Outback Odyssey: Riding the Mawson Trail

The Mawson Trail is a 900-kilometre mountain bike ride from urbane Adelaide to remote Blinman, on the edge of the South Australian desert. Using unsealed back roads, farm access tracks, fire trails and old droving routes, the trail takes riders up through the Adelaide hills, traversing forests, historic towns, vineyards, sprawling farms and spent copper country, into the heart of the ruggedly beautiful Flinders Ranges. An odyssey to the outback, organised by Bike SA.

Adelaide to Burra
279 km, 4 days + rest day in Burra

Breakfast at Lucia’s at the Central Market to calm our apprehension. Odysseus, the legendary Greek hero, faced the wrath of the gods and encounters with mythical creatures and one-eyed monsters on his arduous ten-year-long journey home from the Trojan War. We are quietly anxious about the experiences that await us on our odyssey. What perils might befall us? Will we know when to heed the warning of the gods and when to surrender to being held spellbound?

Caffeinated, we wish each other ‘bon courage’ and cycle to Hurtle Square in central Adelaide. A gathering of riders. The green light to go. A police escort through the Saturday morning streets to the safety of the Torrens River.

Petrichor, the smell of the earth after rain, overlaid with the lemon scent of white-barked gums. Following the cold curves of the river out of town. An on-off flash of fluoro winding through the trees. Saturday runners. Lithe women practising yoga on the damp, green grass. Us, freewheeling joyfully along the linear path to the edge of the hills.

Abruptly, the terrain humbles us. A sharp, sudden, rocky 600-metre climb, followed by several steeper, rougher climbs. Slow, grinding cycling. Many riders off their bikes and walking. The hill-climbing gods vengeful. Up through Mount Crawford Forest and the Gold Mine Range, over gates and stiles and felled pine trees until we are beyond breathless.

After the brutal ascent, a gift at the end of the day. A seven-kilometre downhill cruise into Lobethal where a hot shower, a Bierhaus and the strangeness of a table of carousing Morris Dancers await us.

In the half-darkness, the illuminated glow of Rory’s coffee cart. No matter how far into the interior we venture, the acrid, addictive aroma of coffee being ground, the hiss and spit of steam and the call of birds are what wakes us each morning of our odyssey.  

Up and down hills bone dry with lack of rain. The last vestiges of autumn’s splendour clinging to trellises in the vineyards. The pungent smell of cows and sillage. A short detour through the historic town of Birdwood. It was settled by Lutherans from East Germany and known as Blumberg until World War One when German names disappeared from the map of South Australia.

Another 1,200 metres of climbing today, including to the summit of Steingarten Hill. The hill gods and the gradient are kinder and we ride with more grace than yesterday. The South Mount Lofty Ranges. Rolling hills. Roadside verges, a last refuge for majestic old gum trees. The air aromatic with their sharp, menthol scent. After 60 kilometres, lunch in the sun at Liebich winery. The food delicious. The warmth a balsam for our trail fatigued bodies.

Revived, we cycle the last 15 kilometres to Tanunda with a song in our hearts. The rolling hills roll on; their dry, grassy slopes terraced by the to-ing and fro-ing of sheep. Trees hide from the harsh climate in gullies and where the land folds in on itself. Smooth, white backroads. Cool climate vineyards. At Chateau Tanunda we camp on the lovingly tended, private cricket ground where former cricketing greats play charity matches from time to time.

The cawing of crows. A slender kangaroo racing away from us along a boundary fence. A gentle breeze. The whisperings of sheoaks. A lovely trail out of Tanunda, crisscrossing the Heysen Trail, a path dear to our hearts, passing vineyards, wineries and the occasional faux château. Then into cropping and grazing country, though in this the driest summer and autumn on record, the land looks incapable of supporting either. The soil blown away in dust storms, the ground bereft of life.

Clear skies and a warm sun. Riding up and over a series of undulating hills, the track surface largely smooth and dependable with only occasional moments of treachery. Tanunda, Nuriootpa, the North Mount Lofty Ranges, Kapunda, the Light Range. In the late afternoon, the horizon is hazy with smoke and the hills glow the deepest of golds. The light paints the landscape into beauty. Wanting to linger at the high point to take it all in but the road to Riverton all downhill from here and the promise of an exhilarating ride too alluring to resist.

Hawks circling. Smoke billowing. The wind icy and not in our favour. Odyssean omens of things to come. What should be a pleasurable ride on the Rattler and Riesling rail trails is an onslaught. Rail cuttings funnelling a ferocious wind head-on against us. Picturesque vineyards and wine tasting opportunities lost to us. Every kilometre hard-won and sometimes the wind winning anyway. 

