Bayview

We went exploring over the Xmas holidays and ventured down to a trail network just south of Brisbane called Bayview, aka Redlands. The locals have obviously been building and riding here for a while, but recently it's all become legitimate and the trail fairies are able to build some new trails to link up the existing & bedded down singletrack. It's great down there & well worth a visit.

The trail head is by a chicken farm - if you park here leave a couple of car widths to the main gate as they regularly bring semi-trailers through

 The trails themselves weave through a mix of different countryside, from grass tree forests 

 to plantation planting,

and narrow channels cutting through what I think is some kind of invasive growth 

The variety is mirrored in the trail surfaces, from typical Queensland looseness to slightly springy loam. One thing that is consistent is flow, with most of the trails well built and leaving you wanting more at the end. And there is always more - we rode around 31km and probably less than a km of that was on fire-roads, and there were whole areas we were too buggered to explore.

 

With all that interweaving singletrack navigation can be a bit tricky. All of the trails we rode were signed but only 100m or so into the track, which I thought was a good way of reassuring you that you weren't lost but not making the navigation too easy. 

It's strange riding somewhere where you don't know the history of the names - I'm sure there's a good reason for this, but I'm not sure I want to know what it is...

So it's definitely worth a look, but make sure you take a map or a guide - or both...

Thanks to Gordy for the navigation, Jaman for the directions and most importantly the local trail fairies for some excellent work!