King of the Mountain

July 23, 2021

Lowood to Esk

Twice today Roger was about to claim King of the Mountain and was pipped at the post by some ne'er do well upstart who hadn't done any of the hard work of lugging a 4kg laptop and assorted other junk up the hill in the rain.

Roger is nothing if not victorious in defeat however, so he took the triumph as his own anyway and celebrated at the summit as the upstart high-tailed away into the valley.

King of the Mountain! Where's my polka dot jersey?

Apart from the battle for mountain honours our breakaway of two was fortunate enough to witness The Running of the Cows.

I chatted with the cow-runner who informed me that she milks around 250 cows and is able to stay in business because her contract is with Maleny milk, who pay their farmers a living wage. Yay for Maleny Milk!

After all the excitement of mountain passes and cow running we settled down to simple cycling and pushing our bikes through deep gullies beside beautiful old timber bridges which were not in a fit state for us to cycle across them.

Except this bridge, which has been revamped and is ride-acrossable. It's a special bridge because it is old; made of both timber and steel; hasn't changed much since it was built in 1885; is a local landmark; and was closely associated with Colonial Government engineer Henry Stanley. More to the point it's important because cyclists can now ride across it rather than pushing their heavy bikes down down down, across the creek, and then up up up back to the trail.

It rained all day in a mizzly half-hearted kind of way, so we were already soggy when we set up camp. We were soon cold too because the Caravan Park proprietor, who was otherwise a very nice man, told us that the spa pool was heated to 28C. We believed him and jumped in, which was a silly thing to do, and then we stayed in because getting out wet would be colder and it was raining anyway. Everything was so cold and soggy that we had takeaway for tea just to have something hot, and then we hid in the laundry/swapping library until the rain eased enough for us to dash for our soggy tent where we plan to stay until we get flooded out or morning comes, whichever is soonest.

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Today's ride: 37 km (23 miles)
Total: 336 km (209 miles)

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