Somewhere to the north of Clare, the skies deliver the rain they had foretold of all morning. By lunchtime, we’re depleted by the morning’s effort. Fortunately, a kindly farmer provides the shelter of a barn for lunch and we sit out the worst of the wild squalls. Bike SA volunteers watch out for riders, wrapping them in jackets and blankets if they look chilled. The storm abates and, as we have another 30 kilometres to ride, we’re quickly back on our bikes and out into the afternoon.

Up and over Camels Hump and into heaven. The wind has shifted and now favours us. The rolling plains are starkly beautiful. The undulating red dirt tracks are smooth and safe. For kilometres, we weave our way downhill towards Burra, ecstatically. All memory of the difficult morning erased.

We stay at the Burra Hotel for the evening. A wood fire burning. Barossa reds on the wine list. Inadvertently we choose a Nepenthe shiraz and find that it’s named after Homer in the Odyssey, described therein as an Egyptian herbal drink so powerful it eases grief and banishes sorrow from the mind.

Burra to Melrose
267 km 4 days + rest day in Melrose

After a rest day, our odyssey resumes. Into tougher country today. The weather still unsettled, a sense of foreboding in the air.

Up early and riding the highway out of town towards the abandoned stone house made famous on Midnight Oil’s Diesel and Dust album cover. The country all around, barren. The side winds strong enough to sweep you into the path of an oncoming truck. A collective sigh of relief when we leave the bitumen.

A lovely ride on an old Cobb & Co coach road to the tussock grasslands of Mokota Conservation Park, home to the rare, white-spotted, skipper butterfly. A sustaining double-shot espresso, two slices of fruit cake and we’re off again. The sky hard to read. Sun a possibility but a storm just as likely.

Turning into Dust Hole Creek Road and a headwind, we encounter rain, then hail, then more rain. The drought breaking. Sheets of water streaming off the compacted hills and on to the track. The track becomes a quagmire; red, viscous mud jamming up our bicycles and weighing them down. Pushing their heaviness up impossibly slippery slopes. Crossing creeks that were dry this morning but are now knee-deep with swift-flowing, mud-red water. Bicycles virtually unrideable. Gears straining, Michael’s brakes failing. Our clothes and our bodies caked in mud. Our shoes sodden. The only way to safety is to keep riding. The clouds ominous. The landscape bleak. The promised serenity of the saltbush, bluebush and mallee country, a lie.

The conditions and the effort involved take their toll. Some riders suffer mild hyperthermia. After 50 kilometres, at the point where the track meets a road, the day is abandoned. Volunteers give up their jackets to shivering cyclists, food and blankets and a gas heater appear, and then buses, to ferry us to Hallet. Although we miss visiting the birthplace of Sir Hubert Wilkins, adventurer and arctic explorer, an Odysseus of his time, our own day has been, if not heroic, certainly an arduous, epic adventure.

More big rains forecast. The track beyond Hallet, a slough of mud. The fatigue from yesterday’s ride is palpable. Bodies and machines battered and worn down. The day’s ride is cancelled and by 10:00 am Bike SA has organised transport to Spalding where we can wash, dry, repair and regroup. By late afternoon, the sun is shining and equanimity is restored.

After just two days of rain, the landscape is a fuzz of green. The barrenness softened. Songbirds out. The transformation, miraculous.

Along the Bundaleer channels, contouring the Never Never Range and into Bundaleer Forest with its incongruous plantings of ash, elms and sycamore trees, all pale green and golden. A deciduous blur amongst the ghost gums.

All afternoon riding towards Laura, once home to the Australian poet CJ Dennis of ‘The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke’ fame. As the day tired so too did Michael’s achilles tendon. So much so that he ‘limped’ into town, in need of treatment and a day off the bike.

A day of ups and downs. Another 1,000 metres of elevation. The morning sun not reaching us but the promise of it later in the day, once we clear the shadows. Some rough single track riding and then negotiating the backroads through the Wirrabara Forest and Peach Tree Hill. Historic ruins, hills and trees. Somewhere in the Wirrabara Forest is a gnarled 400-year-old red gum, over 11 metres in circumference, known as the King Tree. Views across to the Remarkables and the glint of Spencer Gulf in the far distance.

Melrose to Blinman
370 km 5 days – no rest day

Stargazing at Melrose, under the guidance of star-dazed Gerry. Through his telescope, we see the distinctive constellation of Scorpius, the moons of Jupiter, the star clusters of the Milky Way. Another evening; the craters, rills and mountains of the Moon.

Melrose is a mountain biking mecca and some Mawson riders spend their rest day testing themselves on its challenging trails. Others, like us, explore the backstreets, cafes and bars of the town.

Up in the dark. The cold, clear sky foreshadowing a fine day. A pandemonium of bright green parrots. Out through town and across the Goyder Line, an imaginary boundary that marks where productive cropping land ends and marginal land starts. North of the line has seen periods of development in exceptional seasons but, invariably, adverse conditions prevail and towns and farms are abandoned; buildings left to crumble, machinery left to rust, graves left untended. A broken country, melancholy with ghosts.

