To Mount Warning

Mount Warning is on the North East Coast of New South Whales, Australia. It is a mountain shrouded in mystery.

To the Bundjalung indigenous people this mountain is known as Wollumbin meaning ‘patriarch of mountains’.

It is the central volcanic remnant of an ancient shield volcano, and this volcano erupted around 23 million years ago as history goes.

                                                   

But it’s not this that’s the main focus in this article. Today as I was driving to a forested area in the direction of Mount Warning I took a bend in a very twisty road littered with thousands of trees and I had to slow down on an incline. Before me was a woman on her bicycle in her 60’s. I waited then passed by carefully and after just a few hundred meters or so there was another.

This early in the morning on such a hard stretch of road there must have been at least 20 riders between the ages of 48 and 65.

There bicycles laden with sleeping gear, food and themselves was a sight to be hold.

To me this was simply magic to see men and women at this age trekking across a very undulating valley road towards a place called Springbrook.

We spoke to them briefly and one gentleman said they were cycling to Mount Warning and then they would climb the mountain when they arrived.

The road ahead of them on the border of Queensland and New South Whales had a whale of a climb, steep and arduous and the descent, a very narrow road with numerous switch backs and even steeper on the New South Whales side to say the least, and this is where they were still heading.

Where we had met them to the border was filled with little climbs, this was a testament, one is never to young or to old to enjoy the sport of cycling.

They still had 70kms to go, I could not believe it but this sight brought a smile to my face and a happy heart.

Long live cycling!