Catch up

Quick catch up:
- took an easy week last week, the long ride and the run on Monday seeming to knock me around a bit (well, and probably the heat as well) plus we had a couple of things happening at home. My bike came back from warranty repairs on Thursday, so did about 5k or so doing a system check and a first pass at a set up.
- did about 80k or so on Saturday, including a new 1 minute or so PB for the Saturday group ride that felt pretty easy on my bike compared to the elderly Cannondale I had borrowed whilst mine was being repaired

After seeing the tracks set out in the '09 UBD (or Refidex as it's called up here) in the Mt Cootha Forest (the area west of Mt Cootha and south of the Enoggera Reservoir) I spent a fair chunk of Saturday afternoon wandering around Brookfield and surrounds picking out where the tracks met the main roads and marking points on the Garmin.

Took it easy on Sunday (had a few home tasks to catch up on), but today took advantange of my RDO (gotta love the nine day fortnight) to follow some of the trails.


Started at the Gap Creek Picnic Area and followed the Bellbird Trail to the Kokoda Trail which is very steep (almost can't get up due to lack of traction!) and comes out on the Sir Samuel Griffith Drive near the Channel 9 studios (you can see them at the top right above), then down the Highwood Road trail (I did turn around here and go to the Moggill Road trail, which was almost impassable due to the sheer number of trees brought down in November's storm). Back to the bottom of the Highwood Road trail, up Highwood Road to Gap Creek Road to the Quail Trail which brought me back to the Gap Creek Picnic Area.

Good fun - they're good quality trails, you could probably get a 4WD up them (although they would struggle on the really steep sections due to the slippery surfaces, and some of the bridges have been damaged in the storms). I'd like to check out the trails west of Gap Creek Road in the coming weeks, to get a further feel for the area and see what loops can be made up. The area's surprisingly tight (I was out for less than an hour) but with great variation in elevation and terrain, so a great asset for anyone wanting to dabble in some offroad stuff.