The Goyder Line also marks a distinct change in vegetation; mallee scrub to the south, saltbush to the north. Hills breaking up the flat horizon. The Odyssey is now a throng, swollen by the fifty riders who joined us at Melrose. No rains have fallen in these parts. Horses graze in bare, stony paddocks. The sheep are half-starved and there is the whiff of death and decay on the wind. God-forsaken backroads; the strange town of Wilmington with its Billiard Hall, Sansouci Puppet Museum and Toy Museum.

Up and over Richman Gap and a long, rocky downhill run into the historic railway town of Quorn. The South Flinders Ranges deep blue and purple as their features become more distinct. Quorn was once the junction for Australia’s east-west and north-south railways. During World War Two the Quorn Country Women’s Association reputedly provided over one million meals to servicemen and women passing through on crowded trains.

An owl flying low over our campsite at dawn. A long day ahead with 112 kilometres to ride between Quorn and Hawker. Out on the Yarrah Vale Road, in and out of dry creek beds and through the spectacular Yarrah Vale Gorge. The cycling, a joy. A stop to look out over the country and pay our respects at Proby’s Grave. Hugh Proby, the son of a Scottish nobleman, took up the Kanyaka Run in 1851, aged just 23. A year later, he drowned in the flooded Willochra Creek searching for lost cattle in a storm

Somewhere before Simmonston, a town abandoned in the 1880s before it was ever completed, we catch the strains of an operatic aria drifting across the plains. We cycle on, dismissing what we hear as illusory. The isolation playing tricks on our senses. Rounding a bend we are all at once immersed in a grand soundscape. A tenor singing passionately, just for us. People are moved to tears by the beauty of the moment. Despite the many kilometres left to ride, we find it hard to leave. The music a siren, compelling us to stay. Transfixed, we become one with the vast, shimmering plains and the distant blue ranges.

Eventually, we coax ourselves away and cycle on, across the Willochra Plain. Wedge-tailed eagles out on the hunt, the folds of the Flinders Ranges deepening in colour and complexity. Riding the lonely and windswept road to Crannock. Undulating dirt roads, dust rolling across the land, Hawker within our sights after the long day’s ride.

From Hawker, we head into wilder country. Red rock escarpments, hidden gorges, rock-strewn plains, native Callitris pine and eucalyptus. A kangaroo bounding across the track. Sheep and goats on the move. Out on to the bitumen for a short stint, we find it strewn with roadkill kangaroos and emus. The drought forces these wild animals into settled places to forage for food and they become victims of the heavy vehicles that hurtle down the highway in the dark. 

The beautiful Elder Range, orange and red and mauve in the soft late morning light. In and out of wide, dry creek bed lined with majestic old river red gums that hold centuries of stories in their great gnarled trunks. The Moralana Scenic Drive, as picturesque as promised but badly corrugated and bone-jarring for most of its 28 kilometres.  

210 kilometres of off-road and often rough riding in two days has us arriving at Rawnsley Park almost spent. The sun low in the sky, Rawnsley Bluff glowing vivid red and orange, the trunks of gums gleaming like silver.

Big mobs of kangaroos, here for the grass. Flocks of bright green parrots and rose-pink corellas. Spinifex country; the tough, spiky, tussock grass providing a refuge for near-mythical birds, mammals and reptiles. An exhilarating ride on a well-graded track between the southwestern ramparts of Wilpena Pound and the dramatic Elder Range. The sun shining in a cloudless blue sky.

Into Wilpena Pound with enough time to participate in an afternoon-long, skills workshop run by Lindsey, the Odyssey’s travelling bicycle mechanic. With just one day left to ride, we wonder about the wisdom of spending our free time riding rather than resting but tomorrow’s terrain is the most technically challenging of the Mawson Trail and we’re keen to be up for it.

The last day, riding into beauty. The panorama is dazzling. The warm wind, infused with fragrant resin. A distant dust storm turns the horizon a hazy pink. Winding through Callitris pine forests, navigating creek crossings with greater grace thanks to Lindsey’s lessons. We visualise our approaches and enjoy the thrill of dropping into and climbing safely out of steep, rocky traverses.

The Heysen Range on one side and the ABC Range on the other, we ride out along the Wilcolo Track and on through the beautiful Bunyeroo Valley. The view from the lookout is breathtaking. Such an ancient, alluring landscape, ‘the bones of the earth laid bare’ as the artist Hans Heysen observed. Crossing the Trezona Range and a last, relentless uphill grind on the bitumen to Blinman, the northernmost point of the Mawson Trail. A few houses, the remnants of an old mine, a pub. It’s here we celebrate with a cold ale, elated and exhausted by the extraordinary, mythical outback odyssey that is the Mawson Trail.

You can also read about our cycling adventures on the Munda Biddi Trail (WA), the Loire à Vélo (France) and the Great Victorian Bike Ride.