really a fail because I got to learn some cool stuff and come up with more cool plans for the future. I also got to meet some really great people and made it home, even though at times it seemed like that would never happen. This guy wasn’t so lucky…