Wondrous Wollumbin

For sometime I'd been lining up another ride on the Tweed Valley. It involved taking Swifts Road from Tyalgum, then Tyalgum Ridge Road - becoming Brummies road before linking up with the old Tweed Valley ride. It all seemed simple enough, and yesterday seemed to turn on the perfect day, so it was time to do it.
Even before I had crossed the Macpherson Range, Tomewin was turning on a spectacular day.


After descending into the Tweed Valley, I followed the familiar route toward Tyalgum. The two climbs here often show spectacular views on days like this, and yesterday was no exception. I've watched clouds settle on those mountains in moonlight before, but seeing it during the day is also special.

After Tyalgum it was time. Swifts road doesn't mess around in getting into the climb. This climb becomes a little more challenging as it's on loose dirt. A sign advises "4wd road, dry weather road only". I had neither. I chose to press on, just watching the views open up. At one stage it looked like the road would peter out into a dead-end at a farmhouse, but it continued -- albeit on a slightly rougher surface.

Now I was into the forest, and an extremely beautiful one at that. This is actually Australia's most recently declared National Park. You can still find some of the campaign websites calling for Wollumbin State Forest to be declared a National Park. I have to say I agree with them whole-heartedly.

It started raining at the top of the climb, as if the "road" wasn't boggy enough already. It didn't really worry me too much, although I did put off the visit to Brummies Lookout for another day. After winding around on Condowie Road for a while, reaching a height of 470 metres at one point, it was then left to a steep descent back to Brays Creek Road and the old Tweed Valley ride. I didn't have any traction problems descending in the rain, but I did keep the speed down and concentrate on picking the less slippery parts of the surface.

After this, of course, it was just a simple ride back to Tyalgum, then the "main road" to Murwillumbah before returning through Urliup, Bilambil and catching the tailwind back up the coast. I finished the day with 165km and around 1,840 metres of climbing -- not quite the ASH Dash, but a decent amount of today's climbing was on dirt, which made it a little more interesting.
This now effectively gives me two of these circuits in the Tweed Valley to play with. The other one is, of course, the old ride through Mebbin National Park to the south. Maybe I'll take that one next week.