On a journey down the legendary corn trail. A trading route that allowed settlers in the early 1800's transport corn on horseback from the south coast to Braidwood, up the Clyde Mountain.
The trail had been done up as part of a bicentennial project in 1988, but in the 15 years since then, it had become very overgrown, funny that! The trail is hard to see at times due to the over growth which is mostly black boys, with their pleasantly sharp leaves cutting into you as you brush past them. The run from the top to the bottom of the Clyde Mountain was a lot of fun though, and if it wasn't for the clouds, we would have stunning views to the east of the beaches below.
At the bottom, we lost the trail. It's very hard to make out at this point and the GPS got water logged and our maps turned to pulp in the rain. So we had to wing it for a bit, trudging through the water upstream in the creek a few hundred meters as there was no option to walk on land, and we found the trail again, phew!
Although I'd put on leech repellent, it hadn't worked. I was able to get a few leeches off me at this point with some matches I took, most of the matches were soggy from the rain though, as were our clothes. We were drenched!
We'd also run out of food and water, and the climb back out to the cars was a lot higher than we thought it would be... it took hours, and with no food it was tough going. We were out of energy and the clock was ticking. Before long, the sun was down and we had no lights, and really, no idea how much further we had to go.
Eventually though, we staggered back to the car, dead men walking, dumped the bikes in the bush and headed straight to KFC (I was delirious with hunger!), then onto to our worried wives who had called the police to search for us because we were so late back.
We had to head back later and collect our bikes and Simon's car from the top of the mountain after a nice long shower and removal of a leech from a very delicate place that no leech should go!
I look forward to going back and doing this ride again one day, when it's not raining though!
The crew:
| Jason | GT iDrive |
| Simon | Giant 4" Dually |
The Stats:
| Distance | ~40km |
| Time | ~8:00 |
| Climb | ~800vm |
| Date | April 2003 |