"Don't Turn Left"

Avid readers of this blog may have noted that recently I've not been exhausting myself as per usual. Of late, there has been a lot of nice beaches and jovial chit-chatter and playing with kittens. Therefore, you may be wondering, what has happened to the typically high levels of physical exertion? The long, dehydrating walks, the days of labour leaving me with an insatiable appetite, the insanity inducing bike rides...where have they gone? In other words, what has happened to the pain? Well this week in Nambour the grimace was back on my face thanks to two gruelling bike rides.

My fellow helper Chris had been told about a spectacular waterfall and some refreshing rockpools close to our host house, so on Tuesday we set out in search of these formations. The road was a steeply undulating one and more up than down on the way out. We weren't going far - less than 10km - but the combination of the climbs and the bike I was on left me walking the bike uphill at times. Chris had swiped the good bike, leaving me with an old, cumbersome, thick-tyred ride that was too small for me. By the first ascent the front tyre had deflated. Furthermore, the wretched bike was also displaying a cruel reluctance to slide into the lowest gears when I needed them most. Determined not to be beaten, I stood on the pedals and applied maximum force. The result was extreme panting, battered leg muscles, a crater of a blister on the palm of my right hand from pushing down on the handlebars, and sweat stinging the scratches on my forearms sustained while gardening that morning. The pain was well and truly back. As I struggled on I was reminded of my ride on 'The Boulevard' in Western Australia, when I tried to keep pace with far superior road bikes. On this occasion my companion wasn't on a slick frame, but at least his hybrid bike was decently sized, had fairly thin tyres that weren't flat, possessed a useful array of working gears and wasn't around for the fall of the Berlin Wall. Meanwhile, my transport left me wishing I was back on The Boulevard! Thankfully, we managed to pump up my front tyre and it stayed somewhat inflated for the rest of the journey. However, there was another problem - we couldn't find the waterfall. We struggled up and down a gravel road through a forest until we reached a large dam, but the waterfall we expected never materialised. Had my friend been tricked by a backpacker bashing local? On the way back we did see the waterfall, which wasn't exactly gushing water although it was quite nice I suppose. We never made it to the rockpools.

That wasn't the hardest ride of the week.

Shortly after arriving in Nambour last Sunday I was chatting cycling with my hosts, as they are both enthusiasts. I enquired about what routes I could ride from the house.
"Don't turn left" my host replied hastily.
"It's 12km, all uphill, and the first 500m are very steep. You wouldn't want to cycle it". Well that sounded like a challenge. Later that evening I was flicking through the guest book that contained photos and the words of the 125 helpers who have stayed at the property since 2010.
"How many of the 125 have turned left on the bike?" I asked.
"None" came the immediate response, which was accompanied by a small shake of the head suggesting that no one had even considered it. That sealed my fate. A large red button had been shown to me and I had been told not to push it. On Friday, my last day in Nambour, I pushed that button.

I was fairly confident I could complete the 12km excursion to the small hilltop town of Mapleton, as I had the good bike and I've always considered climbing to be my strength as a cyclist. During my daily 5 mile ride to school I would power up the short hills by maintaining a high gear and standing on the pedals, meaning that I was barely slower on the ascents than on the flat. This hill was a completely different beast to those tiny Somerset undulations though. I had only travelled 50m after turning left out the drive when I was faced with an almightily steep ascent. I crawled up with the lowest gear engaged, each rotation of the pedal demanding the full strength of my leg muscles. The person who painted the yellow bicycles on the uphill side of this absurd gradient would have been pleased to know their work hadn't gone to waste after all.

The first 500m was indeed carnage, but I made it and the slope became more gentle after that. As I started to get my breath back the route flattened out and I began to enjoy myself, taking one hand off the bike and looking out across the Sunshine Coast hinterland. The scenery was beautiful and I thought about how it was the complete opposite to the Northern Victoria landscape where I dairy farmer. There, the land was scorched yellow, completely flat, and there was precious little water to be found. Here, luscious green grass sloped down the hillsides until running into green trees and the dams were generously stocked with water. My joie de vivre was short-lived though as I whistled around a corner to be met by a giant road sign bearing the words 'STEEP WINDING CLIMB'. Underneath the letters was a depiction of a car ascending an unrealistically steep hill and the s-bend symbol, below that was the troublesome news that this would persist for 1km, then at the bottom in white letters on a red background were the words 'REDUCE SPEED'. Well, yes, I would be reducing my speed. It was another bottom-gear-standing-on-pedals-snails-pace climb and it felt like the longest 1km of my life.

At the top I exhaled deeply, rattled up through the gears and increased my cadence. The speed felt rapid after such slow progress and then I was gleefully plunged into a downhill! I couldn't wait for the return journey. Unfortunately my high velocity was quickly zapped by more hills and as I passed a succession of echidna warning signs I wondered if Mapleton would ever arrive.
Eventually the 'Mapleton' sign marking the start of the town came into view, but there were two clues that the actual town was still a grind of a ride away. Firstly, a tourist information 'i' sign with '2km' written below it. Secondly, I could see it. A collection of white buildings were perched atop a hill, still a long way above me. A few hundred metres later my suspicions were confirmed when I came face-to-face with another of those big 'STEEP WINDING CLIMB' signs, 1.2km this time. I could see the start of this ascent and it was almost as steep as those first torrid 500m. I had to dig in physically and mentally to conquer this final climb, although the outcome was not in doubt by this point - with the end so close there was no chance of me folding and I pedalled into the quaint centre of Mapleton having not stopped once the whole way. Victory!

In Mapleton, a nice lady from the Tourist Information Office took the photo below so I had proof to show my hosts, and I raided the bakery for a steak pie. The ride back was brilliant; the 'REDUCE SPEED' part of the giant road signs that now read 'STEEP WINDING DESCENT' being joyously disobeyed.

Mapleton - conquered.