Who would have thought we came to the highlands to get sunburn in October. Glorious day today so much so that we headed off after breakfast to ride the trails and a combination of dead legs from both of us and the warm day, it just all became a non event and we ended up just riding around looking at the spectacular views from the hill side mountain bike trails and doing a couple of Geocaches.

Crossing the Jindabyne Dam

Crossing the Jindabyne Dam – looking towards MTB trails

Some shared use track on the green trail

Had to keep stopping to look at the views

There was a trig point on top of the hill in the middle of the area we were riding and I had read it had a great view. Now somebody who showed me an orienteering tip or two said never loose altitude if you have to go up further. So I headed off around this very steep hill following something that may have been a very under used MTB trail or a wallaby pad. I think it was both at one stage but definitely a wallaby pad later on when I was pushing the bike uphill through scrub (thanks for that Paul).

Click for a larger image – you can see a ramp below mid picture that is part of the black diamond decent track

Anyway I arrived at the trig without to many cuts from the scrub and a Strava track that went on a ridiculous path up the hill to the most magnificent views out over the Kosciuszko ranges. Last week they had 30cm of snow and the peaks still had plenty on them. Apparently we would need snow shoes to get to the Kosciuszko summit at the moment as there are some significant drifts to cross. The current temps may clear enough of this snow to allow us to get to the top before we leave the area, fingers crossed.

The MTB trails were nothing spectacular so far but we only road the green standard trail up the middle and a couple of blue sections. I did however attempt a black diamond track down the side of the hill from the trig and maybe I needed a downhill bike as I had to walk a few gnarly sections to get through safely.

As we both had dead legs probably from Stromlo and ‘Heartbreak Hill’ we went shopping and looking around Jindabyne. There is a significant amount of shops and facilities here but the visitors centre seemed a bit under whelming and lacked brochures we could get here at the Jindabyne Holiday Park. The local bike shop Sacred Ride that was open (another was closed) was very helpful with trail information. A whole heap of people left today only to be replaced by the same amount of people on the same sites.

To hot to ride?

Cooling off in front of the camper

Cooling off in front of the camper – visible just at the top mid left

It’s so nice here we are staying another night and tomorrow hopefully my dead legs will be renovated and I can explore all the trails I passed by today. A small section of the trail just before the dam is closed due to some untested asbestos risk so you have to climb and extra hill and ride out on the road for a bit to get to the trail heads. Forecast is for 16 tomorrow so perfect riding weather.