Jamie Nicoll - Overland Adventuring - Part 2

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M T B  I N  T H E  R E D  C E N T R E

A L I C E S P R I N G S

Riding the Red Centre was spectacular. The ancientness of the rock, mountains and old stories really touched us. This part of the country is traditionally owned by the Arrernte people. Their greeting for the mountain bikers is: “Werte. Nheuhe ampere anwernekeuhe-whenge Arrernte-mape-akeuhe Mwerre arlte arrpe-aneuhe-tyathe Mwantye-arelheme. Kele.” Translated as “Welcome to Arrernte country. Have a good day and be aware of what’s around you. Thank you.” We definitely took note of what was around us. An astonishing amount of rocky orange lit mountains shaped like caterpillars that looked like they were all crawling towards Alice Springs. Indeed, from an Indigenous historic point of view Alice Springs is the meeting place of the caterpillars. However, don’t be fooled the riding is nothing like the motion of a caterpillar.

T E L E G R A P H S T A T I O N

After settling in on an old camel farm just outside of town, we received an invitation from Clint and his group of mates who meet up every Thursday for a ride out. Oh, little did we know. This fun bunch of guys all seem to be into XC racing, ideally on single speeds wearing brightly coloured pineapple shirts. And that’s how they tackle their local trails at the Westside. The Eastside and Westside Trails form a part of a large network of mountain biking trails just a stone-throw away from the city centre. As there is not a lot of elevation gain, Clint and co ride at high speeds, keeping up their pace at all times, over rocky flat sections, up rocky ascends and down rocky descents with off-camber slabs. Once we reached the high point just before going down Flying Doctors, they pulled out several cans of beer, a tradition that started during lockdown, and we all watched a glorious sunset over the surrounding hills. After finishing our loop, Anja huffing and puffing, hardly able to keep up with these keen beans, we rode straight into downtown Alice to the best pizza place and yes more beers. We chatted and shared riding stories till late that night, feeling like we had reconnected with some long-lost friends. Cheers to Clint, Clarke, Chris, Nick, Josh and Nate.

Y E P E R E N Y E T R A I L

In between fixing a leaky auxiliary fuel tank, ordering a new solar controller and getting a satellite comms device sorted, we managed to do quiet a bit more biking around Alice. The Yeperenye trail is a sweet wee walking trail 8km north east out of town. It goes between the two famous rock gaps: Emily Gap and Jessie Gap, parallel to the Ross Highway. There is an extremely beautiful and icy cold rock pool at Emily Gap where we parked our car. We rode the 16km around trip along this mainly flat single trail at a leisurely pace, stopping at the many informative signs about the local history, flora and fauna. We foraged a few unripe local bush tomatoes and almost lost a tooth biting into a hard nut, that the indigenous locals use to grind into a type of a flour.

T R E P H I N A G O R G E

About 80km north east outside of Alice Springs along the Ross Highway is this amazing hike-a-bike adventure trail. We believe the Ridgetop walking trail is open to mountain bikers? However, we never saw a sign telling us otherwise. Hope that is right enough? We started our loop with a swim at John Hayes rockhole, and then straight into an uphill ride for Jamie and a push up for Anja, up up up many hundred stone steps. The stone masonry work on trails over here is of very high quality. Once on top of the first climb we got to sample beautiful views over Trephina Gorge Nature Park. We broke out in a good sweat once we carried our bikes up the second large climb. The sun was starting to set by now, tinging everything around us in hues of red, pink, yellow and orange. Such a delight for our senses. We made our way across the ridge, realising we still have a bit to go and will probably need to use our head torches despite the rising moon. Through spikey bushes and more cool rock and stone work, we fumbled our way down towards the gorge. A beautiful night sky, no wind and fabulous riding made us glow with excitement and left us with a sense of a real adventure by the time we made it back to the car after 17km of backcountry riding. This has been definitely our favourite ride so far!

Photos and words: Jamie Nicoll & Anja Foley