I was fortunate to be invited along on a boys weekend ride with Tim and his mates to ride a section of the Minda Biddi trail.  This goes from Perth to Albany.  We were just doing a section of it though over 3 days.  Nannup to Northcliffe which is about 210km split over a weekend.

Tim’s Parents were kind enough to give us a lift down where we met the others.  After 20 minutes of stripping and applying chammy cream to areas that should not be seen in public it was time to leave.

This part of WA is famous for its massive large huge whopping Karri Trees.  These bad boys grow up to 90m high making them the 3rd tallest tree in the world.  Wow I hear you say!

The first day was around 60km and our aim was to get to a hut that was on the trial in the middle of no where.

The forest was very scenic and pretty dense in places.  The riding is all technically fairly easy which is good for the speed of touring, although the trail is a lot of twisty windy single track so was not boring at all, infact it was awesome fun as it was like a swoopy roller coaster!  After about 35km, we popped out into a little village in the middle of nowhere

There was an emu sitting right next to the road that just sat there and eye balled us.  My first encounter of an emu.  Uneventful.

Not sure how to describe this little place called Donnelly River.  I think it would be along the right lines to say the entire population is related, through all generations.  Imagine there is a lot of webbing on toes and hands….. etc.  you get the jist.  A weird little place in the middle of the forest that people and time forgot.  We clicked a few gears down the cassette and got through it fast as we feared we could end up in some ones basement for years as someones toy.

this is the official half way point – not for us, but for the actual trail from Perth to Albany.  Was quite a cool site to see.  It was a  hot day and pretty humid and we were all starting to feel the effects of dehydration as we neared the end of the ride to the hut.  We had one last climb up the hill to get to the hut that just seemed to go on and on and on and on and on….  etc…

The last climb.  A typical bit of path.  The Karri trees shed their bark in the heat to keep cool, so the forest floor is littered with the bits of bark!  Had to be quite careful as bits flicked up everywhere and we all stupidly said “we are going to be lucky to get through this with our rear mechs in place”  a kiss of death for the next few days of sure!

Eventually we got to the hut.  It was on top of the valley looking out over the forest.  It was great, basic, but great.  Sleeping was on wooden platforms, a tank of rain water, and a little chemical toilet 50m down the road, 2 benches for cooking and eating on.  Perfect!

This is where you know when the people you have been riding with all day are good people.  Everyone just emptied their bags of food onto the table and we had a massive mix of food to nibble on rather than sitting there with food envy of everyone else’s food.  Who ever bought the Biltong, I love you for it!

The main meal was pre arranged to be sausages, mash and peas. Somehow Dion managed to get chef duties as we all sat back and criticised his cooking skills.  I sat there silent as I was just happy that some one was going to make me dinner!

He did a great job, it was edible.  Although I would say he was one messy bugger!

Through dinner every one brought out there light weight booze (it was all about weight saving).  I had brought a hip flask of whisky.  I am not normally a whisky drinker but thought I would give it a go as it was considerably lighter than a 4 pack of beer!  To my surprise I really enjoyed it, I am not going to become a whisky fiend, but on these type of occasions I think it might become more frequent.

Not sure what this one is about, but Tim and Dion said it was for a friend from a previous trip, there you go T & D.

A great night was spent, chatting, drinking hard liquor, listening to crazy old skool techno curtsy of Mop (that is his name, nothing to do with the mullet, but apparently it is `POM’ backwards), and generally questioning everyones sexuality.

We woke to a beautiful morning and a slight whisky hangover.  Breakfast was to be at the Manjimup which was a 20km ride.  We thought we would find a shop to buy some bread or something.  We surpassed ourselves and found a decent cafe.

Ian with his pancakes and coffee.  It was awesome!  After an hour of eating and sitting around we realised that we needed to get a shift on as we had to ride another 90km on top of the already cycled 20km to get to the evening destination.  Off we set with bellies full of pancakes at a slower pace than normal.

It was a hot day. Thankfully the trees gave us a lot of shade and the pace picked up as our pancakes started to digest.

We pedaled for another  50km or so and went through Quinninup.  This town as all good towns do, had a pub.  But what was special about this pub, was that it had free beer!  It was the owners anniversary or something and they had two free kegs…  there was talk of just sacking off the rest of the ride and having a good afternoon here.  It was a 50/50 split.  We eventually dragged ourselves back onto the bikes to get to Pemberton which was where we were to sleep for the night.

This section of trail was fairly slow going as there was a lot of trees down and a lot of hauling bikes and camping gear over the big fallen trees.  Some spirits where getting low and fatigue was starting to set in.  Some who had a few pints were starting to get the afternoon slump of drinking at lunch.  Others had a great idea – get the Techno back out!!!!!  A small speaker was set up on the top of my rucksack and DJ Mop stuck his finest Techno on.  5 of us just put the hammer down!  it was like a techno fuelled race.  It was brilliant fun.

We rolled into Pemberton with a low sun and long shadows.  It had been a long day in the saddle, but a very enjoyable one.  We were starting in cabins in Pemberton.  A shower then into town in the hunt for food and more beer.  Tim showed me his Techno inspired biking clothes

and of course the techno dancing that goes with it

A good night was had in the pub, wasn’t a particularly late one as most of us were pretty tired from the days riding.  We only had a short day the next day so we could relax and enjoy ourselves with the energy we had left to lift pint glasses.

we had a great breakfast in Pemberton and visited the Gloucester tree.  This tree is the worlds second largest Fire look out tree standing at 72m tall. in the 30’s to the 50’s it was used as a fire look out.  They have banged metal rungs into the tree in a spiral and you can climb up them to the top where there is a platform.

In todays world of safety and litigation it was refreshing to still be allowed to still climb this.  After all had made it up and down safely we set off down some brilliant single track that turned into a race and corners where being skidded and cut to try and get the person in front – behind, sharp elbows where often deployed and usually resulted in shouts and insults from who ever received them.

A fairly sedate ride after that to the end at Northcliffe.  Of course we finished at a pub (I think you have seen the trend now).  A belter of a weekend.  All the guys who had ridden the rest of the Munda Biddi from Perth all the way down to here agreed this was so far the best section.  I was in luck!  I look forward to the next section!