Visiting : Toolangi, Blowhard Rd, Marginal Rd
Distance : 62km
When : Sunday 8th January 2017, 7:00am @ Toolangi
(Note: This is another solo ride from my backlog. Bear with me as I’m writing this well after the fact and my memory may be hazy.)
This was a short simple loop in Toolangi. My main goal with this ride was to see Blowhard Road for the first time and to see more of Marginal Road, as well as just have a nice roll around Toolangi of course.
I started out of Toolangi township. Parked at the tennis courts as usual. Pretty soon I was climbing up Blowhard Road.
Blowhard Road is a great alternative to the more obvious Sylvia Creek Road climb. In fact, it joins up with Sylvia Creek Road right near its highest point. It’s rougher and steeper than Sylvia Creek Road so that equates to less traffic and more animals – a winning combination.
Cruising down Murrindindi Road was a fun fast roll. It’s one of the “main roads” through Toolangi but you’ll probably only see a handful of tourists or the odd bunch of trail bikers.
Shame about the logging. I think it’s nigh impossible to ride through this area and not see a logging coupe either freshly nuked or choked with impenetrable regrowth. Bring on the Great Forest National Park, I say.
Must have been a hell of a party at Xylophone Bridge recently. Probably had party whistles and everything!
Murrindindi River heads north to join Yea River, then Goulburn River, then Murray River then, eventually, all the way to South Australia where it finally meets the ocean near Goolwa. Long journey for a little river.
There’s a lookout point on Murrindindi Road where you can see Wilhelmina Falls in the distance. In dry weather it looks like some unremarkable rocks on the hillside and in wet weather, when the falls are really pumping, it looks like unremarkable wet rocks on the hillside. To be fair, I haven’t actually walked out to see the falls close up – it’s a walking only track. Might be a nice little bushwalk mission to take the kids on one day.
And that’s where my photos end for this ride. To be honest, I wasn’t really into taking photos this day. I was more into just riding and being out there with my thoughts.
Just for the sake of completion, Marginal Road was great, as usual, and Spraggs Road was a bit rougher than Marginal but still fine on a cx bike if that’s your thing. And that’s it, suddenly you’re on paved road rolling back into Toolangi township with plenty of time to drive back home and floss the cat before dinner.
In summary, this was an unashamedly lacklustre writeup of a fantastic ride through some great Toolangi forest. This would be a great ride to try out if you’ve never ridden the area before. Short but sweet, no major obstacles, no excuses. Do yourself a favour!
