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Mountain Biking Australia - Travel Diary

Day 1 and 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5 and 6

Day 7 and 8

Day 9 to 11

Day 12 and 13

Day 14

Day 15 and 16

Day 17

Day 18

Day 19

Day 20

Facts of the rides

My Cube Attention Bike

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Outback Australia - Road Worker in Action

Tasmania - The Parade of Little Penguins

Along the Mawson Trail to Adelaide

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> Travelogue > Mountain Biking Australia - Travel Diary > Day 20

The Mawson Trail - 900 kilometres long

I was quite exited to get on the Mawson Trail into Adelaide. It is a great way to stay off the traffic. For the ones who don’t know, the Mawson Trail is a cycling track for sturdy touring - and mountain bikes. The track starts in Athelstone at the bottom of the Adelaide Hills and goes for 900 kilometres across South Australia into the Flinders Ranges. The northern head of the Mawson Trail is in Blinman.

Early morning on the Mawson Trail

Have you heard about warmshowers.org?

Mount Pleasant is 5 kilometres off the Mawson Trail. So I worked out that I had to cycle along Cricks Mill Road to get on the trail. The signage was great so I went in some sort of a zick zack trip to Birdwood. There was the possibility to stock up some bananas. From Birdwood to Lobethal I went on the bitumen road to save some time.

I’m not sure if it worked. On the way - a four wheel drive stopped and I had quite a long talk with a guy who did also some long distance riding with his wife. He gave me the idea to check out the website warmshowers.org. That is a website of hosts and travellers who provide accommodation for touring cyclists. Sounds like a great idea.

Lobethal is worldwide famous for its good wine. The village has around 1800 residents. Everything looks very tidy. I kept going because I was a bit short of time. Lobethal is close to Adelaide so I can ride to the village again for one or two days. The Mawson Trail continues along Post Office Road with a steep climb. Then it goes pretty much up and down along quiet country roads. By the way it became a nice sunny day by lunch time.

Another hill to climb

Cudlee Creek - Brilliant mountain bike trails

In Cudlee Creek is located at Mount Crawford forest and provides a mountain bike loop network. You have tracks for beginners, intermediates and advanced users. That is a great location for mountain bike riders. Unfortunately I got a bit mixed up with the signage and nearly got caught on

one of the loop trails which would have been totally unsuitable for my heavy bike with panniers. Anyway I found the right way. The view from up there is stunning. The Goldmine Range is marked as the peak at this section. I haven’t seen any person during the day along the trail.

In the Adelaide Hills

But I have to admit that the hills are much to steep for me to cycle the bike up. I probably spend most of the time walking next to my bike pushing with one hand the handle bar and pulling with the other hand on the seat to get everything up the hills. The steepest incline was displayed with 21% on my bike computer. I was absolutely exhausted and kept feeding myself with bananas and muesli and Milo. Even walking next to the bike was challenging. The last thunderstorms did great damage to the track in some places. There were wash outs, muddy sections, branches and rocks on the trail.

Trail destruction after thunderstorms

Meeting with emus

All of a sudden there was an emu family on the track. There were six big ones. I stopped my bike immediately and parked it on the right hand side, so the emus couldn’t see me anymore. But of course they were aware of my existence. I got the camera out and sneaked to the left hand side of the track. I stretched my neck to see what was going on. And would you believe the emus did exactly the same thing. It was a very funny situation. When we got eye contact all of them went off in the scrub and I caught only one with my camera. But they didn’t run away. They stayed around to check out the funny guy with his helmet. A few minutes later I got some good footage of four emus.

Emus in the Adelaide Hills

On the last downhill section of the Mawson Trail you have to get through some gates. There was a big gate in Australian standard size which was locked. And a small gate which was unlocked to get your bicycle through. At the bottom was a barrier, I guess to stop motorbikes. To get your bike over the barrier there was a ramp installed. That would be easy for a normal mountain bike but it is unhandy for my fully loaded bike with trailer. It would have been better to unhook the trailer.

Shifting my bike over a ramp

Back in Adelaide

Adelaide came up between the hills on the horizon. You get down to a bitumen road and the way guides you along the Torrens River for a few kilometres. Then you can turn off on the Torrens River Linear Park Trail. That is an absolutely brilliant track. It runs all along the Torrens River across Adelaide (including the CBD) to Henley Beach on the coast. And you cycle absolutely off the car traffic. It is Australia’s largest coast to hill park.

I work out some more details of the park in the next few weeks. The Linear Trail is a great relief after my trial across the hills along the Mawson Trail. I made my way to Tapleys Hill Road, headed south towards Glenelg and was on my favourite route along the beach. Finally I was back to the place from where I started my trip 20 days ago – my trip along the Limestone Coast in South Australia.




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