Bright: It Really Is

On the road from Armidale to Bright, we passed endless fields of yellow canola. The grey skies disappeared as we approached Bright and we had clear blue skies for our first ride today. Ray decided it would be fun to ride up Mt Porepunka, at 1200m and with the roughest 25km of rocks and gravel that we have ever ridden on, I didn't think it was much fun. 

We met a group of three locals who were as mad as Ray, one of whom did not have an e-bike. Obviously Ray had to overtake her. We arrived at the top about 30mins ahead of them. I needed a pit stop, so used the green door. When the others arrived, they pointed out the police camera that has been set up to hunt for Dezi Freeman. Oops, I was right in the line of fire.

The trip down the mountain was just about as slow as the trip up, because of the rough surface. My hands locked onto the brakes and literally seized up. Finally we reached bitumen and were over the speed limit at 51kph in a 50 zone.     Fortunately the police camera didn't follow us down. 

We are off on another mountain climb tomorrow. Hopefully the road conditions will be smoother.

Trees drowning in a sea of canola.

You can't really tell here but this is the worst road we have ever ridden. 20klms of rocks, uneven ground, up to 15% gradients. We were doing 5-6 kph uphill and 10-11kph downhill. My top tube bracket came loose and one of my water bottle holders shook loose. What a ride!

That white pole with the coil of wire around it is a surveilance device, installed to try to catch Desi. The only thing it caught whilst we were up there was Brenda using the Green Door.

Look at that road. Note how it drops away very fast.

Snow capped mountains in the distance

These are fruit trees although not sure what they are. Obviously they don't bloom in spring time.

Wow. What a valley!

There are a lot of pine plantations in the area. Here is an area which has very recently been harvested.

Ride Notes

• If it wasn't for the extremely rough road, this would have been a great ride.
• Whilst only 42klm, it was a pretty challenging ride due to the 1200mts of climbing and the very rough road surface.
• Great for a soft tail mountain bike with big tyres - keep the tyre pressures down.
• The plenty of water and some carbs to keep your strength up.