Another really hot day forecast so we road in the morning, not as early as we should have because we slept in this morning (we are on holidays). The Mt Beauty tracks apparently started about 25 years ago and has some of the oldest MTB trails in Australia. Big Hill MTB Park is about 2 minutes ride from the centre of Mt Beauty up a slight hill. The whole park is crammed onto the side of a hill with a couple of those really high voltage power towers running through it. One track follows these and it is of course called the ‘Pole Track’.

We road up the ‘Surveyors Track’ to get to ‘Cranky Charley Corner’ gaining about 170M in the process. It was already starting to warm up and the sweat was running down our backs already. The ‘Surveyors Track’ is part of the original track parties used when surveying the area for all the power developments many years ago. Mt Beauty was only built in the 1940’s. We were a bit unsure where to go next to get onto the ‘Pole Track’ but found our way onto it after looking at the maps on my phone, there were just too many options.

Views from Pole Track – A glider has just landed but to small to see in this pic

Interesting ‘A’ line – steep downhill and Blackberry everywhere off the log!

I took a section of single track and Sharon went down the ‘Pole Track’, we would meet at the junction of the two. I arrived at the junction but no Sharon in sight, to go up or down looking for here? Well I went up, down, up down, all the side roads and tracks but could not locate her. A phone call and she could not tell me where she was either and I could not work it out so she was on her own to get to the bottom. I headed straight onto some single track and suddenly found that every 50-100M there was another junction. There was track everywhere up here. The main ‘National XC Loop’ was signed but only a couple of the others were and if you follow the link above you will see what I mean trying to follow anything. The views were great up here and there were constantly gliders soaring overhead, you could hear them clearly and they just seemed so close to you.

Sharon met a couple of guys on the way down and they gave her some direction. Reunited at the car park we had a discussion. The other two guys turned up and were very helpful and interested in Wildside and the new Tassie trails. We parted after this and Sharon did a few small runs and then returned. I did a lap of the ‘National XC Loop’ and at the top of all the climbs noticed my Garmin was still paused – AHHHH. I was melting in the heat but did another lap before returning to the camper a ball of sweat. The power station tail race in front of our camper was home for about 30 minutes while I cooled the legs with some cold recovery techniques. Sharon had already done hers.

Cooling down

Down tailrace past the rest of the caravan park

camper over the bank in the caravan park

Up tailrace

I was going out for another run after tea once it cooled down but we decided to treat ourselves out tonight and had a great meal at StockPot. By the time we got back it was nearly dark and powering up all those hills on a full stomach was not appealing to my inner rider, first thing in the morning it will have to be. Can you believe there is an MTB event on here tomorrow, we can pick em. The Mitta to Mt Beauty finishes here tomorrow. One of the guys we met today was racing it and I did see a couple of race plated bikes here today. It would have cost me $70 to enter at this late stage and with 29 forecast again tomorrow I gave it a miss.

Our afternoon visitor

Unfazed he just sat at the bottom of our camper stairs and moved on while we had tea

Tomorrow we are going to check out the Bright 24HR on the way through and make a plan up from there. Mt Bulla is so close now only a few days away. The time is suddenly moving very quickly and we will be back on the boat before we know it!