Brisbane valley trail: Part 1
the back story and preparation:
My micro adventure idea started about a 8 month ago.
With the urge of doing something out of the daily routine and summer around the corner, I decided to achieve the Brisbane valley trail in 3 weeks time.
An hour and half drive from my home base, Gold coast, Australia,
The Brisbane valley trail rail is an off road and traffic free place , just southwest Queensland offering amazing outback landscapes,with a typical Australian farm lands.
You can enjoy this trail on horseback, bicycle or hiking.
Mountain bikes were the weapon of choice.
When it comes to adventures, my nature is to do it all or nothing,
so instead of taking a shuttle to drop me off at the top of the ridges, in Yarraman.
The chosen mission was to do it all ourselves up then down on my bikes. Covering a total of 322 km.
I would like to mention that I never bike ride more than 30 km in a day, either bikepacked around but I am always been up for physical challenges.
Thinking I was gonna do it alone for the sake of my adventure madness and raising money for my favorite association, Wild Mountain environmental center ,turned out my two girlfriends were as coconut as me .
So here we were,
With little time such as 3 weeks ,all three of us,put ourselves into training mode with the best of our abilities and time.
The adventure story is about pushing boundaries, discovering new places and friendships.
Fulfilled with a lot of snacks, a lot of effort under the beaming sun, lots of laughter topped up with lots of magpie swooping.
Our weapon of choice was our mountain bikes.
Under recommendations, gravel bikes were the most common choice due to the various terrain on the trail.
However , I recently took on mountain biking and purchased my second hand dual suspension with all my little savings and absolutely love it.
The girls had a hardtail mountain bike and panniers to carry the gears which I envy at some point during our adventure when the terrain was steep.
I always had the envy to bikepack, dreaming about adventuring through stunning landscapes, learning from nature's ways is a part of my idealism. Horseback would have been my dream choice but I was born in the wrong era.
Perhaps a horse back an other time ?
Buying adequate optimum gear wasn't a hard choice for me to make considering we have a lifetime of adventures ahead.
Preparation Gear packed
That time,
when we did our navigation course at Mt Barney Lodge, Innes the guide, leader and owner of the property Showed us his ultimate day pack, to adventure efficiently .
This man has 30 year plus experience in hiking the world, so i took lots of note and made a lot of purshase to get the ideal gear
I was amazed by the efficiency of the equipment he took in his backpack
and got myself the bits and pieces that looked essential for my future adventure.
I honestly have much more to gather and have good lifetime gear cost and arm and a leg!
Being a coffee snob and a foody myself. I had to get the jet boil with french press included as the first thing I bought and packed straigh in my bike pack.
Nothing beats a warm coffee with a view in the middle of the wilderness or an unknown territory!
He also had this bivvy ( single men light tent) for the solo adventure which appealed a lot to me due the lightness of it and packing efficiency.
After all, I was saving 500g from my backpack ;) but trust me when it come to save weight from your bikepacking , every grams count.
