Santa Teresa

So unfortunately, I've been getting pretty bored with the riding around here lately. The mtb trails were good. Great, even. But a combination of unsuitable terroir, unsustainable trail works and shite loads of rain have played havok with the singletrack, leaving behind either deep rocky ruts or rivers of deep deep sand.

Rideable? Barely. Enjoyable? Nope.

There's work being done of course (it has to be - just 4 shorts weeks away is the 5-Day Red Cenna Enduro!), but as far as I can tell it's been concentrated in one small area and has generally been of the create-new-trails-to-bypass-the-eroded-ones type of trail work. Sustainable practice?..

(Geeze, I didn't mean this to turn in to a rant now!)

Anyway, the short of it is, I've been venturing further afield for mtb riding pleasures. The other weekend Po had to drive out to Santa Teresa to drop off a TB patient, and so I put my hand up to keep her company on the return journey by riding out there in the morning. The ride promised somewhere between 80-100kms of fireroad, of unknown condition, through some scenic country, with the reward of a sports carni at Santa Teresa and a free lift back to Alice:)

I got lucky on the first one - it was only 80km - but lucked out on the second, the corrugations, but I now have a much tougher arse to show(?) for it. The scenery was great with beautiful rolling hills and barely a blade of Buffel grass in sight.

The ride did drag on a bit. Running out of water and food an unknown distance from Santa Teresa probably didn't help, but passing 2 fellas sitting on an esky full of tinnies under the 'Prescribed Area' sign certainly told me I was close. They gave an awesome wave too!

I got to within 5km of ST when a white 4wd pulled up along side and the driver tried, and succeeded, in picking me up. Luckily it was Po:) ST, and the carni, were great.

The famous church in ST.

"Carn you bloody Hawks!"

The drive back to Alice went smoothly at first. We did manage to convert one of the tyres to a low profile version. Unfortunately it was just the one, and probably a little too low profile to impress the chicks outside Bojangles. There was a slight hiccup in changing the tyre as the jack handle was playing hide-n-seek somewhere in the car, but we weren't far from Alice so a rescue by Po's boss was relatively quick and easy.