Posted by I’ve had intentions of exploring the tracks at Stubbs Rd (near Devonport) for at least a year now (I recall having vague intentions of heading out there on the way back from the Murray River Marathon at the beginning of the year) so when I saw that there was an LMBC Enduro at Four Springs this Sunday, I figured this was a perfect chance to make a weekend of it and finally go and explore these tracks …
No, sooner had I suggested the idea to Kim than she had booked us into some nice B&B in Deloraine … which must mean that we were going …
I didn’t have much to go on in terms of finding this place, but we did eventually get there after driving past it a couple of times and then leaving the car at Turner’s Beach and cycling back along the road where, at this more casual pace, we were able to see a few Cradle Coast Mountain Bike Club Events advertised on a gate, so we figured this must be the place and went off for a play.
I noted on the CCMBC website that they said that there was a complex trail network up here … and they weren’t wrong. We first headed up the main gravel road to the water tank on top of the hill, where we ran into a couple of trail bikers, and from there we cycled around the back of the tank and saw a single track trailhead off near some jumps and we were off …
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| Don’t go this way … that was a mistake. |
We played everywhere we could find a track being mindful that we were on privately owned tracks (check out our Garmin route here).
We headed off on the Eastern side first (just because that’s where we found the first trailhead) dropping down past and around a dam before we headed around to the Southern and then Western sections of the property where the track networks and options got progressively more intertwined and complex. To be honest there are so many tracks on the western (Stubbs Rd) size it can just get confusing.
In less than an hour we found ourselves back at the water tank for the third or fourth time and we seemed to be increasingly riding back over trails we’d already ridden so we thought we had pretty much explored the place, but then on our way out we found one last trailhead on the northern side of the water tank and it turned out we had left the best to last as we flew (slowly) down a great section of single track that switched it’s way down the hill.
I suspect there could be more trails up there still, but we’d had our fun and so after an hour or so we headed on out.
Instead of heading straight back to our car at Turners Beach, we decided to turn left at the end of Stubbs Road onto Westella Drive. This road runs parallel to the Bass Highway and drops you out in Ulverstone, from where we headed down to the beach and then onto the new(ish) railway / cycling trail which runs from Ulverstone back to Turners Beach. This loop added about 10kms to the trip, but was fast, flat riding and very scenic as you can see …
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| Isn’t that beautiful |
… only kidding, it was actually a very enjoyable ride and it was great to see both the number and variety of walkers and riders using the track, ranging from this great old guy on his electric bike …
… through to babies doing head dives out of prams onto the concrete path (amusing for me, not for his mother), children feeding cattle and young kids on their training wheels …
Although not a planned part of our original ride, starting at TurnersBeach and adding this extra loop was a great offset to the more technical riding in the mountain bike park and was just a nice way to stretch out the legs and round out the day …
As was our stop at the Raspberry Hills Cafe Farm just outside of Elisabeth Town on the way back to our B&B …
Is it any wonder that all the locals over in Vietnam called me Happy Buddha …
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| This guy enjoyed his raspberry pancakes almost as much as me … |