Coopers Creek

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I'm back from the beach. Vacations are good, but it's also good to be home. My mountain bike has literally been collecting cobwebs for a week. All night I imagined it whining like a neglected puppy, dying for a walk. This morning I slept in a bit, but when I finally got up, there was little on my mind but putting it back to work, exploring the mountains.

There are plenty of purple lines on my maps. In my brain, I chucked a dart and... Coopers Creek WMA, Dixon Creek area. Got it. Let's go.

If it's been a while since I last rode, I often forget the problems I had the last time. Not the big problems, but the little ones. For instance, I popped a spoke last time. That was a big problem, and I got it fixed, but I forgot that my chain wouldn't drop to the little ring without extra coercion and that it shifted out over the big ring onto the crank sometimes too. Not a big problem, but I needed to have fixed it. I didn't. Also, I needed to have gotten some chain lube. Again, I didn't. The shifting I could just live with, but neglecting a noisy chain is asking for trouble. Phil Wood to the rescue. Somehow I did have some of that on hand. Hopefully I'll remember to attend to that stuff properly this week. For now, the band-aids will do.

Ahh, exploring. Low stress, measured in hours, not miles. Usually it's a lot of riding on this.



And a lot of walking on this.



Sometimes you find something cool, usually you don't.

Today was just like that. I rode a bunch of forest roads and walked on a bunch of old logging trails. None of the trails went anywhere interesting. I didn't find anything cool. No big deal though, sometimes just looking is fun.

There was one weird thing though. As I approached Fish Gap, I swore that I heard music, like a car radio, then a crow's caw, then silence. I expected to see someone parked up there but when I got to the gap, there was nobody there. Was someone with a handheld radio hiding in the bushes? Did I mistake an argument between birds for music? I've heard of people having auditory hallucinations when they're really fatigued, I even saw it on a TV documentary once, but I was not very tired at the time. It was really, really weird.

I did pass the Stone Toilet of Fish Gap. It's seen better days. Someone knocked two of the sides over. The first time I saw it, it was in perfect shape and Sophie even used it. Today I was too lazy to fix it.



Not much else to say. It was a decent day, I rode/walked for 4 or 5 hours, flatted once, saw one turtle, and that's about it.

I've got the 3rd of July off. Maybe I'll do something cool then. ORAMM is coming up too.