Hello steemit friends, and welcome to my 3rd "Bike with me" post. This time I toured a very long and hard distance for you. The tour is approximately 8km long. For your orientation, I have numbered the locations of the videos according to the below map. I edited the map, in that I copied a satellite view of Google Maps into Gimp, and created a route with numbers.
Please find my previous tours here:
Bike with me #0 / Kalamunda National Park: http://steem.link/4isfA
Bike with me #1 / Jorgensen Park: http://steem.link/4Ldap
The location in Google Maps is here. Also, here you can find the download for the Gimp image processing application. The video series again starts close to the Kalamunda Central shopping center.
Here, I am first heading from Mundering Weir Road to Spring Road, it is very steep at approximately 10% and I have to brake front and rear so that I do not get too much speed.
As you can see, it takes almost 2 minutes to roll down Spring Road, it is 1.26km long. According to a friendly elderly lady who is a resident of Spring Road, some mountanbikers catch a speed of a up to 85km/h when rolling down Spring Road. Please be reminded that residents of Spring Road do not appreciate high speed bikers. Fast bikers may frighten pedestrians and excite dogs, accidents are not uncommon. Below is the map of Spring Road.
At the end of Spring Road you can find the entrance to the Kalamunda National Park. 50m After entering the park I take a left turn and head for location number 2.
The trail is deeply washed out with water pools, where frogs are laying their eggs. In some pools there are already tadpoles.
The trail gets so steep and difficult that it is better to push the bike.
Finally at location number 3 the trail begins to be level and even decline downhill. In this area I have seen a number of large kangaroos.
On the side of the trail you can find the poisonous Dwarf Swainsona Pea. This is an Australian genus of plants in the legume family Fabaceae, related to Astragalus. They contain the toxic indolizidine alkaloid swainsonine which causes tremor, incoordination, mania and death from an acquired lysosomal storage disease through inhibition of α-mannosidase so that mannose accumulates in nervous tissues. Toxic species include the small-flowered Darling pea, S. canescens (gray Swainson pea), S. galegifolia (smooth Darling pea), S. greyana (Darling pea), S. luteola (dwarf Darling pea), S. procumbens (Broughton pea), S. swainsonioides.
At location number 4 it gets very rough again, I therefore have to stand on my pedals since my bike only has suspension on the front wheel. Standing on my pedals gives me more control in rough conditions.
Tangled Lignum and Pituri shrubs grow on the side of the trail, with numerous Grasstrees in the background.
After a really hard push uphill I finally get to location number 8. Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos have been working in the Marri trees. They breed from March to October, and usually only lay one egg in a tree hollow.
(Source: http://www.redtail.com.au/)
Here I am checking the trail. This is a beautiful picture of the natrual australian bush, the internationally well-known red earth. From here it heads down dangerously steep. The steep ride is also rocky. Many mountainbikers have crashed and had serious injuries due to the very sharp rocks on the trail.
Now finally, I have to cross the Rocky Pool river. My mate is already on the other side, giving me instructions on how to best cross the river. The river is approximately 0.5m deep and is sandy with slippery rocks on the bottom. It is not so easy to estimate the right speed. If I am too fast I will lose control, if I am too slow I will get stuck in the river. Here you can see that I could have used a little bit more speed. But you can also see the already very large splash and water resistance.
This is the Piesse Brook Trail. It is a wide and well maintained track which is well suited for walks and family cycling tours.
I am finally at my destination. This is the deepest point of the loop.
This is Rocky Pool. In the old days people came here to swim. Now days, people walk here all the way from Mundering Weir Road on the Piesse Brook Trail.
That is the direction where you followed me crossing the river.
That is the main direction where we are coming from.
That is the direction where we are heading to.
At point number 19 there is a narrow path heading from Piesse Brook Trail up into the hills in direction Spring Road. When you do this the first time, you will feel lost and uncomfortable. At this point half of my water is already used. Make sure you have enough water. You cannot ride your bike here, you will have to carry your bike up many of the hurdles.
At position number 21 we have the hardest part behind us. It is time to take a short rest and enjoy the majestic prehistoric rocks, the beautiful view, the gushing water pools.
I am finally back on Spring Road. Galahs are sitting in the Red-Flowering Gum trees. It is a long way uphill back to Kalamunda Central. The beautiful gardens on the side of the road help me forget that I am hungry and tired.
(Source: https://goo.gl/GmeKWx)
I hope you have had a good insight into the tour. I had great fun preparing this post for you. I would also like to thank my mate on the camera for the support. I am very thankful to you for being my follower 💛.
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